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Just Thinking

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pat sublett

Well-known Member
When I was a teenager, everything came in 100 lb. bags. Today everything comes in 50 lb. bags. Is people weaker or smarter? Or neither of the above?
 
I don't remember things coming in 100 pound bags. I remember one fertilizer plant here putting fertilizer in 66 pound bags for a while,but that's about as heavy as I remember.
 
50 pound lift is pretty much the maximum weight for workplace lifting, as I am getting older, mine too.
 
Quickete used to come in 80 lb. and 40 lb. bags. Time was I could handle the 80's and now the 60's are too much, wish I could still find the 40's for this older man.
 
First crop I made in 1955 the fertilizer was like powder and fed poorly and was in 80 pound bags. In 1956 fertilizer was granular and fed better. 1958 I bought a new McCormick drill and fertilizer was in 50 pound bags. I would carry two of them to the drill at a time.

when I drove a cattle truck in 1963 I would haul back feed. Some was in 100 pound burlap and some on 50 pound paper. Sugar was available in 100 pound bags. some flour was in 25 and 50 pound bags.
 
I bet they get ALOT more for the 50's than they ever got when they had the hundreds--SUE EM---Tee
 
When I worked in a feed mill in the early 70's every thing was 100 lb bags and we did a lot of business in bags. Fertilizer was 80 lb and we sold a lot of that. On my senior weekend in high school me and another guy went into work at 2:30AM to hand carry off a 20 ton trailer of 80 lbs bags.I hadn't got home from a senior party until midnight. Didn't both me too much until about 8PM that night. I think I was the only guy in our small class with a job. Everyone else partied all night - I went home and went to bed. Now I'm tired out from writing this note. LOL
 
Years ago I remember my dad and other farmers talking sacks per acre. As in 35 (100 lb) sacks of maize per acre was a good year.
40 sacks bills got paid and mama drove a new car.
Maize was priced and sold by the hundredth weight.
 
I only needed a little fertilizer this spring so I bought it in bags, they were 66 2/3 lbs. My first job was in a feed mill and I loaded many tons of feed in 100lb burlap. Can still tie that knot right quick too. Back then fertilizer was in 50lb bags tho, but we bagged an entire warehouse full 20 bags high. Bagged it and rolled it in there 10 bags at a time on a 2 wheeler, then loaded it out the same way.
 
I used to work at a pasta factory. I worked there from the 90's to 00's, so this was before my time.

They had an automated flour storage and pneumatic delivery system that was installed in 1964.

Prior to that, there was a rail spur that ended between the buildings. A box car of 100 lb cloth bags of flour would be spotted there and be hand unloaded, one bag at a time onto wooden pallets, rolled to the press mixers, hand dumped into the mixers.

This was not like baking flour, it is called "semolina" flour, a coarser grind, like fine sand. The old timers around there told stories of the employees carrying the bags on their shoulder until the skin was rubbed off and bleeding!

Another "for the good ol' days" horror story!
 
I bagged edible beans at the elevator in the fall of 75. We bagged those in 100 pound bags,but I don't remember fertilizer being in anything that heavy. 50s were common as far back as I can remember,even as a little bitty guy. Those 66s were something new when my brother worked at the fertilizer plant.
Dad used to get feed ground at the elevator and brought that home in burlap bags,but the weight would have depended on what he had ground,shelled corn,ear corn,ear corn with oats,whatever.
 
Coffee is still imported in 60 or 70 kg burlap bags.
That's 130 to 150 lbs.

I told a guy unloading a container....
With a choice of a job unloading those bags all day and selling drugs on the street corner.
I can see why many choose selling drugs on the corner.
 
Dunno about what you guys are talking about, but I am getting stronger as I get older. When I was a teenager I could only carry about $20 worth of groceries in both arms. Now I can carry over $100 worth in one....
 
Sack of cement weight
Traditionally a bag of portland cement weighs 94 pounds (42.6 kilograms) in the US. and 87.5 pounds (39.7 kilograms) in Canada. However, cement is now being sold also in metric-sized bags of 50 kilograms (110.2 pounds) by many suppliers.
 
Grain used to be transported from the farm here in 3 bushel bags. Good wheat would weigh 66 pounds per bushel, so bags would weigh close to 200 pounds. They were loaded onto flat bed trucks for transport the local silo (elevator). A really useful tool was a hydraulic bag loader that lifted bags from the ground to shoulder height on the truck. The person loading the truck would take the bags from the loader onto the shoulder and carry them around the truck tray to stack them (tough job). If there was no bag loader on the truck, the bags had to be lifted onto the tray (much tougher job)

The bags were stacked at the local silo (elevator) in huge stacks until carted by rail to shipping terminals.

