Jay's Blog

As of January 15th, 2023 I retired as president; Jon Lorson, our long time CEO, will now add the long deserved title of president. Camielle Silence, our incredibly capable CFO, will additionally be senior executive VP. I will remain as chairman and work a couple of days a week. So on to the blog:

Corn harvest has certainly changed in my lifetime. Not so much since I started farming. It's been pretty much bigger and faster since then. Four-row corn heads, wagons and straight trucks were the norm. Now of course it's eight and twelve-row heads and semi trucks, but the same principle. There was still quite a bit of ear corn picked when I began, mostly for cattle feed. The tractor mounted two-row pickers were giving way to the self-propelled Uni-Harvestors.

The tractor mounted ones were very dangerous--lots of exposed chains, etc. Many farmers lost hands and worse in them. When I was in grade school our neighbor had a man running his picker. The man caught his arm in the machine and had to drive it to the house with it trapped. They had to take the picker apart to get him out. Fortunately he didn't bleed to death, but he lost his arm. I guess people just accepted the risk; the pickers were so much better than what they had before--picking by hand.

When I was young all the mature farmers recalled picking corn by hand. A horse or mule walked down the row and the farmer pulled the ears off the stalk, pulled the husk off and threw the ears in the wagon. When the wagon was full, you took it to the house and scooped the ears off. Two forty-bushel wagons a day was a full days' work. Farmers of any size had to hire extra help. Men came up from the Ozarks on the railroad to Shenandoah to pick corn.. They stayed with the family. Grandma had to cook for them and do their laundry. Harvest ran on for a long time.. There was no Thanksgiving holiday. On Christmas they came in from the field, ate Christmas dinner and went back out to harvest. "Shucking the corn" as it was called was really hard on the hands. They made special gloves that had a metal hook sewn in the palm to make it easier and quicker to get the husks off. When I was a kid my great-aunt lived in Shenandoah. Across the alley from her house was a small factory where they made husking gloves.

So they were all glad when the pickers came in, despite the dangers. Then they figured out how to put a corn head on a combine. I couldn't believe it when I saw the first one at the State Fair. Now we have cabs on the combines, two-way radios in them etc. We are very fortunate. I wonder what my grandfathers would think.....

Jay