With the wheat harvest largely in hand, it was time for the settler to turn his full attention to his corn crop. Usually one of the first and most important crops planted by pioneer farmers when they had cleared enough trees from their land to let in some daylight, corn was not planted in rows as it is today. The innumerable stumps from felled trees and the underlying tangle of roots which would take years to deteriorate made that impossible.
Instead, corn was planted in hills between the stumps, as space allowed. Typically, numerous seeds were planted in these mounds wherever enough topsoil could be raked or shoveled together to create a growing environment. At the end of the season, the farmer moved from one corn hill to the next to collect the rewards of his labor.
Harvest
The corn stalks were cut off at ground level using a machete-like corn-cutting knife. Such knives were often made from the worn-out blades of scythes or other tools which were taken to the local blacksmith for reshaping. Some farmers, however, utilized an iron cutter that was strapped to the calf of the leg with leather thongs. This device had a sharp blade sticking out at a right angle to the ankle and enabled him to cut the corn by kicking through the stalk near ground level.
Cut stalks were then gathered by the armload, taken to a cleared area of the field and leaned against each other so that they stood in a teepee-like configuration. Because they could not stand that way for long in the face of wind and the elements, they had to be tied while they dried out for several weeks. To do this the settler used a wooden device called a shock binder. The binder was a hefty spindle of wood about three feet in length, tapering to a point on one end. To the other end was affixed a handle that allowed the spindle to be cranked in a circular motion. Attached to the spindle near the handle was a length of rope that would be thrown around the bundle of stalks.
To form a shock, the user thrust the spindle through the teepee-like structure, threw the rope around the stalks, then cranked the binder around and around to pull the shock tightly together. Once that was done the farmer was able to tie the completed shock with twine before moving on to the next one. Some shock binders incorporated a second apparatus in the form of a curved length of wood through which the rope passed. Positioned on the opposite side of the shock from where the handle was, the curved piece helped to put uniform pressure on the bundle of stalks and formed them into a more uniform structure that would stand longer.
After drying in the field for several weeks or months during the late fall, the corn shocks had to be brought into the barn to finish drying out and be processed for future use. Getting the shocks to the barn could be done in a couple of ways. The shocks could be loaded onto a shock wagon of the same type described in the previous chapters pertaining to wheat shocks. The shocks could be piled high on the bed of the wagon and then weighted with a wooden beam to compress the load and prevent it from falling off.
The other method was to use a two-man shock carrier. This apparatus consisted of a rectangular wooden framework about 6 feet long and 2 feet wide and having carrying handles integrated into each corner. The framework was hinged at one end to allow the rectangle to be opened so that it could be placed around the shock as it stood in the field. The inside of each of the long rails of the rectangle had hand-whittled wooden spikes positioned along them. When the framework was closed around the shock, the spikes went in between the stalks to hold them securely in place, allowing two men to carry the entire shock to the barn.
Once the shocks were in the barn the twine holding them together was cut and the farmer removed the ears of corn from the individual stalks, throwing them into a pile for husking at a later date.
Fodder
After all the ears had been stripped from the stalks, it was time to cut them into fodder. The fodder could be used as livestock forage during the winter, or it could be placed on the floor of stalls for bedding.
Making corn fodder required the use of a fodder chopper. In its most basic form, the fodder chopper was a V-shaped wooden trough placed on top of a table or some type of stand. The corn stalks were fed into the wider end and pushed toward the narrower end. As the stalks protruded from the narrow end, they were chopped off in short lengths. Initially, this could have been done using the same corn-cutting knife that had been employed in the field. As time passed, however, numerous patent designs for fodder choppers were introduced. These had built-in legs and utilized a variety of chopping mechanisms ranging from heavy iron knives with integrated handles to blades that operated up and down by using a foot treadle. Many of these were attractively painted with striping and floral motifs and were often stenciled with the name of the manufacturer. Such was progress.
