IMH 74:4 358

"Chronicles of Upper Burnet" (1)

Thursday December 16th.

Considerable of a freeze last night but no frost. It was some cooler all day then yesterday the sun did'n't
shine much and a north wind blew part of the time. We got into the field a half-hour earlier this morning
and got two full loads with the side boards on and ten bushels besides, finishing next to Fowler's and
beginning on the eastern part of the field south of Bill Hand's wheat Mother washed by herself or
without any help to-day, a thing which she has not done in a good while. There is a good deal of complaint
about sore hands, feet, heads, bellies, and backs

Teaching Notes: It is useful for the students to understand that the corn picking was done by hand.. pulling the corn off the stalk and tossing into the horse or oxen pulled wagon. ( in the case of the Harrisons it was horse drawn.) It was then taken to a crib and unloaded by scoop shovel. I do not recall the amount of corn one man could pick in a day, but I imagine it was in the neighborhood of 40 bushels..the amount that a modern combine can pick and shell in minutes.Evidence in the journal from December 15 shows that the three Harrison men day's gathering was around 60 bushels. Ear Corn weighs 70 pounds/bushel or inother words, they gathered and unloaded a little over a ton and a half or corn. You could make up a math problem for this with your students. Farming was.... and still is very labor intensive. When I picked ear corn in the 1970's and 80's I had first a "pulltype" picker the later a mounted picker on a Farmal "M" and unloaded the wagons with an electice powered elevator.. still very labor intensive, but it does not campare to the pciking that was done by these men who were the comtemporaies of my great grandfathers. For what it is worth, earcorn when ground with the cob is one of the finest cattle feeds there is. Ask the students to speculate on the reason one seldom see it used today. The simplist answer is the labor involved...and the danger. Corn pickers caused the loss of fingers, hands, arms...and sadly, even lives of many 20th century farmers. The dangers to the Harrisons were also there.. horses kicked and horse drawn wagons could run over you.