Corn planter
In the early part of the twentieth century there were three distinct designs of corn planters in use. One was a one-horse implement primarily used for dropping corn kernels in a furrow, then covering them with dirt and pressing the dirt down; however, such planters could also plant seeds of other crops such as beans, peas, grain sorghum, and, with the proper attachment, cotton as well. Another planter was the two-row two-horse check-row planter. While this planter was also primarily used for planting corn, other similarly sized seed could also be planted. It planted the seed in each row even with the seeds in the previous rows so that cultivation could not only be up and down rows, but at right angles to them as well. The seed spacing was done by stretching a long (up to a quarter-mile) length of wire with uniformly spaced bumps on it from one end of the row to the other. As the planter traveled along the wire, the bumps on the wire tripped the planter seed-dropping mechanism. The wire was moved over the planter’s as each pair of rows was planted. As long as the new position of the starting bump was kept in line with previous starting positions, all of the seed locations along the entire row would be in line with the comparable locations on all previous rows. The third planter was a hand planter that held less than a pint of seed corn, was carried by hand, and was used only where a small amount of planting was required, as when a poor stand occurred in a short section of a row, and some replanting was required.
1001 Words and Phrases You Never Knew You Didn’t Know by W.R. Runyan Copyright © 2011 by W.R. Runyan