To understand fully the reference to a dead furrow, you must be connected in some way to a farming background, either growing up on one or perhaps working on a farm as a teenager. Moreover, the farm-reared native will know instinctively that the accent rides on the word "dead" as opposed to "furrow."
The dead furrow is that narrow, arrow-straight trench left at the edge of a plowed field after the farmer has planted it to corn, soybeans or some type of forage grain using an old-fashioned mold board plow. The furrow is "dead" because nothing much grows there as the desired plant rises several inches away from the sharp edge left by the plow.
The dead furrow remains discernable for many years after a field has been left dormant - either because the land is no longer farmed or because the farmer has left it in hay or pasture.
The furrow is largely a detail of the past as most farmers now plant their crops using erosion fighting equipment like soil savers, consisting of disks to cut up the vegetation, chisels to dig up a seed bed and field finishers to provide a level surface for planting.
Some cost-conscious farmers use no till techniques that produce strong yields while limiting the number of trips across the field.
Modern conservation techniques are surely a blessing as I recall my father's dismay over the deep ditches left by a spring gully washer on a field of newly planted oats or corn. But for a few food plots of perhaps an acre or less, I cannot resist the temptation to hook up the mold board plow and turn over the soil into neat rows of black dirt.
I remember as a boy kicking off my shoes and socks and walking in those furrows as Dad curved around the gently sloping terrain atop the John Deere 60 as it tugged heroically at a three-bottom plow.
The dirt was shiny and shivery cold to the bottoms of my feet. On occasion, a marvelously fascinating worm or grub caught my attention while traveling down the trench.
I wouldn't get far before he would finish the round and drop the plowshares to flop over yet more layers of soil. "It's a little too cold to run bare foot yet, ain't it," he would warn with a grin. His expression told me he didn't care so long as I stayed out of the way of the John Deere, which at the time appeared as a huge green monster.
And when he was done, there was that last furrow hugging the fence line.
Returning to Wisconsin after more than two decades of service in the Air Force, I began a search for a small piece of American farm culture, a few acres to turn into a life's work
The opportunity came on an early fall day in 1989. The buildings weren't much to look at - an aging frame house covered with pink shingle siding and a classic red cow barn, now degraded by rotted sills and a crumbling rock foundation.
Tall rows of crispy dry corn stalks crackled in the wind across the bottom while hundreds of majestic pines and mixed hardwoods climbed the bluff on the other side of the Pecatonica River.
On top of the hill laid a field of dark green alfalfa. There I discovered the unmistakable crease of a dead furrow along the field's edge.
I looked beyond the dilapidated buildings and the junk strewn everywhere. Instead, there was the promise of a landscape dominated by colorfully painted autumn foliage, the river where I had fished for bass and catfish as a boy and the marsh just then welcoming the arrival of migrating mallards and Canada geese from the north. Above all, there was that furrow, bringing back memories of the churning motion of a plow.
The new parts are in for the old four-bottom semi-mounted mold board plow. I need to pick them up, grease up the machine and change the oil in the John Deere 4010. Spring planting is just around the corner.
-Lee Fahrney is the
Monroe Times outdoors writer and can be reached at (608) 967-2208 or fiveoaks@mhtc.net.
The dead furrow is that narrow, arrow-straight trench left at the edge of a plowed field after the farmer has planted it to corn, soybeans or some type of forage grain using an old-fashioned mold board plow. The furrow is "dead" because nothing much grows there as the desired plant rises several inches away from the sharp edge left by the plow.
The dead furrow remains discernable for many years after a field has been left dormant - either because the land is no longer farmed or because the farmer has left it in hay or pasture.
The furrow is largely a detail of the past as most farmers now plant their crops using erosion fighting equipment like soil savers, consisting of disks to cut up the vegetation, chisels to dig up a seed bed and field finishers to provide a level surface for planting.
Some cost-conscious farmers use no till techniques that produce strong yields while limiting the number of trips across the field.
Modern conservation techniques are surely a blessing as I recall my father's dismay over the deep ditches left by a spring gully washer on a field of newly planted oats or corn. But for a few food plots of perhaps an acre or less, I cannot resist the temptation to hook up the mold board plow and turn over the soil into neat rows of black dirt.
I remember as a boy kicking off my shoes and socks and walking in those furrows as Dad curved around the gently sloping terrain atop the John Deere 60 as it tugged heroically at a three-bottom plow.
The dirt was shiny and shivery cold to the bottoms of my feet. On occasion, a marvelously fascinating worm or grub caught my attention while traveling down the trench.
I wouldn't get far before he would finish the round and drop the plowshares to flop over yet more layers of soil. "It's a little too cold to run bare foot yet, ain't it," he would warn with a grin. His expression told me he didn't care so long as I stayed out of the way of the John Deere, which at the time appeared as a huge green monster.
And when he was done, there was that last furrow hugging the fence line.
Returning to Wisconsin after more than two decades of service in the Air Force, I began a search for a small piece of American farm culture, a few acres to turn into a life's work
The opportunity came on an early fall day in 1989. The buildings weren't much to look at - an aging frame house covered with pink shingle siding and a classic red cow barn, now degraded by rotted sills and a crumbling rock foundation.
Tall rows of crispy dry corn stalks crackled in the wind across the bottom while hundreds of majestic pines and mixed hardwoods climbed the bluff on the other side of the Pecatonica River.
On top of the hill laid a field of dark green alfalfa. There I discovered the unmistakable crease of a dead furrow along the field's edge.
I looked beyond the dilapidated buildings and the junk strewn everywhere. Instead, there was the promise of a landscape dominated by colorfully painted autumn foliage, the river where I had fished for bass and catfish as a boy and the marsh just then welcoming the arrival of migrating mallards and Canada geese from the north. Above all, there was that furrow, bringing back memories of the churning motion of a plow.
The new parts are in for the old four-bottom semi-mounted mold board plow. I need to pick them up, grease up the machine and change the oil in the John Deere 4010. Spring planting is just around the corner.
-Lee Fahrney is the
Monroe Times outdoors writer and can be reached at (608) 967-2208 or fiveoaks@mhtc.net.
