Near Intersection of I-35 & I-90 Southern Mn. | Yes, the stakes are for "checking" corn with wire on a Deere planter. The wire had buttons on it that went through a mechanism on the planter to cause the seed to drop. The seed was planted in hills which were a group of plants. The seed plate was turned by a gearbox that ran off the ground via a chain. The planter boot had a trap door in it that was closed to collect the seeds, the seeds accumulated until the wire button caused the door to open at which time all the seeds dropped together. The seed transmission had settings on it to correspond to 2,3 or 4 seeds per drop.
At the end, the operator would have to stop and move the stake over for the next return pass. The spring and drum was to allow a certain amount of tension to be put on the wire. If this process was done properly the hills of corn would align crosswise. So the field appeared to have rows going both directions. This allowed for cross cultivation for weed control.
The process was time consuming as the wire had to be strung out for the first pass, the operator needed to stop on each end and then the wire needed to be rewound on a spool when the field was finished.
I barely remember this equipment on Dad's 490 Deere planter. The next advancement was called power check. With this scheme, the wire was no longer used but a mechanism run off of the ground drive still dropped the seed in hills. These hills were a constant distance apart but wouldn't line up crosswise so cross cultivation was not possible.
Later yet, the idea of hills was abandoned and the corn was just drilled in as is done today.
With the checking scheme, it was common here to cultivate "with the rows" the first time, then across the rows the second time and finally with the rows again the third time. I never did it but I understand that it took a real man to cultivate crosswise since you were fighting the furrows created by the first pass. Later the third pass was again tough because you were fighting the furrows from the second pass. This was of course without the aid of power steering.
Edited by tedbear 3/13/2016 09:03
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Garage cleaning
