The L'Anse sentinel. (L'Anse, L.S., Mich.) 18??-current, 1891-06-27
HOW CORN is HUsKED.
1T MUST STILL BE DONE EN-
TIRELY BY HAND.
While Machinery Has Taken the Place OF
Manual Labor In Other Depart
ments, This IL Done In tho
Old-Fashioned Way.

The mind OF the inventor has
wrought less change in the primitive
methods Of husking corn than it has in
almost any other line OF farm work.
The process and amount OF labor en-
pioyed in getting the ear from its nat
ural covering Is about the same to-day
as it was in our grandfather's time. In
ventors have wasted great amount OF
gray brain matter in trying to devise
mechanism that will successfully husk
corn, but no such machine has yet
been planned possessing sufficient prac-
ticability to make it become popular.
Many patents have boen taken out for
corn husking machines, some designed
to husk one and some two rows of corn
at a time, but none OF them have proved
to be OF enough worth to warrant them
being manufactured on an extensive
pcale. The slight improvements that
have been made in the construction OF
husking pegs and husking gloves
marks the real limit of the inventors
advance in this line Of work. When
one considers the wonderful changes
that have been brought about in other
classes Of farm work during the last
half century or less by improved ma
chinery, one marvels that in this par
ticular direction there has been no adj
vance made.
Our forefatbers cut)their grass with
the scythe and raked their hay by
hand. We cut our grass with ma
chine propelled by horse power and
rake and load and stack or NOW it in
the same manner. In sowing their
grain they YEARLY trudged afoot and
scattered the seed from sack, swung
over the shoulder. The modern farm
er does the work by horse power and
machinery. They thrashed their grain
with the hand-fall on the barn floor.
The man of the present day applies the
force produced by the strength OF ten
or a dozen horses, or a steam engine,
to giant machine that not only
thrashes the grain but winnows it from
the chat and presents 1t ready for the
use of the miller. The cardirg and
spinning and weaving that were once
done by hand and foot power are now
spindles and looms. Our forefathers
dropped their corn by hand, covered
it with hoe, and cultivated it with
single-shovel pillow. Modern farmers
now employ machines that drop and
cover two rows of corn at one time, and
cultivators that have made the single
shovel pillow only memory or strange
relic Of other days.
Our forefathers husked their corn
with simple husking peg worn on the
hand. And SO does the modern farmer.
King Corn will not capitulate to the
cunning and art of the inventor but
must still be secured ear by ear, as it
was hundred years ago.
But while there have been slight
changes made in the machines used in
husking corn, the methods for doing
the work are quite different from those
once followed. In the extreme east
where fields are only patches" and
where most of the corn is housed for
fodder, the old methods are still in
vogue, and corn huskings and husl,ing
bees are common. 1t is in the west
where the changes have been most
noticeable. Any country-bred man of
thirty or Whereabouts can recall the
time when he, boy of ten, was kept
at the task, so thoroughly despised by
every farmer boy, of helping to keep
up the down row. Husking corn used
to be much more of social family
matter than it now is. All the male
members of the family of working age
would gather around one wagon and
discuss whatever topics were upper
most in their minds and incidentally
husk corn. Sometimes the women or
girls of the household would join in
the work, and then all the amenities of
the fire-side circle would be represent
ed in the field. Five rows of corn
were husked at time. two at either
side of the wagon and the down row.
between. The later was always as
signed to the small boys Of the house
hold, because, like turning the grind
stone, sprouting potatoes and other
similar tasks, it was too disagreeable
for the older members.
At length, by even their slow pro-
cess, the husking would be finished
and the event celebrated by an oyster
supper, dance or some Other unusual
occurrence. Then If there was a neigh
Dor who, by sickness or other misfor-
tune had been delayed with his husk-
ing, all hands joined in helping him
out. In recalling those merry old
husking times one almost forgets the
burrs, whose sharp points often cause
the husks to be stained with crimson,
and the cold, crisp mornings when the
frost would bite the huskers' fingers.
But the old, sociable family style Of
husking corn has gone out of fashion.
A single Butterfly.