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Iowa, the Beautiful Land |
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The Rolfe Arrow — June 3, 1976 June is the time of year when Iowa indeed does fulfill the translation of "beautiful land." The beauty of the fields, set off by the good crop husbandry and the vigor of our crops, flowers, and trees makes the picture. The young corn and bean plants are full of greenness without the defects of damage from insects, wind, and hail, or shortages of moisture and nutrients, all of which may come later. While crops usually look good this time of year, and our product techniques certainly are much above those of 25-40 years ago, nothing quite captures the fancy of an old corn grower as that of a checked corn field. Checked corn, for those unfamiliar, was a field in which the corn was planted in three or four seed hills, spaced lengthwise 40 inches as well as in the 40-inch row width. This made rows crosswise the field as well as lengthwise, thus cross cultivation and fewer weeds in the rows were possible. The spacing lengthwise was maintained by a wire which was stretched lengthwise of the field and had joints, or "buttons" every 40 inches to trip the planter mechanism as the planter moved from one end of the field to the other. As the planter was tripped three kernels were dropped into the soil. (38 or 36 inch spaced planter wire could also be used.) Horse and wire planting began to fade away about 25-40 years ago and were almost universally done away with when tractors and herbicides came into general use. Up until about two years ago there was a farmer living five miles east of Armstrong who still planted in the cross check pattern. It was a site to be admired. The old horse planters were two-row, and of course didn’t have fertilizer, insecticide, or any type of low-till device. The two-row planter probably weighed about 300 pounds total, just about what a full load of seed, fertilizer, and herbicide weigh per row now. But the old planters weren’t all bad. One brand of planter was the Hayes. It had a couple of features that the JD salesmen are now exclaiming as if they were tomorrow’s discoveries, calling them "Maxi-merge." The Hayes’ press wheels were about 32 inches in diameter, two to a row and tilted about 20 degrees from the vertical, coming almost together over the row and just behind the planter shoe. The wheels almost straddled the shoe or boot, thus giving a very good control of planting depth and packing the soil around the seed with a pressure in from each side as well as down, just as you might do by hand in a garden. But, alas, in our seeming need to be big, the two rows and horses have given away to power checking, drilling, 12 & 16 row planters, and up to nine MPH field speeds. There is still some pride in straightness of rows, but not with the fervor of old. Some of the old two-row horse planters even had a foot trip device by which the field end rows could be planted to drop the hills in line with the long rows of the field — so one could cultivate from fence to fence both ways.
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