OT-Picking Corn By Hand

I've been thinking of picking some corn with my horses and wagon, but I don't know how it is done.
I've always believed the old wagon had a "bang board" on one side, and the picking person snapped the ear from the stalk, threw it at the wagon, it hit the bang board and fell into the wagon. Does that sound about right??? Doing this would require the picker continually travel either clockwise or counter-clockwise???
Also, did a person usually pick only one row, or did they usually pick two rows???
Would the wagon be quite close to the picker, so as to knock down stalks making it easier to throw the ears from the next row???
Thanks for your knowledge and ideas. kelly

This video should give you a basic idea of how it's done.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1L_-8z4dco

The beginning of this video shows how a husking hook is used.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kje5wGNMgaY

We always used a peg and called it shucking corn.How many rows we did at once depended on how many people we had helping.Used a wagon with sides and no tall board on it.

A really good man could shuck and scoop 100 bushels in a day, The crew I worked with would take three men to get 100 bushels. Mot my favorite chore. My dad claimed that the great corn gatherers left some corn in the field.

As a young man in school, (10Th Grade) my grandfather would leave school for 3 weeks & hitch a train to Iowa
from northwestern Pa. Walked 15 miles to catch the train, brought sack lunch. He would be gone from school
for 3 weeks to pick corn. He picked we a group of sometimes 100 men, slept in a bunk house. He use to tell me
stories if you were good picker, a ear of corn was always in the air flying to the wagon. The use wheeled wagons
with wheels over his head & they had a 4 horse hitched team. IN Iowa all the barns & Building were White. This is
why our farm was all white with White board fences, the only one in our county. What I do know is that granddad
could pick 3 rows faster than my brother & I could pick one when he was in his 60's. The last year he went
he only worked 3 days, the lady of the farm delivered him a tellagram with 2 words. ( COME HOME ). His mother
passed away & he got home in time for the funeral..

Used to pick a lot of corn by hand. We only hand picked the corn on the headlands and the sides so the machinery didn't knock down any corn. After the front mount pickers came out we would just do part of the headlands. Just enough to avoid knocking down the stalks with the picker.

Twenty years ago my son worked for a local vegetable farm. He thought that he would be at the farm stand, but he was put on the field crew. One of the jobs was picking the sweet corn. They would have three pickers with bushel baskets, a tractor pulling a wagon, and my son carrying the baskets to and from the pickers at a run when need be. His character got built up a lot that summer.

Never had a board , my dad on one side taking two rows, his brother on the other side taking two rows and POP or granddad taking the down row or the row the wagon ran over. Wagon pulled by team of mules that would pull up as directed. I was only 5 or 6 and just tagged along. Fast forward got married in 1958, first day helping my new dad in law pick corn. He had a two row mounted picker on wd45 AC. I scooped 13 loads of corn in a 12 hr day, could not hardly get out of bed the next day, though boy hope married life is not all like this.

Wife's grandpa picked corn and threw it against the back board on the wagon. Wife drove the mules pulling the wagon. This was when she was very young.
The wagon is in our barn now with the backboards.
Richard in NW SC

The idea a bang board is so you did not have to be careful not to over throw the wagon and put what you just picked on the ground on the other side of the wagon. Like the one poster said about husking from both sides the husker had to be extra careful not to over throw the wagon and hit the person working on the other side, that would have greatly slowed down the husker having to constantly watch that he did not over throw the wagon. 5 guys working on one side of a wagon with a bang board could husk more than the 5 guys working like he said as they did not have to watch that they did not over throw. But then you needed a very long wagon to do that. 2 guys each taking one row on the same side was all that would work with what was a normal 10' wagon as the first had to be working close to front of wagon and second about 5' behind throwing to rear of wagon so the second person was not constantly hitting the first in the head with a thrown ear. Usually it was just one person and depending on ability if the person felt like taking one or 2 rows at a time. If taking 2 rows at a time the person would be between the rows, if only one row depending on if he was right handed one row between what he was husking and the wagon so he would not be in line with a wheel. If he was left handed this would be reversed. And it was usually a high wood wheel wagon used with a box bed and remember they are narrow. In my area most were 42" beds so that made only 40" between sideboards ( other areas used a 38" bed with 36" between sideboards) and without that bang board very easy to over throw and also if you had a partial load that the thrown ear would hit the corn already in the wagon and do a skip and go over the other side. So the bang board was a time saver as the thrower did not have to constantly watch where he was throwing to be putting the thrown corn on the ground 3-4 rows across the wagon. I was too young to get involved with the husking as I was born in 43 and Dad bought the first picker in 46 and I think it was first year of production as all gears were put on with just a pin that kept shearing, the next years production they put a key in to take the load off the pin. Then a couple of years later Dad was able to buy a husking bed for that picker but I think it was made by a different company than that had made the picker. Pulled the picker home behind the 41 Ford car. Good husking depended on having a good team of horses that you were not constantly having to tell them when to move forward and when to stop. If using a tractor you needed a dedicated tractor driver that could move 10' at a time. If you knew you over threw the wagon you had to stop husking and go around and find and pick up that ear and you would loose at least the time to husk the length of the wagon. That ear was too valuable for feed to leave it on the ground as is done with todays corn heads. That is why you opened a field by hand ahead of a picker, even a 2 row mounted picker. you went in ahead of tome and husked out the corners and picked them up when the picker got there.

