When Horses Pulled the Plow: Life of a Wisconsin Farm Boy, 1910–1929

3. Crops

47 Crops Most of our cropland was in field corn (maize); the grains, oats and barley; and hay. The ear corn was used to feed the hogs; some went to the horses along with oats; and some was mixed with oats to be ground for feeding the cattle and hogs. A small part of the crop was shelled for the chickens. A few choice ears were saved as seed for the next year’s planting. The leaves and stalks from the bundles of corn cut with the corn binder, after the ears were husked, made fodder for the cattle in winter when they were not in the barn. After we had a silo, a few acres were used for ensilage. Cut when the stalks were still green but the ears were maturing, the corn was taken to the silo where the ensilage cutter cut the stalks and ears into short pieces and blew them up a pipe and into the silo. Sometimes my father planted sorghum cane, along with the corn, for silage. After the corn was up, pumpkins were usually planted in a small section of one field closest to the buildings. A few of the ripe pumpkins found their way into my mother’s pumpkin pie. When I was old enough, a few became Halloween jack-o-lanterns. But most were loaded onto a wagon, taken to the cow pasture, and broken up for the cows to eat. 3 48 Each fall, we selected ears of corn to be used as seed for the next year’s crop. When old enough, I liked to take a big bag, walk along the rows of ripe corn, and pick the ears to be saved—good shape, good size, on a sturdy stalk. The seed corn was stored in specially made bins in the cellar. The oats were mainly to feed the horses, but some was ground for cattle and hogs, some went to the sheep at lambing time, and some to the chickens. It was not unusual to broadcast turnip seeds in a small part of the oat field, after the oats were planted. After the oats were harvested and removed, the field might be used by sheep, who liked the turnips. Barley is a much heavier grain than oats. It was never fed unground to the hogs or cattle. On rare occasions, some of the barley was sold for brewing beer. In addition to the oats and barley, a few acres of spring wheat were sometimes planted and, less often, a smaller acreage of winter rye. The wheat was used for flour and livestock feed, the growing rye field for hog pasture in the summer. Every year, a few acres of Evergreen sweet corn, a white-eared corn, were grown. We ate some of the corn, freshly picked and tender. But most was cut when the stalks were still green, loaded on the wagon, and taken to pastures when they were dry from heat and limited rain. The cows quickly ate all of the corn. Most of the hay was a combination of alsike clover and timothy; part was only timothy. Some years, mammoth clover was grown; its plants were much larger than those of alsike clover. Horses were fed only timothy hay. The rest was for the cattle and sheep. If there was more hay than the barn could hold, it was put into long, high stacks. Crops 49 When the cattle needed hay, a hay knife would be used to cut across the stack to make the hay easier to pitch onto the wagon. Most fields had a regular rotation of corn, grain, and hay. A year or two of hay was followed by a year of corn, then a year of grain. Then the rotation was repeated. Five acres of tobacco were planted each year, usually in one of the two fields closest to the farm buildings. The fields were level and the soil well suited for tobacco. Once in a while, parts of two other fields were used. The tobacco fields always received more barnyard manure than the other fields. The check for bundled tobacco delivered at the warehouse was the largest amount of money received at one time during the year. Tobacco was sold by the pound, and the price was set before the crop was delivered. The buyer came to the farm after Crops My father loading hay with a hay...