Picking Corn
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Diagram of a peg for corn picking. |
After a frost in the fall, corn was ripe and dry enough for
picking. Farmers picked corn by hand, using a curved husking
knife or a peg strapped to the palm of a heavy glove. The person
walked down each row, picking corn from stalks on the right
and left, twisting each ear from the stalk and tossing it into
a wagon pulled by horses. Stalk after stalk, row after row.
The picker threw the corn against a board -- called a "bang
board" -- you would "bang" the ears into the board and they would fall into the wagon. It was hard,
tiring work.
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A farmer picks corn next
to a wagon with a "bang board." |
"You
had a peg on your hand, and you'd open the shucks
and pull the ear out and throw it in the wagon. The team
[of horses] learned to walk slow. And you'd just go
down through the field picking corn." -- Kenneth
Jackson
When the wagon was full, the farmer drove the horses to the
corncrib
where the corn was scooped from the wagon into a corn crib
-- a building of narrow boards about an inch apart. The space
between the boards allowed air to circulate and dried the
corn. After
the corn had dried in the crib, farmers hired corn shellers.
At first, shelling corn was done by a hand-turned machine.
Later a corn sheller used a power machine with sharp wheels
to separate the kernels from the cob. Shelled corn was sold
as a cash crop or used for animal feed. Leftover corn cobs
were stored in
a cob house to be burned in the kitchen stove for heat and
cooking fuel.
Written by Claudia Reinhardt.
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Corn shellers of the 1920s
were giant machines. Today combines usually shell the
corn as it is harvested. |
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