Checkrow planting and cultivating

A while back, somebody who had bought an F-12 mentioned the automatic wheel brakes. I wrote something to the effect that they were used on all Farmalls until the letter-series came out, and that their primary purpose (in my opinion) was to allow "square turns" in cornfields. If you weren't driving tractors in the early 1940s, you probably haven"t seen "checkrowed" corn. Farmers in my grandfather's and father"s day used planters with trip wires that spaced the corn hills all the way across the field (this "trip wire" was really a series of links with a wire knot at the point where it was supposed to trip the planter mechanism). Before you could plant, you had to stake this wire at one end and carry the rest of it on a reel that was hung on the planter. At the far end of the field, you staked the wire and set the reel off in the fence row. To start planting, you
dropped the wire into a y-shaped lever that was on the planter. That tripped the planting mechanism at spaced intervals. At the end of the row, you had to dismount, take the wire out of the lever, turn around, move the stake at the end and move it over two rows, then put the wire back in and do this over and over until the field was done. Supposedly, the corn was planted "square," and it should have been possible to cultivate in either direction. My recollection is that "square" was a relative term, because the wire was difficult to get equally tight every time you pulled its stake out of the ground, moved the really heavy wire (it"s as long as the field!) and reinserted the stake, so it had a slight curvature that wasn"t always the same (this would change just a little bit the points where the hills were dropped in succeeding rows). Still, it WAS possible to cultivate crosswise. The Farmall was designed to do this, AND it was designed to turn "square" at the end, THROUGH the corn, without knocking it down. Of course, if you had an open headland, you didn't need to worry about this, but if you wanted to get as much corn in as possible (a concern on small eastern farms), there wasn't any empty headland. Your choice was just to turn and knock down some corn, or learn to turn the tractor around IN the corn. The old IHC Farmall brochures had pictures of this, and that's where I learned to do this kind of turn with my father's F-12 and 2-row cultivator. I learned many years later that neighbors were all astonished to see an 11-year old kid who didn't knock any corn down. Unfortunately, I was never able to turn that little skill into making any money. I didn't need it for very long, anyhow, because farmers discovered that all that folderol about checkrow planting was unnecessary. In the early 40s, my father and his neighbors began to "sow" their corn. All it took was moving some kind of lever on the corn planter so that the wheels turned the planting mechanism and dropped the corn seeds in a row. We continued to cultivate, but in one direction only. When the corn got big enough that you wouldn"t cover it up with the dirt from the cultivator teeth, we put on "shovels" that threw enough dirt up in the middle of the row to get most of the weeds--for a while. Eventually, the corn shaded out most of the weeds--but not all. There came a moment when cultivating would tear out roots that had spread out, so you just let grow whatever weeds were there at that point. I have to say that as a youngster who would do anything to drive a tractor, cultivating was one of my favorite jobs. It was fairly quiet, because you could run the tractor in a higher gear and throttle it back, the corn field was smooth, and there was time to think about whatever you wanted to.

Pretty facinating narrative, Len. I enjoyed reading it. Done a little bit of cultivating in corn with a two row. It is indeed an enjoyable way to use a tractor. Surprisingly effective too.

I started in 48 with the B. I found out real quick that Dad didnt like to cultivate and before we had finished the first trip he said you are doing fine it is now up to you so there i am 13yrs old and with a new full time job. Added a radio with speaker under the umbrella and go go go. much funeasy with the exhaust lift and nice steering tractor.

Len, cultivating corn brought back memories to me as well. I was born after the check row planting was no longer used but did get quite involved as a kid when I was about 10 in the early 1950's. I had to walk behind the tractor and cultivator while dad did the tractor work. This was usually an all day thing for a few days at least a couple of times a year. My job was to uncover every corn plant which got covered with dirt. This was a constant bending over job and even a young kid's back would certainly be very sore at the end of the day. The plus side of this effort was finding all the arrowheads which were uncovered in the process. I had a nail keg full of them after a few years of helping with the cultivating. Another couple of things I remember was about all the farmers used the older horse drawn 2 row planters that they converted to 3 point hitches. The one we used was an old IHC model that dad used with horses as long as a neighbor still had some he could use at planting time. He grew up with horses and I think enjoyed working them as he handled them better then the tractor. The old corn planter is still in the back of the machine from the last time it was used probably in the 1960's. Also, I certainly remember those trip wires you made mention of and if you attend an old farm auction here in south central Missouri to this day they still come out of the sheds and barns at the estate auctions. I don't know of any use for them today but I've seen several. It must have been a very time consuming job to move that wire over after each pass as it had to be done on both ends of the field. Did someone other then the person doing the planting move the wires as it would take a person at each end? Sounds like a corn planting team would rival a thrashing crew at meal time if that was the case. Thanks for the past memories of my youth, Hal.

