Time travel: Plantation harvest is done the old-fashioned way

Daily Press (Newport News, Va.) (MCT) - The old one-row corn picker may not be much to look at compared to the giant agri-industrial combines of today.

But when the first practical models began to appear in the fields during the 1930s, this small, simple harvester proved to be a labor-saving wonder.

Drawn by either a tractor or a team of horses, its gathering chain pulled the corn stalks in between its pointed snouts with deceptive speed, then into the jaws formed by two snapping rollers. More rollers plucked the ears and shucked the husks, which then traveled up into a hopper and along a screw drive across the back of the picker.

Within a matter of seconds, an ear of corn could go from a stalk in the ground to a waiting elevator chute _ and then through the air into the bed of a trailing wagon. Such speed and power was a miracle to farmers who had always harvested the crop by hand _ but it also marked the beginning of a new and unprecedented kind of peril whenever the corn picker jammed.

"Farming was a dangerous game back in the old days," says Chippokes Farm & Forestry Museum educator Carla Kirts, describing the hazards of a machine renowned for its maiming potential.

"You had all these open chains, rollers and gears that loved to catch a finger or a shirt cuff if you didn't pay attention. And if you didn't, that's what they did."

Visitors keep a respectful distance during the park's recent Heritage Harvest Days programs, which offer plenty chances for hands-on experiences with a variety of vintage farm machines and equipment during a few weeks each fall.

Now in their third year, the afternoon-long field demonstrations are designed to give both children and adults an up-close and personal understanding of what it was like to bring in such crops as corn, sorghum and peanuts in days gone by.

Visitors also get the chance to experience how the farm families of the past used various kinds of presses, grinders and mills _ along with animal power and individual elbow grease _ to create edible foodstuffs from the raw harvest.

"If you ask any group of young children today where their food comes from, some of them will tell you it came from the store. A few will take you all the way back to a truck," program coordinator Brian Frye says.

"Most people today just don't have the kind of agricultural background they used to have _ and they don't know that it all comes from a farm. We're trying to correct that."

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Using examples from the museum's encyclopedic collection of early farm tools, machinery and equipment, the Heritage Harvest Days programs focus largely on labor-saving devices.

But that doesn't mean the old-time farmers could sit back and take it easy as this wave of often ingenious inventions took over increasing portions of what was once all handwork.

For many years, sorghum canes had to be stripped of their leaves by hand before they could be pushed through a heavy three-roller press. Then the farmer and his family had to simmer the liquid over a low fire in order to transform it into naturally sweet sorghum syrup.

"You pour it into these big flat pans and cook it down slowly until it's really thick _ and you have to keep the scum off the top by keeping it stirred," Kirts says. "It's an all-day process."

Depending on the weather and the pace of the growing season, the programs will explore the mysteries of the peanut, too.

Now _ as then _ the farmer checks his crop for ripeness by popping the shell, Kirts says. But whereas today's massive combines can not only harvest the plant but also take the peanuts off and leave the shredded plants on the ground, the old-time farmer had to attack the process in multiple steps.

"The old-fashioned way was to come along with a four-pronged pitchfork, pull the plant up and stick it on a pole to dry," she says. "Then you'd come along with a swing cart, pick up the shocks and carry them over to the picker."

Corn shellers reflected a similar step in a multiple-part process _ one that often required the farmer to crank the machine by hand. But that was a lot faster and less tiring than stripping the kernels off with a hand tool.

"The kernels will fall out into a bucket under the middle of the machine _ and the cobs will pop out on the other side," Frye says.

"Once you get going, you can shell a whole bushel of ears in no time at all _ unless something jams."

Hard-core visitors may get an even more unusual experience on the days of the corn harvesting demonstrations.

Kirts plans to grind the kernels with a corn mill, then make an old-time dish that will take the day's harvest all the way from the field to the table.

"We're going to bring out a little stove and make hoe cakes just like they did in the fields long ago," she says. "The only difference is that we won't be making them on the actual blade of a hoe."

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MORE INFORMATION:

For more information visit www.dcr.virginia.gov/state_parks/chf.shtml or call 757-294-3439

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© 2008, Daily Press (Newport News, Va.).