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| Yesterday morning I posted a link to some albums of old black and white photos of farms in Maryland. Many photos (like the 2 attached below) included corn shocks.
The caption for the second photo reads:
"Corn that was shocked by hand. A good worker can cut an acre of corn by hand after it dries he can husk 3/4 of an acre working rapidly to gather ears, cut and haul to corn crib using wagon and two horses he can pick up about 30 barrels per day. This is about the yield to 3 acres. The corn machine can do all of this and complete 12 acres per day."
I am curious about how long this practice continued in various parts of the US and why it continued after the general availability of pickers/combines.
Joel
WIU Agriculture
Edited by jbgruver 1/2/2014 09:47
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Columbia Basin, Ephrata, WA | Probably has to do with the same reasons some guys still run a 7720 or 1460, no cart, and two ton trucks today even though there are much more labor efficient machines available.
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| general resistance to new technology and spending money were certainly reasons why farmers continued to shock corn (and lots of other practices).. I guess that I am looking for more detail about how shocked corn was used... was shocked corn normally husked in the field? Brought back to the barn and used as bedding and feed? fed in the field?
Joel
WIU Agriculture
Edited by jbgruver 1/2/2014 10:18
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Huntley Montana | "poor folks have poor ways". At 1 time there was people that farmed that never had much money, they had their labor & horses to do the work. Most Farmers today have some money, some more than others. How long before hybred corn became the norm? Are you going to also ask why there are some farmers without GPS? We know it can make us money, but for some it will never happen. I gross more per day than Grandfather did in a good year. The amount of eqptment I have sitting around he would think I should be farming the whole state with. There were no "town jobs" in his day, because it took all day just to get the work done, & town was 2-4 hours away. Some parts of the world today would think the farmer above had it made as "he had horses to do the work". |
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just a tish NE of central ND | With homes full of kids (field workers)and limited acres, the work got done by hand with out trying to pay for pickers and combines. They earned their keep.Also, changes came slowly. No different than today.
Edited by School Of Hard Knock 1/2/2014 10:18
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NEMO | I don't remember shocking corn, but remember my Grandpa telling me they left the shocks in the field and would haul in enough to feed every day. He said they shucked the ears off and fed them to the hogs and fed the stalks to the cows. |
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Huntley Montana | jbgruver - 1/2/2014 10:11 general resistance to new technology and spending money were certainly reasons why farmers continued to shock corn (and lots of other practices).. I guess that I am looking for more detail about how shocked corn was used... was shocked corn normally husked in the field? Brought back to barn and used as bedding and feed? fed in the field? Joel WIU Agriculture I'm sure they wasted very little.. Everything had a use. Animals needed bedding/ feed, houses needed heat. No cribs for the corn, the bunches would "store" better than the other options. Look to other parts of the world that don't have the resources that we have. still a lot of that kind of ag going on. |
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NW Washington | I suspect that grain moisture had a lot to do with how things were done. No dryers in those days and there are limits on storing ear corn too. And in those days every farm had cows, pigs and chickens to feed and care for so the stalks were used too. Corn binders existed before tractors were common and pickers came onto the scene later. Also, back in those days corn was not as an important crop as it is today. Every farm had corn, wheat, oats, hay and pasture and probably no soy beans. Soy beans came on the scene later in the 30's.
Edited by JohnW 1/2/2014 12:53
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ecpa | I shocked corn as a kid. Dad's farm was small but he was robust with 13 kids. Shocking served many purposes, dried the corn down nicely, as stated stalks went to the steers instead of hay, ear corn went to the pigs and some was later sold or ground for feed. Those shocks also served for insulation around the old animal shelters. Now if you want really Good Pork do it that way. |
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| I don't believe it was as common in this part of the country as simply picking the ear corn in the field. But what those are probably shocked for is to be taken to the barnyard after curing and run through a husker-shredder. If you haven't seen one, they have a husking bed like a corn picker that would send the ears to a truck/wagon, and then chop the stalk and fodder to be stored separately. My guess is that they came about because of a much wider harvest window than making corn silage, not to mention a lot less tonnage to move in the days when most of that stuff happened with horses and steel wheels.
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| I know a farmer in Central Texas that shocked corn into the '60s or '70s. He would put the grain through the chickens and the stalks through the cows. They only had 4 kids. |
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Ohio | Before hybrids and N corn often yielded 20-30 bushels per acre. Hard to pay for any machinery with those yields. |
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Hale Center, Texas | My observations over almost 60 years is that, in times past, some are more resistant to change than others. I recall in the late 1970s seeing my first cotton module builder. The great debate ensued for a few short years concerning cotton trailers vs. module builders. During that time a man in his 80s told me that it reminded him of his youth when there was a great debate between rubber tractor tires and lugs. |
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Rolla, ND | Didn't corn farmers use a binder to cut and make bundles? Seems to me every wheat farmer wanted a binder. |
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Woodbury county | I can remember my Grandpa grinding corn shocks with a Letz burr mill....I was very young. The Letz burr mill had a conveyer where the stalks were laid on the conveyer by hand and went into the burr mill....everything was ground and fed. |
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Schlegel Farms, Hagerstown Indiana | Big Ben - 1/2/2014 09:52
Probably has to do with the same reasons some guys still run a 7720 or 1460, no cart, and two ton trucks today even though there are much more labor efficient machines available.
