As this is published, autumn is less than 12 hours old. The sun crossed the equator at 4:30 a.m. CDT, Sept. 23. As the southern hemisphere tilts toward the sun and the northern hemisphere tilts away, our days get shorter. And the farther north, the shorter our day. Only after the winter solstice, Dec. 21, 11:30 CST, will our days lengthen again.
We like to think of autumn as those crisp, cool mornings and warm afternoons, with cloudless azure skies blending with gold and red leaves. Unfortunately, it seems, we get too few of those days and too many that are cloudy, gray and drizzly. But it makes those sunny days all the more precious.
While natural autumn scenery remains timeless, some rural autumn scenery has changed. For example, to many readers of this column, the fields of soybeans are a change from years past. Beans were not a local crop around here a half century ago.
Many of us recall the typical agricultural rotation as two years of corn - only one year on hilly fields such as on our home farm north of Monroe - followed by a year of oats as a cover crop for alfalfa or other forage crop. Then it would be two or more years of the hay, depending on how long the seeding would last. Often the last year of the hay crop would be pastured before being plowed under to start the rotation again.
In those days, local farmers fed their corn and oats to hogs, and to cows as a supplement to hay and silage. Most dairy farmers had a small herd of hogs as a complementary enterprise to dairy cattle. Whey from the cheese factories provided an economical and nutritious feed for the hogs.
Since the grain was fed to the cows and hogs, and some to the chicken flock common to local farms, it was seldom used as a cash crop. It is only recently with the demise of the small dairy herds, and elimination of the small hog enterprises, that growing corn for cash became more common around this neck of the woods.
Because most fields were pastured some time during the typical rotation, they were fenced. And because cows were pastured in summer, the landscape was dotted with herds of grazing cows, contented of course. Who ever heard of grazing cows that were not contented?
With the virtual disappearance of small dairy herds, and the practice of year round feeding of large herds, we seldom see cattle grazing on pasture. And because cattle are not pastured, there is no need for the labor and expense of maintaining fences. The urban reader has doubtlessly noticed the absence of fences along fields bordering our rural roads.
Thus, the drift toward the "fewer and larger" technology has changed rural scenery. In last week's column, I described the scene changing from the barn with a single adjacent silo to large-scale dairy operations with clusters of large silos.
Technological change caused the disappearance of another iconic autumn symbol, the corn shock. In days of old, a simple machine called the corn binder would cut and tie the ripened corn into bundles. The bundles were placed in shocks to dry. Kids used to play under the shocks. A common Halloween prank was to tip over corn shocks if the prankster ran out of outhouses to tip over.
Shredding time was a neighborhood activity similar to threshing oats. Neighbors would band together to form a shredding ring. The corn bundles were loaded onto wagons and hauled to the shredding machine. The shredder separated out the ears and blew the shredded stalks into the barn to be used for livestock bedding.
By the time I was old enough to participate in shocking and shredding, Dad had bought a one-row corn picker - advanced technology at the time. This machine picked the ears of corn in the field and left the stalks. The ears were conveyed to a wagon that was hauled to the corncrib and unloaded with a scoop shovel - another back-breaking task.
This system eliminated the laborious tasks of shocking and shredding. A disadvantage was that it left the stalks in the field, depriving the farmer of the fodder for bedding. However, on our farm, we relied on oat straw for this purpose. A compensating advantage, particularly on the hilly land on our home farm, was that the stalks left in the field provided some protection from soil erosion.
An advance from the one-row corn picker was the two-row picker mounted on a tractor. This made it easier to "open up" the field, and was obviously faster. This too was soon obsolete. The modern combine combines the operations of picking and shelling. Only the kernels are removed - the stalks, husks, and cobs are left in the field. Sometimes the remaining stalks are baled and used for bedding. The new balers that crank out huge round bales handle this task efficiently.
The new technology substitutes capital for labor. Large acreages can be handled with a minimum of hand labor, again contributing to the "fewer and larger" trends we see in nearly all commercial enterprises, agricultural and otherwise.
And again, the new technology results in changing rural scenery, such as the absence of fences and disappearance of corn shocks.