Grew up with wire-checked corn.
Two items come to mind. Don't know about other brands, but my Dad's JD planter had a little lever that would release the wire when kicked with toe.
Only had to move one stake at a time. Just place it behind the planter. With the stake close to the fence, & a 6 row headland, there would be enough slack so the wire angled to the side when coming back on the next row.
Willie

That long wire is amazing, Len. No wonder so many kids left the farm as soon as possible.....

Thank you, as one born after the days of culitivating - let alone checkrow cultivation, I always enjoy hearing about how it used to be done. It also helps explain many of the old pictures in my books. Thanks, Sam

Would a farmer cultivate both 90 fegree axis the same day or alternate axis for the next cultivation?

Did anyone culltivate the two 45 degree axis?

(Sorry. Don't know how to spell the plural of axis so I wont't try.)

How many cutivations would a farmer get in on corn.

Was checkrow planting also done on other crops such as pumpkins and squash. What about tobacco and cotton?

I can remember dad planting corn with a 2 row horse drawn check row planter. It was easy to slip off the seat and move the wire at the ends. He was real particular to keep the rows straight and hence the cross rows were just as straight as the regular rows. He would normally cultivate 3 times. First time straight, second time cross way and the third time straight again. Was a little rough going cross ways, but some guys had a rod type leveler behind the shovels to smooth out the ridges. I can't think what they called them. Later when he got a tractor planter he just hill dropped and then cultivated just one way. He cultivated with a Farmall H and set the rear gang of the cultivator to make a ridge in the middle between the rows and when he cultived the second time the front wheels would straddle the ridge and the tractor would practically steer itself. I even kind of enjoyed it then. My how times have changed, now they don't even cultivate.

I think the automatic brakes connected to the steering became obsolete with the introduction of independent foot brakes as these were more versatile for no cultivation work but also allowed the one-wheel braking for the square turns. Up to the late F-20s and F-30s (1938 on) the only brakes on the early Farmalls, including the F-12, F-14, were hand operated and if you are busy turning the steering wheel pulling on one brake lever is not possible. However, you can jamb one foot on a brake pedal at the same time as turning the steering wheel. The early Farmalls all had the lever out of the front of the steering bolster to operate the automatic shifting of the cultivator for the cross-row cultivation, as one turned the wheel to dodge the odd plants not quite properly spaced the cultivator also shifted sideways to help dodge the plant minimizing the shift required from the tractor, this was patented feature of the Farmalls. The Farmall H and M had provision for the cultivator lever, one took off the small panel off the front grill to fit the lever. There was no provision for this on the A or B as check-row cultivation seemed to become less popular and I am told that selective weed-killers were used to deal with the weeds between the plants in the rows. As check-row cultivation was no longer used the corn etc. was just drilled in rows.

A couple answers to Wardner's questions:

In checkrow corn, we would (in Iowa in those days) cultivate the corn the 1st time same direction as it was planted (lengthwise of the field). We cultivated soon after the corn could be "rowed", meaning you could visually see most every plant was out of the ground and you could see the rows. The cultivator shields and shovels were set very close to the rows and it was very easy to accidently cover up a plant or two. My dad was a stickler about that, so I was equipped with a small tree branch about 5-6ft long which was draped over the hood of our H Farmall. If I covered up a plant, or two, or more, I stopped & reached down with the branch and wiggled the dirt until the plants were uncovered (it was better than getting off the tractor every time). I didn't like to stop for anything when I was on a tractor, so taking time to do the uncovering made for a decision; do I stop or are the covered plants so few that maybe Dad wouldn't notice? This was done with the tractor in maybe 2nd gear and throttled back. It was boring. I did not like cultivating for the 1st time. As a kid, I wanted to go fast.

The second cultivation was done crosswise of the field. The moving of the wire at the ends when planting was an "art"; some farmers were better at that than others. The good ones left rows of corn that were planted so square, that visually it looked as nice and straight crosswise as lengthwise (made easier by the fact our fields were level or not more than 3% slope. By this time the corn was maybe 5-10" high, so we set the shields and shovels further away. This also gave me more room to steer without uprooting any corn. I'd put the H in 2nd or 3rd, rev the motor a little bit and crosswise I'd go. If you were cultivating corn that a guy did a poor job with that wire, then you were really winding the steering wheel back and forth quickly to avoid hitting corn. This made for strong arms!

