horse drawn corn cutter

Wanted to start a new thread from 1206's auction results. Does anyone know any more about the corn cutter. I am only guessing that the front wheel went in-between 2 rows and sliced the rows off. I never saw one before. Any other info??? Bill

Here is one I took photos of at the James Madison Museum in Orange VA.
It is a 1 row.
Thought about building one to cut sorghum for syrup making.
I like the catch rod to hold several stalks before tying the bundles.

I wonder how often they had to sharpen the cutting edge? It must have worked, but I would think that it would push the stalks over before cutting them.

I wonder what corn stalks and corn fields were like 100+ years ago. Probably planted in hills with check row planter.
Are stalks heartier now? Cutting a hill of corn with 4 - 5 stalks could have been tough to do.
Dave

I am sure it would have to be sharpened often, but no more than a machete like I have used for 40 years to cut sorghum.

100 years ago. In east-central Wisconsin, the fields were about 30 years old after having been covered with dense white pine forests when the settlers first arrived. Ours was logged off by two brothers from upstate New York. Logging and lumber products gave way to potatoes and dairy cows and then mostly dairy, hogs and poultry, all of which burned corn. Different varieties of corn were tried, in many cases being planted with hand planters but corn planters were becoming the machine of choice and, in our neighborhood, there were very few check row planters. most corn was hill dropped, meaning that the planter would drop 3 or 4 kernels at once. Cultivation was at first performed with walk-behind horse-drawn cultivators but sulky cultivators soon followed. Further weeding in between the plants was accomplished, in many cases, by the whole family plus hired men with hand hoes. Hill dropping made weeding in this manner easier. Harvesting the corn depended on whether the corn was being picked ripe or put up for silage. We put up our first silo in 1911. Poured concrete 12 x 30. Corn for the silo was, in the first few years, cut by hand with corn knives, tied into bundles using a cornstalk as a tie wrap and hauled to the silo to be chopped and put into the silo. Corn to be picked ripe would be cut later in the season and shocked up. Then a big corn bee was held, sometimes in the fall moonlight, and the shocks would be broken apart, the ears removed and thrown onto wagons and hauled to the corn crib. The remaining stalks would be loaded onto wagons and cut up using a stalk cutter and used for bedding. A lot of shoveling involved. Not suprisingly, corn planters, corn binders, tractors with mounted cultivators, etc. became popular. One variety of corn that became a favorite with silage growers was Leaming Fodder corn. Exceptionally tall (not good in strong winds, some called it "leaning fodder corn") but otherwise very hardy with large ears. In those years, there was no shortage of manpower.

In all the years that I've gone to farm sales this is only the 3rd corn cutter that I have ever seen...They are quite rare.

From what I have read they were rather dangerous to both men and horses. I have never seen one but have read a few different articles over the years. I doubt they would work on today's triple stack 250 bushel corn. Tom

Harvesting some of that old corn was challenging to say the least. One of our neighbors had some newly broken ground that he planted Leaming fodder corn on and that corn was so tall and hardy that they had to use a John Deere tractor with a creeper first gear to pull the tractor and the chopper that was running the chopper. Biggest tractor in the neighborhood powering the chopper but it went too fast in first gear. They just crawled across that field and were glad when it was over. Some of that corn was about 18' tall.

My grandfather modified a horse drawn stalk cutter to mount on an AC B tractor,I've helped use it works pretty good, a lot of work but beats cutting corn with a corn knife.

(quoted from post at 16:57:19 02/28/21) My grandfather modified a horse drawn stalk cutter to mount on an AC B tractor,I've helped use it works pretty good, a lot of work but beats cutting corn with a corn knife.

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When I was about 8 yrs old back around 1949, my Dad hired 4 or 5 robust young lads to cut a 3 acre field of corn using corn knives. He didn't have a corn binder but he had a silage blower which he ran with the Allis B. "Operating" a corn knife for hours on end was tough work. Luckily, I was too young at the time to participate. LOL