Yet, the corn shock remains a symbol of rural autumn even though it is seldom seen in real life any more. It still is included in autumn decorations, and will long remain, an iconic symbol of rural autumn.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
We like to think of autumn as those crisp, cool mornings and warm afternoons, with cloudless azure skies blending with gold and red leaves. Unfortunately, it seems, we get too few of those days and too many that are cloudy, gray and drizzly. But it makes those sunny days all the more precious.
While natural autumn scenery remains timeless, some rural autumn scenery has changed. For example, to many readers of this column, the fields of soybeans are a change from years past. Beans were not a local crop around here a half century ago.
Many of us recall the typical agricultural rotation as two years of corn - only one year on hilly fields such as on our home farm north of Monroe - followed by a year of oats as a cover crop for alfalfa or other forage crop. Then it would be two or more years of the hay, depending on how long the seeding would last. Often the last year of the hay crop would be pastured before being plowed under to start the rotation again.
In those days, local farmers fed their corn and oats to hogs, and to cows as a supplement to hay and silage. Most dairy farmers had a small herd of hogs as a complementary enterprise to dairy cattle. Whey from the cheese factories provided an economical and nutritious feed for the hogs.
Since the grain was fed to the cows and hogs, and some to the chicken flock common to local farms, it was seldom used as a cash crop. It is only recently with the demise of the small dairy herds, and elimination of the small hog enterprises, that growing corn for cash became more common around this neck of the woods.
Because most fields were pastured some time during the typical rotation, they were fenced. And because cows were pastured in summer, the landscape was dotted with herds of grazing cows, contented of course. Who ever heard of grazing cows that were not contented?
With the virtual disappearance of small dairy herds, and the practice of year round feeding of large herds, we seldom see cattle grazing on pasture. And because cattle are not pastured, there is no need for the labor and expense of maintaining fences. The urban reader has doubtlessly noticed the absence of fences along fields bordering our rural roads.
Thus, the drift toward the "fewer and larger" technology has changed rural scenery. In last week's column, I described the scene changing from the barn with a single adjacent silo to large-scale dairy operations with clusters of large silos.
Technological change caused the disappearance of another iconic autumn symbol, the corn shock. In days of old, a simple machine called the corn binder would cut and tie the ripened corn into bundles. The bundles were placed in shocks to dry. Kids used to play under the shocks. A common Halloween prank was to tip over corn shocks if the prankster ran out of outhouses to tip over.
Shredding time was a neighborhood activity similar to threshing oats. Neighbors would band together to form a shredding ring. The corn bundles were loaded onto wagons and hauled to the shredding machine. The shredder separated out the ears and blew the shredded stalks into the barn to be used for livestock bedding.
By the time I was old enough to participate in shocking and shredding, Dad had bought a one-row corn picker - advanced technology at the time. This machine picked the ears of corn in the field and left the stalks. The ears were conveyed to a wagon that was hauled to the corncrib and unloaded with a scoop shovel - another back-breaking task.
This system eliminated the laborious tasks of shocking and shredding. A disadvantage was that it left the stalks in the field, depriving the farmer of the fodder for bedding. However, on our farm, we relied on oat straw for this purpose. A compensating advantage, particularly on the hilly land on our home farm, was that the stalks left in the field provided some protection from soil erosion.
An advance from the one-row corn picker was the two-row picker mounted on a tractor. This made it easier to "open up" the field, and was obviously faster. This too was soon obsolete. The modern combine combines the operations of picking and shelling. Only the kernels are removed - the stalks, husks, and cobs are left in the field. Sometimes the remaining stalks are baled and used for bedding. The new balers that crank out huge round bales handle this task efficiently.
The new technology substitutes capital for labor. Large acreages can be handled with a minimum of hand labor, again contributing to the "fewer and larger" trends we see in nearly all commercial enterprises, agricultural and otherwise.
And again, the new technology results in changing rural scenery, such as the absence of fences and disappearance of corn shocks.
Yet, the corn shock remains a symbol of rural autumn even though it is seldom seen in real life any more. It still is included in autumn decorations, and will long remain, an iconic symbol of rural autumn.
- John Waelti's column appears every Friday in the Times. He can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net.