OUCH! |
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Central Wisconsin | Amish still do it around here. |
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Kingdom of Callaway - Fulton, Mo 65251 | My grandfather shocked corn up into the 60's. It was a timing thing for him. He could cut a field with a corn binder and then he and his sons would shock it all. They could feed it as needed, and leave it in the field to store it. They didn't have a very big crib. He told me he used to get wheat planted in a timely manner when they shocked the corn a little green in rows and planted around the shocks. My dad/uncle didn't like those fields as they had to carry the bundles further to bunch them up more!
My dad and I planted a 3 acre field of corn in the 80's and shocked it by hand because I made the mistake at the breakfast table of saying I had never done it. That first night I walked by the combine in the barn and wanted to kiss it. |
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Kingdom of Callaway - Fulton, Mo 65251 | Joel - do you know Sandy Rikkoon? I had him for a ag history class at MU years ago. One of the best classes I ever had. |
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Central In | My dad bought a New Idea 2 row pulled corn picker in 1940. He said that the 1939 corn crop was a 100 ba if there ever had been one. It nearly pains to imagine husking and shoveling all that corn. |
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CENTRAL ILLINIOS | Not enough crib space. Shocks = free storage |
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| I am not quite as old as you but I remember when module builders were the NEW tech.
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swohio | I don't remember shocks ( didn't grow up on a farm ), but do remember a lot of corn picked here after combines had been out a good while. I'm one that still uses a 1460, have a grain cart, a semi, and seem to get along fine. It would be nice if money grew on tree's or if someone just handed me a bunch, then maybe I could upgrade my trusty 1460. Un till that happens, I guess I'm a shocker! |
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Clearville, Pa. | I am going to really seem like a smart you no what, but a lot of you need to get out of the Midwest and the flat ground you farm and take a road trip east into the mountains of Pa. There is a whole other world of agriculture out there that none of you will understand until you do. Your challenge is getting the water off the fields and dry enough to farm and ours is conserving enough water to grow the crop and from rolling off the side of the hills with the tractors. |
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West Ky | I still see it around here. Keeps for a long time out in the field. |
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Alabama, Land of the Absurd. | Maybe rats (and other rodents) didn't eat the corn as bad standing in shocks as they would in a crib and , of course, the whole plant was used by shocking. Don't really know, way before my time. Thank goodness. |
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Clearville, Pa. | Go on T.A. Doblers web site,they have corn hybrids that are binder friendly. Most Amish farms are still 70 to 80 acres. I just took a New Holland 718 forage harvester to Lancaster County,Pa and it was going to get a table put on it like the old silo fillers. They had new single trees and double trees there for the horses. I think there is a company there that still builds a corn binder and I no if any of you had one setting in the corner of the shed it would still have value to them. |
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frederick, MD | My grandad said he shocked wheat as a child. They would cut and shock the wheat with a binder when it was ready then put it in those piles to dry while they waited for the thrashing machine to come. He said you stacked it a certain way to shed water if it rained. But if a big rain or several days of rain came you would have to go tear the shocks down to dry then put them back later in the day. This was normally in July when it was 100 degrees and he said every snake found its home under those wheat shocks. Then when the thrashing machine came you hauled it to the bank barn and thrashed it and blew the straw in the barn yard.
I once saw and Amish family with a horse pulled corn binder harvesting corn for silage. One row I guess, but the most surprising thing to me way how much they where getting done. The binder moved at a brisk pace then it was stacked on a wagon. Other horse pulled wagons where racing across the field taking a load in or bringing back empty wagons. |
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Aberdeen MS | Smiling all the way to the bank as well!!!! |
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Columbia Basin, Ephrata, WA | Mark (EC,IN ) - 1/2/2014 09:27
Big Ben - 1/2/2014 09:52
Probably has to do with the same reasons some guys still run a 7720 or 1460, no cart, and two ton trucks today even though there are much more labor efficient machines available.
OUCH!
That statement wasn't meant to be some kind of burn. Just fact, its all the same factors, be it affordability, labor availability, other economics, or just inertia, there are many reasons that new things are or are not immediately widely adopted.
