Mead Township
Clark County, Wisconsin
Filling the Silo
Contributed by Dolly Qualls
Silo Filling Time on the Wessel Farm
Mead Twp., Clark Co., WI (ca. late 1930s)
Photo contributed by Jean (Wessel) Rolstad.
This is a load of fresh green corn bundles going to the silo filler. Look on the ground and you can see some bundles that have not been picked up. The corn binders would wrap a twine on just so many stalks of corn as the machine could be set and then the bundle was dropped to the ground. A good team of horses would follow voice commands of the farmer and could see the row so the farmer could walk along and toss the bundles on the wagon as the horses walked along.
Some of later binders had a bundle carrier so several bundles of corn stalks would fall into this extension on the binder then several bundles could be dumped off in one place so you didn't have to get one every few feet. This was a result of people using tractors more than horses. Getting on and off a tractor for each bundle or having to carry them a long distance to the wagon brought about the bundle carrier addition to the corn binders.
Corn was shocked when the farmer wanted the corn cobs to dry out and use the corn as shelled corn for the chickens or cattle. They could have the whole cobs ground for livestock feed, too. The dried stalks after the corn cobs were husked off the stalk were what is known as corn fodder and fed to the animals during the winter just like hay. Some farmers did not have a silo or had more corn than the silo could hold so they shocked some of the corn and left them standing in the field to dry out very well. They usually waited until the corn was more mature before cutting it or it would mold in the shock if it was too green. Corn bundles aren't very easy to get to stand up so a wooden support frame was used to prop the bundles against and then the frame was pulled out of the shock to be used for the next shock. It left a whole near the bottom of the shock so more air could get between the bundles to help drying. Shocked corn looks just like shocks of oats, wheat or barley only obviously taller, but still in that teepee shape. Lots of times city people now go to garden centers to get a few stalks of corn to tie up to their light pole in their front yard to make it look like a corn shock for a fall decoration.
Have to add, been there, done that with the silo filling and the corn shocks and the horses and the tractor! Our Queenie and Katie were a wonderful team. Surely wish we could have taught them to put those bundles on the wagon. Am surely glad field choppers were invented cause that corn process was a lot of work.