Dad grew up as one of eight children on a small dairy farm in Minnesota, the son of a World War II veteran. His experience is likely representative of many farming families of that generation -- a time when small farms were still plentiful, when the nation was enjoying a surge of post-war progress on several fronts, and when the world was continuing its transition from an agricultural to industrial-based economy.
Dad has told us several stories about life on the farm in the middle of the 20th century, and just recently, we've coordinated our efforts to record some of his memories. Here is his recollection of helping my grandfather plant oats. The story is his alone; I've only just helped him flush out a few details. I hope to feature more of his stories in future posts.
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The spring of each year was planting time, and we would spend a lot of time in the fields. Oats, one our main crops, provided feed for the chickens and turkeys, and was ground up with corn to feed the milk cows. Its primary purpose, however, because of its fast growth and height, was to act as a cover crop for the slower-germinating and growing alfalfa. First, the preparation began.
We started in the granary, with the oats we saved from the previous year’s crop to prepare the seeds for the current year. Using a fanning mill, we cleaned the oats, ridding them of straw and weed seeds. The machine had shaking screens and a blower. I would dump the oats in the top, over the first screen, which captured bigger stems and seeds and had openings just large enough for the oats to fall through to a second screen. As the oats dropped, a blower blew air through them to get rid of the chaff and small pieces of straw. The second screen had small openings through which small weed seeds would drop, and the cleaned oats would drop out to the front. We would gather them into a bag from there, for seeding.
Each year, we pulled a seed drill behind the tractor to create small trenches, drop the seeds, and cover them. The drill, made by the Peoria Drill & Seed Company, was eight feet across, and four inches separated each disc that made the trenches. Our particular seed drill was old and had previously been horse-drawn. Each of its wheels were wooden, with wooden spokes and an iron band running the circumference of the outer rim. As we prepared to use the seed drill, we would take off the wheels and placed them in the water in a shallow area of the creek. By the time we returned to remove them a few days later, the wood would be swollen, tightening the spokes and pressing against the iron bands, securing everything in place.
Depiction of horse-drawn seed drill (www.arthursclipart.org) Cultivation came next. Fields, covered with manure during the winter months, received a thorough plowing. After that, we would disc the field, breaking up the sod clumps left by the plow. The alfalfa fields would produce for the following three years, and during each alfalfa harvest we would need smooth, even fields for cutting, raking, and baling. Conscious of that fact, we would drag the field with a fifteen-foot-wide drag, usually a couple of times in different directions.
We planted the oats at the beginning of May. By mid-June, they were knee high. At this time, I walked through the fields to pull out the mustard plants. If left alone, these weeds would soon take over the oat field. The yellow flowers on the mustard plant made them easy to spot in the green oat fields. It would take me a day and a half to pick the mustard and carry them to the end of the field for burning so the mustard seeds would not germinate.
By mid-August, the oat plants were waist high, turning from a dark green to yellow, and heavy with oat seed. In some years, when the crop was heavy, a windstorm would knock part of the field over on its side and we would be unable to harvest those oats.
One August, when I was 10 years old, we noticed small areas where the oats had been knocked down, and no windstorm had blown through for weeks. Looking closer at the area, we could see wide trails made through the oats field. About that time, my older brother David, who was at the other end of the field, saw a small bear stand up on its hind legs to face him. Seeing David, the bear turned and ran out of the field and into the pasture. Our herd of cows that had been grazing there bolted to the other side of the fence line as the bear ran by them. Over the next several days, we watched for the bear, but did not see him again.
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| The original seed drill, now in retirement at the farm |
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