More Innovation on the Prairie: Corn Planters

Back in grade school, I learned that the native Americans took pity on the starving colonists and taught them how to plant and harvest corn.

The instructions included making little hills of dirt with a digging stick, placing four kernels of corn in the hill so they were not touching, adding a fish for fertilizer and moisture, and then closing up the hill. The pattern of hills, the natives explained, was also important. By placing the hills about three feet apart in all directions, the weeds could be managed

It was a very labor-intensive project according to the early settlers, but the yield was well worth it. One kernel of corn planted would yield a healthy plant and that plant would produce an average of two ears of corn, bearing 500 to 800 kernels apiece.  

Technically, of course, what we call corn is actually maize. The origin of the term corn goes way back. In Europe, the word is still used to designate any seed crop—wheat, barley, rye, rice, etc. In America, corn refers to maize.

As the settlers established farms in the Eastern part of North America, they maintained this checkerboard pattern, known as check rows. They took pride in the uniform spacing of the clumps of corn in their fields. A farmer could plant about one acre of corn per day and could tend about ten acres throughout the season.

As people moved out onto the wide open prairie in the 1840s and 1850s, they wanted to plant more corn than was possible with a digging stick. So they got creative, and over the latter half of the 19^th century, farmers submitted over 3,000 patents for better ways to plant corn. A corn planter’s job sounds easy. And it is if you’re a human being. But if you’re a machine, your job is very specific. Open a furrow; Put the right number of seeds in the exactly right place at the perfect depth, and then cover them up with just enough tamping to make good contact

One idea was the Empire planter. Instead of a digging stick, this contraption had two handles at the top, and a pair of metal plates called a spade at the bottom. A canister for the corn was attached to one handle, and each time the handles were pulled apart, the spade closed. Another mechanism also turned a plate and allowed one kernel of corn to fall through a hole and down a chute. The farmer would open the handles, then jam the closed spade into the earth. Then he’d push the handles closed which opened the spade, and dropped the kernel of corn into the hole made by opening the spade. Then he’d pull the contraption out, kick dirt over the seed, open the handles and move to the next planting location. This was definitely easier and faster than using a digging stick, but it must have been brutal work. Throughout the growing season, farmers would hoe the weeds, keeping the space between the corn clean.

Display of hand corn planters in the collection of the Jasper County Museum in Central Iowa. The gadget opens a tiny furrow and drops a single seed with each open-close cycle of the two wooden handles. Author photo.

Laying out this checkerboard pattern was time consuming. The farmer would need to drive through the field making lines in one direction, and then drive across it the other way to make crossing lines. Wherever the lines intersected, corn hills were planted. By spacing the rows 42 inches apart, horses could be used to cultivate between the hills of corn.

By the time the corn planter in the fence row at Owl Acres was built, another planting process had come and gone. This one used what was called a check wire to space the seeds. The farmer would lay out the check wire in the field. It might have been a quarter of a mile long. When it was in place, he would drive his horses or his tractor along the check wire. Wherever it encountered a “button” or knot in the wire, the planter would drop a seed. This process was used well into the 20^th century to plant corn in the check row pattern.  

Research in the 1940s indicated that corn planted in rows would yield more than corn planted in the traditional checkerboard pattern. Always looking for better yields, farmers and farm equipment manufacturers switched over to planting in rows 30 inches apart by the end of the 1950s.

Today a farmer with a modern corn planter can plant 48 rows at a time on 20 inch row spacing, for 500 acres of corn in a day. And the fertilizer and pesticides can be incorporated at the same time. Photo by author

Feature image photo by Author. Alt text: A century-old, two row corn planter in the woods behind the house on Owl Acres. The derriere-shaped metal seat pan and frame emerge from the underbrush each fall. The implement is drawn by horses. The farmer rides on the metal seat and has a full workload, controlling the machine with levers and foot pedals, while also driving the team.