Carpenter-Turned-Manufacturer Refines Early Corn Planter

By Sam Moore
Published on June 10, 2014
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The Brown factory complex in Galesburg, Ill., in 1882.
The Brown factory complex in Galesburg, Ill., in 1882.
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While not a Brown planter, this similar machine has the small, forward seat for the attendant and a hand lever that actuates the dropping mechanism on the right-hand seed box. The lever could be placed on either side and footrests for the attendant can be seen on each side.
While not a Brown planter, this similar machine has the small, forward seat for the attendant and a hand lever that actuates the dropping mechanism on the right-hand seed box. The lever could be placed on either side and footrests for the attendant can be seen on each side.
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The front cover of an 1882 Geo. W. Brown & Co. sales folder.
The front cover of an 1882 Geo. W. Brown & Co. sales folder.
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From an 1889 ad in The Farm Implement News: Brown’s No. 1 planter equipped with a check-row attachment.
From an 1889 ad in The Farm Implement News: Brown’s No. 1 planter equipped with a check-row attachment.
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Brown’s Standard No. 1 planter in operation showing the boy riding in front and the pre-marked rows over which the machine is being driven at right angles.
Brown’s Standard No. 1 planter in operation showing the boy riding in front and the pre-marked rows over which the machine is being driven at right angles.

By now most of this fall’s corn crop, estimated to be 90-plus million acres, should be in the ground. Much of it was probably planted with 12- to 36-row planters guided unerringly by GPS signals from orbiting satellites.

Two hundred years ago, corn was planted by hand, one hill at a time, a slow and laborious process that necessarily limited the acreage that could be sown. Of course inventors (as well as dreamers) were busy, with many, many patents for “seeders and planters” issued from 1799 to the mid-1850s, although none of those proved successful.

What Corn Belt farmers needed was a planter that would place three or four seeds in hills equidistant from each other in all directions, forming a “check” pattern with each hill at exact intersections of imaginary lines like those on a checkerboard. Such a pattern allowed corn to be cultivated in both directions, making weed control much easier.

However, help was on the way in the form of George W. Brown, an experienced carpenter who had also spent time as a farmer, as most men did in those days.

West to Illinois

George Washington Brown was born Oct. 29, 1815, near Clifton Park in Saratoga County in eastern New York. George’s father, Valentine, was a farmer. He died when his son was 2 or 3. After spending his early years on the farm, at age 14 the boy went to live with an older brother who was a carpenter. There George learned carpentry and joinery and then worked on both the Erie Canal and the railroad between Albany and Schenectady.

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