All this changed in the late 1950s when bulk handing was introduced to our grain transport system. Now I just sit in the tractor and press buttons to load grain into trucks. Back then flat bed trucks took about 10 tons of grain. Now our road trains take 52 tons.
 
I moved to WI.in 1991 after I retired from my first job. Got a job in a fertilizer plant.Worked the bagger for about a month every spring. Stacked it in the warehouse 4 pallets high, a ton on each pallet. When the farmers started planting 2 of us delivered it to the farmers on a big flatrack truck. Later delivered bulk to gravity wagons Started in the spring with a 40 inch waist and at the end of the season was almost down to 36, After planting was done went to the feedmill to help out there. I never could tie that knot.. The guy mixing the feed would fill those bags so full you couldn't get a grip on it to lift the bag. Later worked with the guy doing the spraying I trucked the water and chemicals to the sprayer and he sprayed. One of the guys running a sprayer, TYLER PATRIOT decided to quit and start his own spraying business. Several guys tried but couldn't pass the test so the boss asked me to. I had no desire to spray but wound up spraying anyway cause another guy quit. Test wasn't that hard, just had to think like a bureaucrat when you take the test, most of the questions had nothing to do with the actual spraying. This post got me thinking too.
 
No way in the world would I (or could I) handle hundred pound bags of anything without major back pain and days of suffering and recovery. I used to handle 80 pound bags of cement years ago and it was a real heavy lift even then. Nowadays I can carry $600 worth of canola seed up the ladder of the air seeder and empty it into the tank. Must be getting stronger. :) Or else canola seed is horrendously high priced.
 
Growing up for a little extra money. I was around 14. My self and a couple other kids would unload a train box car full of feed for the local feed store. Those 100 lb sacks were heavy then, and probably still are. Stan
 
My dad worked on a seismograph crew in the late 30s. One of the crew members had done time in Angola, and was there in '27 when the Mississippi flooded.

One day my dad's crew was out working; there had been reports that the Mississippi was again nearing flood stage. The ex-inmate made the comment, "I sure feel sorry for those boys down there today." Someone asked, "Why is that?" Ex-con answered, "Because they are having to carry those 150-pound bags of sand up that levee." Another guy responded, "What are you talking about? A man can't carry a 150-pound bag of sand up a levee."

The ex-con replied, "Oh, yes he can."
 
And what about those 50 lb or better hay bales ? They aren't as heavy but all day long on a bouncing flat rack or a hot mow. I always smile when a kid starts bragging about how much he can lift but lets see you go all day in a hot mow. The other day a kid was complaining about how bad it was going to get unloading trucks when it gets in the 80's.
 
When I was little our house was small with just 2 bedrooms upstairs. I remember Dad carrying 100 lb. sacks of flour and sugar upstairs to store somewhere in those bedrooms where we all slept.

When I was 15, I spent the whole summer riding the wagon behind the Case hand-tie wire baler, Most of those bales weighed 90 - 100 lbs. Didn't bother me at all to stack them 5 high on the wagon; couldn't go any higher because it would bow the stringers on the wagon bed too much.

Now my doctor doesn't want me to even lift 10 lbs.
 
When I was a kid, I used to talk to an old man in town who had worked on one of the "Bonanza" farms when he was young. On rainy days, the crew would gather in the alleyway of one of the big barns. They would have contests throwing 100lb. bags of oats - with they teeth! Those guys had to be tough!
 
I see no one below mentioned fertilizer in 200 pound burlap bags. I could not possibly move one of those so to fill the hopper for daddy so I (being a child weighing about 70 to 80 lbs.)would scratch it out into a five gallon bucket to put in the planter hopper. It took some stout hands at the fertilizer plant to load those bags.
 
When we built out house I was in my mid-20s. The GAF timberline shingles had just come out. They were 340 lbs/square, four 85 lb. bundles, 42 square of roof. I carried most of them up a ladder. These day I can't even get the ladder up without help.
 
I tied the wires on a Case hand tie baler when I was 10. Dad shoved the needles, 12 year old cousin Fred drove the 8N Ford, and 13 year old cousin Jim walked along with a pitchfork to help the anemic pick-up system get the hay into the baler. Quite the little crew- they'd have sent dad to prison if he tried that now. I was too little to buck bales, so I drove the IH one ton truck to pick them up. Summer of '58, after the milk price had tanked, and dad couldn't afford to buy alfalfa. He might as well have just sold the cows instead- the hay was so bad the production cratered, and we were out of business in 2 years.

I also remember him shouldering 100 lb. sacks of feed, and carrying them from the house to the barn, which was a fair piece. Always wondered why he didn't just drive out there.
 