By the time we cultivated the 3rd time (lenghwise) the corn could be touching the rear axle, depending on how long you waited (farmers would watch the rate of growth of the weeds). The last time was called "lay by"...meaning you were done for the season. You took off the shields because you wanted to throw dirt up against the corn plants. I liked the 3rd time, you could put the H in 4th, rev it up wide open and take off! But the front end would bounce quite a bit from the cross ridges of the 2nd pass. In the distance you would hear tractors sounding "whump, whump, whump" from the rapid bouncing (no kidding). I remember some old F20s with poor fitting radiator caps would be leaking water or even steaming some as they tore down the rows.

My Dad was so determined to get every weed, sometimes we cultivated 5 times...and I always complained that we were "wearing out our corn" so that I didn't have to cultivate twice more; and I never won that argument. (The only weed killer available was 2,4-D for broadleaves, no grass killers were invented yet.)

You couldn't cultivate the 45 degree angles (axis), as those rows weren't 40" apart (try laying out rows on a sheet of paper and you will see what I mean.)

I loved steering an H Farmall with it's easy steering. Those old A and B John Deeres didn't steer as easy and I grew to really dislike them.
I'd bet a B or C Farmall would be great, but hardly any farmers had tractors that small in Grundy Co. so I drove an H Farmall, SC Case or B JD for other farmers.

I don't think I ever ran a 4-row cultivator....Dad wasn't that progressive! He cultivated with that H until he quit farming in the mid 1970s. That's why I love that H so much as I take it for rides and other events.

I love to go to plow days and pull my Little Genius, ride the H in parades, go for rides, but never want to cultivate again. Good riddance!

And Len....our JD290 planter would release the wire automatically when we turned at the end.

And Len....the wire had to be moved 4 rows over for our JD290, not two rows. Think about it and you will see what I mean. You wrote a good article to get this subject started.

LA in WI

I'm barely old enough (I'm 67) to remember Dad check row planting, but he quit before I was old enough to cultivate corn. I started cultivating at about 11 or 12 years old on a C and 2 row cultivator (later a SC). Most of the time we rotary-hoed the first time over and then cultivated 3 times. At some point Dad bought what we called "rotary shields" which were 4 or 5 rotary hoe wheels that replaced regular shields and you could drive faster the first time through and replaced rotary hoeing and also took the weeds out in the row, so cross-cultivating was not nessesary. Of course you could only use the rotary shields when the corn was small, just like with a regular rotary hoe, but once the corn got up and shaded the ground, weeds were not a big problem.

(quoted from post at 00:22:12 12/31/09) There was no provision for this on the A or B . . .

Click to expand...

No gang shifting cultivator for the A but there was for the B. I don't believe there was one for the C.

Picture this scene with wire-checked corn:

Just before sunset.
Clear skies.
Slight breeze.
Corn about 6-10" high.
Freshly cultivated.
You are looking from east end of field, with sun glistening off (or thru) the leaves.
You can see all kinds of geometric rows, at many angles.

Beautiful. Just beautiful.

LA in WI

Farmall Hal,
I never saw anyone move the wire over, other than the guy running the planter. Mostly, the reason was that the man pulling the wire over had to pull out the stake, move the stake over 4 rows (2 row planter)and then pull back mightily to get the "proper" tension in the wire, and then quickly set the stake. That pulling back took some effort so no kid could do it; and any other adults were working hard at hauling manure (armstrong loader), doing chores, etc. The secret to proper cross rows was in the amount of tension that was on that wire. Most farmers were very proud of the quality of that planting, especially along a road where the neighbors could see it. Poor cross rows was just another topic to be discussed at the local grain elevator! The biggest sin was a crooked row, you better not ever do that!
LA in WI

By the way, a roll of checkwire was 80 rods long. I took a good pull to get to the other end. If you start with a full section and keep quartering it until you get down to 40 acres, the field will be 80 rods (1/4 mile) each direction.

My uncle lost his marker tracks planting one night, and ended up planting three different directions in the field. All over top each other. And it could be seen from two roads.

Well I can still remember when dad borrowed the neighbor's team of horses and pulled a 4 row marker both ways. Then my uncle helped plant with hand planters. Anyone else remember those days? He cultivated with the Farmall B.

Wonderful replies. I enjoyed all, esp. those from people who had had experiences similar to mine.

