I pretty sure that's a check row planter, if you look close you can see a wire running alongside the planter.
If you look even closer, you can see what looks almost like knots in that wire.
A check row planter planted hills (3-4 seeds) of corn about 36-40 inches apart down the rows which were also 36-40 inches apart. Having hills of corn evenly spaced out like that meant that the corn could be cultivated in both directions to control weeds, both down the rows and across the rows.
The "knots" in the wire are what tripped the planter to plant each hill of seeds and the wire had to be moved over two rows for each planting pass while also keeping all the "knots" lined up.
It's also interesting that he's putting down starter fertilizer while he's planting (12-12-12 according to the bag leaning on the wire). Conventional wisdom from the small farm types is that fertilizer wasn't being used until after WWII, when it was actually being used for years before that.
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I pretty sure that's a check row planter, if you look close you can see a wire running alongside the planter.
If you look even closer, you can see what looks almost like knots in that wire.
A check row planter planted hills (3-4 seeds) of corn about 36-40 inches apart down the rows which were also 36-40 inches apart. Having hills of corn evenly spaced out like that meant that the corn could be cultivated in both directions to control weeds, both down the rows and across the rows.
The "knots" in the wire are what tripped the planter to plant each hill of seeds and the wire had to be moved over two rows for each planting pass while also keeping all the "knots" lined up.
It's also interesting that he's putting down starter fertilizer while he's planting (12-12-12 according to the bag leaning on the wire). Conventional wisdom from the small farm types is that fertilizer wasn't being used until after WWII, when it was actually being used for years before that.
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