Walk into a TSC or Farm and Fleet store and look at the feed supplies. Seems like they are wanting to put everything in 40 lb bags now. Although the prices remain the same as the 50 lb bags were.
 
I never weighed more than 140 lbs in high school. The beginning of the day baling the football players would brag about how much they could bench press. I could out work them 3 to 1. They complained that i was sending bales to the loft too fast. We traded places for the next wagon. Me in the loft and 2 of them on the wagon to pay me back. They were putting bales on the elevator as fast as they could. They got mad when I kept yelling to hurry up. And thats why most people paid me twice as much as the other kids.
 
In the middle 50's dad added a fertilizer attachment to his IH pull type lister. If we filled the tanks to the top the lister wheel would slide and not pick it out of the ground. Then dad was cussing cause had to stop and load up with fertilizer to often. Couldn't get as much done. Did make for me a truck driving job. Had to move the pickup every time he was ready to fill. Bags were 80 lbs. and come in heavy plastic. Just plain good old days. Best life a 12 year old boy could have.
 
I remember the first time my brother delivered those 66 pound bags of fertilizer to me. There was always 40 bags on a skid,one ton. Those pallets only had 30. I didn't notice until after he had left. I called the office and Barb said "Yes,they're 66 pound bags.". Oh.
 
I can relate to that it was the fun part picking on the city kids.One guy i was working for told me to slow down he wanted them to come back. A cousin had two very cute girls bait for the football team finally put them in the mow and they were better than any of the football team.
 
I remember 100 lbs bags of feed, sugar, flour and salt. 80 lb bags of cement and fertilizer, and 75-80 lb bales of hay. I also remember nearly everyone I knew over 60 hobbling around using two canes, barely able to get out of a chair without help, most of them dead before 70, and all of them dead by 75.
 
There used to be an old Englishman on the farm behind me. He had worked in a mill of some kind over there. The product was bagged a floor above the loading dock, tied then eased down a chute. The guys loading the trucks stood at the end the chutes so that the bag transferred to their shoulder to carry it to the truck for delivery. If a bag got dropped it took 2 men to lift but if a man standing straight handled the bags correctly he could carry them all day because he never lifted them.
 
(quoted from post at 08:50:27 05/28/17) There used to be an old Englishman on the farm behind me. He had worked in a mill of some kind over there. The product was bagged a floor above the loading dock, tied then eased down a chute. The guys loading the trucks stood at the end the chutes so that the bag transferred to their shoulder to carry it to the truck for delivery. If a bag got dropped it took 2 men to lift but if a man standing straight handled the bags correctly he could carry them all day because he never lifted them.
Click to expand...

But over the years didn't it squeeze the jelly out of the discs in the spine.
 
Lugged my share of 100 pounders up the stairs of triple decker hen houses. But there was a knack to it. Grab the ears, turn and pull em right up on your shoulder. Leverage and balance were more important. Strength came later. Never had to, but always thought handling 40qt milk cans would be worse. Grain bags don't hurt you shins.
 
Do you remember walking 5 miles to and from school in 8 feet of snow,-30 degrees,uphill both ways? LOL
 
Don't feel bad in same situation, used to carry 80lb bale in each hand and through them in the top of the barn. Now after an accident at work Doctors say if I lift over 10 lbs and move just right I will be in a wheel chair.
 
That reminds me. The neighbors have 3 daughters. They worked them hard. They weren't big muscular girls but I think each one could have picked me up and snapped me like a twig.
 
I work as a mechanic for a Fortune 50 global corp. We are forbidden from lifting over 50 lbs and will get fired if we get hurt doing so. We have dropped certain suppliers if they cant provide 50 lb bags etc or less. We can no longer use cold patch on our lots and roads because they do not provide less than a 70 lb bag. The whole thing is a joke. A large 8D battery we are supposed to find a way to use a crane to lift in.
 
(quoted from post at 05:26:26 05/29/17) I work as a mechanic for a Fortune 50 global corp. We are forbidden from lifting over 50 lbs and will get fired if we get hurt doing so. We have dropped certain suppliers if they cant provide 50 lb bags etc or less. We can no longer use cold patch on our lots and roads because they do not provide less than a 70 lb bag. The whole thing is a joke. A large 8D battery we are supposed to find a way to use a crane to lift in.
Click to expand...

I was on a construction site a couple years ago where they brought in a big crane to lift a small I beam to about eight feet. I commented to the super who is a big rugged guy that back in the day two guys would have just walked it up two ladders. He said yes he knows, but that his company had to pay a premium for their comp insurance which was costing them VERY BIG $$ because they had too many comp claims the prior year. With spine injuries the insurance company owns the problem until the worker dies.
 
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