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western NY | I believe that around here ( western NY) it hung on because corn varieties up into the late 50's didn't ripen and dry down fast enough to pick for the crib. Our neighbor talked about shocking and shredding corn in the early 50's. Said it was a cold ass job since it was done in the winter. Ears went into the crib and stalks into a stack for feed. I have read old literature that says corn shreaded stalks have the same feed value as timothy hay. My grandpa talked about hand husking out of shocks in the winter but I don't remember him saying what they did with the stalks, we even have some pictures of them doing that. He also talked about having a shreader come and they blew the stalks into the mow. He also said the rats loved living under the shocks.
Have a lot of pictures of wheat and oats being "set up" as they used to call it. Also have one of the stack of sheeves next to the barn floor door waiting for the thresher. They also used to mow away grain in bundles here and thresh durring the late summer or even in the winter.
Dry edible beans, navy's and kidneys were mostly mowed away like hay and threshed in winter. This was common up into the 60's even though most farmers had combines since the late 40's. Was told that the first few feet of mowed beans came out of the barn pretty good after that it was like pitching dirt all the way to the floor and the last couple feet had to be shoveled into the bean machine. And with all that dirt everything around the farm turned black from the pod stacker. |
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| many farmers have more time than money. then and now. |
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just a tish NE of central ND | I also remember shocks of oats(not corn or wheat though)My family and dad/ mom bindered green oats and I remember running around the field with mom in the fairly 60's shocking up oats bundles dad made with a power binder and a M tractor. We hauled the bundles home and ran them through a 14 inch JD hammer mill with a live feeder that was run with a flat belt The JD hammer mill had a blower and we blew the oats up into the haymow of the barn to feed the cattle in the barn. Filled every crack and nook / cranny with ground up oats dust in the whole haymow.
Man, the Haybuster and a hay baler seem like a good tools...... |
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39.48, -82.98 | I asked my Dad the same thing years ago and he said what others here say: they fed the fodder. Let the corn dry in the shock, tore the shock apart to husk the ears, rebuilt the shock to keep it off the ground, went back later with a sled to bring the shock to the cows, pitched the manure into a spreader by hand, hauled it back to the field. Wow, what a lot of work! |
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| I had no idea that this thread would result in > 30 responses and > 11k views in < 24 hours.
NAT provides unprecedented access to the collective wisdom of American agriculture!
thanks again!
Joel
WIU Agriculture |
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S.E. Iowa | Joel I just bought 10 years of farm income record books from the 1947-1957 at an auction. They list all the income and expenses for the year. Interesting to be able to recreate farm life from a economic view. The main thing that I found was that little or none of a farm raised grain and hay was ever sold. All the income to the farm came from livestock. Fat cows and pigs , eggs milk were where the income was derived. The only mention of grain sales was soy beans at $2.60 a bushel. Oh and he bought feeder calves for 26.60 a hundred weight. If all your crops are consumed on your 120 acre farm you don't need all the modern equipment of the time to get the same income. |
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| With a big farm being 80 acres and 40 fairly common, the time required to shock and process by hand wasn't unreasonable for Pa and a couple kids. With the combine costing several years gross income and being able to do the 40 or 80 in a week or less the cash cost and loss of stover for critters didn't pay out in greater farm profit. A huge cost for saving labor expenditure for muscles that would have otherwise been loafing at the same cost in groceries, firewood, and water.
The ultimate outcome was the consolidation of farms and the drastic reduction in the portion of the US populating living on and farming which increased the available workforce for industries at the cost of having to live in crowded cities. It took larger farms than the classic individual farms to afford the combines and to use the investment effectively.
And then the use of combines required new storage facilities, once past the corn picker, grain bins were needed for on farm storage instead of corn cribs or the simpler corn shocks. All took capital not readily available on the individual 40 or 80 acre farm.
Gerald J. |
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deep SW On. | JB according to my late father corn was shocked in the 50's here even though corn pickers where available---all farms had cattle-dairy-hogs but no money , they used a cream separator for cows(maybe4-7??) sold the cream for $5 week and fed skimmed milk too pigs , NI corn pickers where pulled with a red bellied ford 8n or9n and corn harvest didn't start until Nov. and snow-ice-rain-you get the picture...Dad said shocking corn was pretty futile as the husked-shucked it in the field and then hauled stocks up for cows which ate a few ears and then pitched rest into the barnyard where after oats where off you used a corn elevator with little putt-putt motor too fork manure inot elevator and onto 3 ton truck--then truck was stuck in barnyard-dump-start over and the rest of the time was working on processing tomato's for Heinz as everybody had some...Dad could not even get rid of horses until his Dad passed in '58 ....then they got "running water and indoor plumbing" electric came about '50 ....Dad said if it was too easy the older farmers just didn't want it |
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Why did corn shocking continue after the general availability of pickers/combines?