Traditional Farmer, recognize these?

Remember the top of the side boards were probably about 5' off the ground and top of bang board about 9' up.

Sure do I still have some of the ones we used many years ago.

I tried to put on the finger one today but must it have had the OJ thing.

When I was a senior in high school, my dad got a job in town and I did the farm work.

Corn picking time came. My dad had always picked by hand and expected me to do the same. I started one morning. We didn't have horses anymore, so I pulled the wagon with a VAC Case. So, I'd pick for a ways, then have to get on the tractor and pull the wagon ahead. Over and over.

I lasted about two hours and said, "This is bulls**t". I went into town, made the rounds of the implement dealers, and came home with a used one row, pull behind picker. I thought I'd gone to heaven with that sucker.

In October, 1917 my grandfather(22 years old) left Douglas County, Kansas and took a train to St. Edwards, Nebraska to pick corn for Henry Burns. They would get up every day early enough to milk, chore and eat breakfast in time to be in the field as soon as there was enough light to find the corn. He would pick a load in time to shovel it off before dinner and another in the afternoon and chore in the dark before supper. He stayed there until the middle of December when he got so home sick he came back to Kansas even though the farmer had 40 acres left to pick.

His letters indicate he was paid .07 per bushel and that he was averaging $4.90 per day so he must have been picking about 70 bushels per day or 35 bushel per load. He wrote that the corn varied but averaged about 35 bushel per acre. That must have been hard work but pretty good pay for that time. Quite a bit better than his pay when he was drafted in August, 1918.

Few of us today can fully appreciate how hard folks worked in those days.

Yes sir- I have a set of those in my desk drawer; my dads....I never shucked corn but he did growing up. Sounds like fun to me!

I suspect the novelty will wear off in short order! Grandpa had a McCormick one row pulled with a 1020 pretty early and I don't think my Dad (born in 36) ever hand picked a lot. We thought we had it made when we had a 324 new Idea behind the 970 Case!

We have a small open field left after Grandpa had our pond dug, probably is about four acres, very wet most years, Kalamazoo muck soil, black as you will find. Grandpa always said it would grow the best corn IF you could get it planted and then IF you could get it harvested. Most years, planted in June when it dried out, we would wait until winter to harvest. Any large, early snows meant you had to figure on picking it by hand. I think that and cultivating the garden were the only jobs he wished he still had horses for. (Grandma would not drive the tractor after her only experience driving a truck ended with her parked on the front porch.) By the time I was four or five, I filled that role idling in first gear on the old MI, so all I had to do was steer- he could catch up and hit the clutch if needed. By the time I was a teen, his knees were too bad to walk in the snow and mud, so Dad and I got to pick while Gramps drove. Four acres would take us a couple of weekends to pick clean- with snow on the ground, you really didn't want to miss the wagon!

Now we can plant in April before it gets too wet, we'll see if the neighbor's new big combine will float it off this fall. The older 6620 was almost unsinkable. He often told me he saw over 250bpa in areas of that dryland field.

These are the fun threads to read on this site.
Your stories are fascinating! Of course...I read them from the comfort of an A/C office.

These are the fun threads to read on this site.
Your stories are fascinating! Of course...I read them from the comfort of an A/C office.

WI DAN, I'm glad that you enjoy your reading. Why
not come try mowing with horses or picking corn by
hand? Good exercise. Especially now in south
central Texas when the daily temperatures are
usually over a hundred? Gotta be plumb nuts for
trying to live here huh? Kelly

geez! I'm good with the 80s (humidity and temperature)
Of course, in a few months it'll be in the 20s...

I would LOVE to drive horses on a mower or wagon. My grandma taught me pleasure driving (meadowbrook cart) but I always wanted to put them hayburners to work.

WI DAN, I've always thought the Meadowbrook was the nicest looking ever. Unfortunately I've
never had the opportunity to drive one. I sure enjoy driving tho and when weather permits, I drive.
I go on lots of "trail rides". For eleven years I've been driving a covered wagon on the week-long
Salt Grass Trail Ride which goes to Houston with perhaps the world's biggest horse parade in
downtown Houston at the end. My longest ride was seven weeks up the old Western (cattle) Trail
from Bandera, TX to Dodge City, Kansas. Uffda!