Yep, another one: THE CORN CROP By Wilton Strickland
Preparing the soil for corn was done much the same way as for cotton. The same planter was used with a different seed disk installed to space plants farther apart. The crop also required periodic plowing and chopping with hand-held hoes to keep fields cleared of weeds and grass. At least once during the growing season we gave the corn plants additional fertilizer by dropping a small hand full of sodium nitrate ("soda") near each plant. As a boy of 9, 10, 11, I used a smaller bucket than my older, bigger brothers to carry the "soda" along in my left hand as I applied it near the plants with my right hand. My bucket was usually a gallon paint can with a rag wrapped around the handle to ease the pain of the handle cutting into my hand. We usually harvested the dried corn in October or November by hand one ear at a time. Two mules pulled a wagon through the field straddling a row of corn. Two to four men or boys would walk along between the rows of corn near the wagon and pull each ear of corn from its stalk and throw it into the wagon. We were seldom lucky enough to have gloves to protect our hands from the cutting leaves and shucks. When the wagon was full, we would take the corn to the crib - a storage building usually adjoining the stables and hog pen where the corn was often used to feed the animals. Like most activities on our farm, the unloading was also done by hand. The corn crib usually included a mechanical, hand-cranked corn sheller mounted on the side of a wooden box on legs that raised it to a comfortable standing height. The shelling mechanism was a disc rotated by the hand crank. On the inner face of the disc were lots of little spikes or nipple-like protrusions that would grip and loosen the kernels of corn as the ear was deposited into a chute at the top. One side of the chute was mounted on adjustable springs that allowed the chute diameter to expand and contract to fit the size of the ear of corn and keep pressure on the kernels. The rotating disc would give the ear of corn a spinning motion and pull it farther down into the chute causing the kernels to separate from the cob and fall into a box beneath the sheller. The diameter of the chute decreased toward the bottom to ensure that all of the kernels were removed. The cobs would continue on through the chute and be discharged out one side of the unit as rotation of the disc continued. Another ear of corn could be inserted at the top of the chute before the ear ahead of it had finished to provide more efficient use of the cranking motion.
Wilton
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