ch pollinated the corn ... then would get right into the ear of
the corn and go right down into the shuckings."[33] Against these pests,
and the inevitable destruction of wildlife, weather, and weeds, the
farmer had to maintain an eternal vigilance. Much of the growing season
was spent in monitoring these destructive forces.

The benefits of this watchfulness became apparent with the harvest. As
mentioned above, wheat was the earliest crop reaped but the major
harvesting was done early in September. Corn was cut and shocked at this
time, and the large task of filling the silo was undertaken. To do this
stalks and leaves of the corn were chopped by an ensilage cutter. Like
the thresher, this machine was generally owned by an outside agent; it
travelled from farm to farm to process each farmer's fodder. The early
cutters were powered by steam, but like numerous other farm instruments,
gasoline-driven equipment was developed during World War I. On a large
farm up to twenty men were needed to keep a threshing machine or
ensilage cutter going. Bundles of corn were chopped by the machine and
then conveyed to a fan which blew the ensilage through a pipe into the
silo. There one to four men tamped it down and guided the nozzle on the
blower pipe to insure even distribution. It was dirty work, the corn
stalks oozing juice and sticking as tenaciously as burrs to the clothes,
hands and hair of those working in the silo. A small landowner might
complete the silo filling process in a day, but for large farms it often
took the better part of a week.[34]

Just as the spring brought forth a burgeoning activity, so did things
happen with a rush in the fall. Haying was done just before the corn
harvest, in the hot, late summer days which would cure the new-mown
grass in the field. To cut the hay the county's farmers often used a
one- or two-horse rake with a single attachment to raise or lower the
rake's teeth when passing over a meadow. The dried hay, with its almost
overpoweringly sweet smell, was lifted by forks into a wagon, tramped
down, then transported to fill bursting barns. The least mechanized
farms forked the hay into the lofts by hand but later barns were
equipped with a mechanical fork for lifting the hay. Haying had to be
done at precisely the right time or the grass would not cure properly
and the hay would spoil. The combination of heat, hard, backbreaking
work, and the necessity for hurry made haying a particularly fatig