Then: A hand-held corn planter that planted seeds, one by one. Versus Now: A 24-row drawn planter with consistent, accurate seed spacing, liquid fertilizer pump and delivery system, variable rate drive and insecticide application system. It was the spring of 1940 and my grandfather had just endured his first year of life in the college of agriculture at the University … Read More
That Was Then…
Then: My grandparents started out every morning by pulling their one-legged milking stool from the wall of the barn, then managed a balancing act with the stool and a bucket between their knees to catch the cow’s milk. One at a time, the cows would file into the barn, all three to five of them in the herd, to be … Read More
Then Versus Now
Each fall, we cruise past fields where combines are busy harvesting crops, averaging 200 bushels per acre at 6 mph with a 6- or 12-row corn head. We have augers and grain bins and yield monitors and so many numbers our computers, not our notepads, are full to the brim. Now let’s rewind about 80 years. I have to preface … Read More