I enjoyed Sam Moore’s column on corn cribs in the October 2014 issue of Farm Collector. This crib, which was on the farm where I was raised south of Columbia, Missouri, was built before 1900. It is slatted on the inside with oak 1-by-4s and has 1-by-12-inch vertical oak siding with 1/2-inch by 3-inch oak strips on the outside. At one end of the crib is a narrow hallway about 4 feet long with a door that opens into what used to be a hog shed. On the other side of the hall is a 5-by-5-foot bin that held protein supplement.
The corn was carried out to the sows in a large wicker bushel basket and the supplement was scooped into a 40-pound Co-op grease bucket and carried out. Pappy kept 12 to 15 sows and fed them that way from when I can first remember up until the early 1960s.
This photo was marked “1950” on the back. My pappy, William Easley, and my grandpap, Edward Easley Sr., are in the wagon, and “Mr. and Mrs. Brown” are in front. I have no idea who the Browns were or why they were in the picture. Grandpap was close to 90 when this photo was taken but whenever Pappy pulled up by the crib to scoop off a load of corn, Grandpap would climb into the wagon and toss one or two ears at a time into the crib. It probably didn’t amount to more than two or three scoops full per load, but he always did what he could to help.
The old crib was filled with corn for the last time in 1964. It’s still standing but the only things that have been stored in it for years are a few rolls of barbed wire and some square bales of hay for my granddaughter’s horses.
Alan Easley, 8300 E. Turner Farm Rd., Columbia, MO 65201