Farming Methods & Farming Machinery

It was in the fall of 1947 that I saw a Rosenthal Combine at the Farm Progress Day at the Sauk County Farm south of Reedsburg, Wisconsin. This machine closely resembled a corn picker. It picked the corn and elevated into a wagon on the side and blew the fodder into a wagon you pulled behind. This machine was probably introduced too late, because by 1947 fewer and fewer farmers were shredding corn.

Corn PickersI really have no idea as to the year that corn pickers were introduced. The IHC Almanac and Encyclopedia for 1914 lists them as being part of their line. I recall seeing New Idea and John Deere 2 row pull type pickers advertised in 'Successful Farming' in 1930. Corn pickers were used in Illinois and Iowa long before they were introduced in Wisconsin. The first corn pickers in the Big Creek community were owned by Ray Beimel (Wood Bros, pull-type) and Art Preston (2 row picker mounted on a McCormick-Deering model M Tractor). This was in 1944-45. David Held owned the first corn picker in my dad's neighborhood, a 1 row New Idea Pull Type purchased in 1960. He picked for quite a few of the neighbors.

Sowing GrainMy grandfather William Lucht, Sr., purchased the first seeder in our neighborhood in 1899. It was a Dowagiac seeder made by the Dowagiac Drill and

Seeder Co. of Dowagiac, Michigan. There were really 2 basic types of seeders, those that had spring teeth to cover the grain and those that had shovels like a sulky cultivator.

Another make of seeder that was very popular in our neighborhood was the tiger made by the J.S. Rowell Mfg. Co. of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin. This make was owned by Herman Prochnow, Carl Held, Gustav Held, and August Pfaff. Uncle Paul Held had a Hoosier seeder. H.C.W. Lucht had a Buckeye and Henry Held and Uncle Albert Roloff owned John Deere-Van Brunt seeders. In the spring of 1936 W.C.E. Lucht traded his Van Brunt drill for a new McCormick-Deering seeder. This seeder was replaced by a drill in 1964.

Grain DrillsWhen I was a boy our next door neighbor, W.C.E. Lucht owned a Van Brunt double disc grain drill. As I recall there were at least 4 basic types of drills. The single disc, the double disc, the shoe type and the hoe type. I recall that our neighbor Clarence Beimel owned a Dowagiac Shoe Drill. I suppose this type of drill worked best if there was a lot of trash in the field. Paul Stoeckmann owned a Tiger single disc drill. Around 1936 Otto Daudert traded his seeder for a new Moline-Monitor grain drill. It was equipped with steel wheels and a steel hopper. In the spring of 1948 Reinhold Lucht bought a new Minneapolis-Moline drill with a fertilizer attachment and mounted on rubber tires. In later years more farmers bought this type of drill.

Sowing Grain by HandI recall one year when my dad sowed a small field of wheat by hand. He didn't want to get the seeder out for such a small patch.