One note: All Farmalls before the letter series had automatic brakes. The original Farmall, the F-20 and the F-30 had one handbrake lever on the left side, which was primarily used to stop the tractor (hardly necessary with steel wheels--the lugs dug in and stopped the tractor almost immediately), but also to hold the tractor when it was used on the belt. The F-12 and F-14 had two hand levers, which could apply either brake independently of the automatic system. On the F-12, those levers were so short they were pretty difficult to get much purchase on. The right hand lever had a ratchet arrangement to hold the brake on whenever that was needed. It is true that late-model F-20 and F-30 had foot brakes, but as far as I know, the automatic (cable-operated) system remained effective. The foot brakes could simply be applied in place of the cables, but I assume that if the steering wheel was turned enough, the cable brakes would come into operation on their own. One of the things I remember--and loved--about the foot brakes on our H's and a Super M was that you could tap them in a turn, to bring the tractor around when it was pulling a heavy load (like a big disk harrow) that would try to keep the tractor going straight. Another use for the foot brakes (or the individual hand brakes on the F-12 and F-14) was to stop a wheel from spinning in gooey soil and keep the tractor moving. I sure would like to have a chance to do some of that kind of work again, but just a little bit at a time. I have a place that needs a lot of grass and some weedy spots cut, and I bought a little Ford (can I say that HERE?) 1100 which is a REAL tractor, not a put-put lawn mower, and I have fun for an hour or so about once a week, roaring around the place. When I was a kid, I always wanted to go as fast as I could (think what that means when the tractor only goes 4 miles an hour!). I used to pull the throttle rod out on the F-12 to get just a few more rpms. Sick, huh? Well, today, I just enjoy running this little bird along at a comfortable speed that doesn't jolt my aging tailbone too much, and that, so far, has kept the trailing mower in real good shape. And...I find that once a week on the tractor satisfies all my "needs" (1970s psychology babble). I am hesitant to admit this to anyone but you fellows, but when I'm out there in the sun on my little tractor, I let my mind wander....back to the farm, the cornfields, the grain binder and the stationary thresher, my father's 10-20 barking away as the thresher was being fed, the corn binder, and again, the 10-20 or a cousin's F-20 making the Blizzard (stationary) ensilage chopper roar as it threw chopped corn up into the silo.

Sounds like you may be a few years older than me, LenNH, but sure sounds familiar, especially the part about your mind wandering back. I have a Dixon ztr mower, a JD garden tractor with a mower deck and tiller, and a 240U IH with a loader and blade. Anytime I'm on one of those, I can't help but think back to when I was a kid. My reminiscing is maybe a little later, JD B, A, 60s (2) and Farmall Cub, C and Super C that Dad had from the late '40s to when I left home for the service in '61. Also was lucky enough to work for neighbors and relatives, plus farmer/ranchers while in the service and for friends in more recent years on a wide variety of tractors and equipment. My work for the experimental lab of a hydraulics company for 25 years also allowed me to run some equipment for field testing before I got "promoted" (??? not sure that was a promotion) to where I wasn't allowed do that anymore. This forum has brought back a lot of memories, guess that's why I come here.

For Teddy52food:
Yes, I remember both the marking sled and the hand planters. My father had a two-row IHC horse-drawn planter, which he converted to use with a tractor by cutting back the tongue. He didn't need the sled, but it sat around the farm for years until it probably ended up as ant food. The hand planters (we called them "bill picks"--was that term used anywhere else than in NJ where I came from?) were used in the garden for sweet corn, and to plant along the headlands where the machine wouldn't go, as I remember. We're going back about 70 years, guys! I can't remember what I had for breakfast, and I always forget at least one thing on what my wife sends me to the grocery store to get, but jeez, can
I remember all that farm stuff! My wife didn't come from a farm and can't really understand why I love to remember these things, although she doesn't condemn it--says, "I see you really loved the farm, didn't you?" One of my delights is going to Google Earth and looking at satellite pictures of the farm where I grew up, no longer in the family, and at the farms of neighbors and relatives I knew, at my grandparents' farm, and so on. If you like to do this, all you have to do is enter a nearby town name. If you know the roads and the neighborhood, you can easily find these places.
You can get a sort of computerized 3D view, too, by clicking on one of the icons at the top right of the picture.
Another very interesting site is Historicaerials.com, where you can find aerial photos going back to about 1930. I was actually able to find my grandparents' farm as it looked before a major highway took parts of it by eminent domain--all the buildings were razed in 1947. Historicaerials.com won't let you print, and their labels are all over the photos. You can buy the right to download, and I just might break down and do that. My father let his buildings deteriorate, and I was able to see that farm "from the air," as it looked in 1940 and some years after that, and as I remembered it.