By Dorothy Heller
Clay Town Historian
Looking across the road from my house at the fields of corn brought back memories of stories told to me by my grandmother and her older sisters when we visited them in my childhood. Add to this the stories of descendants of farmers here in Clay. Although my ancestors were from Lake Winola, Pennsylvania, the memories from there and Clay sounded alike. Farming was their life — earning money, feeding the family and socializing. It was simple but hard!
Everyone whom I have talked to agreed that in the 1920s and ‘30s, their parents, relatives and neighbors used horses exclusively for all the farm work, no tractors. It was a slow and leisurely lifestyle. Plowing with horses brought one in close contact with the soil (good earth) where riding on a tractor didn’t. One type of plow was an Oliver walking plow, with the ends of the reins tied behind your back so the hands could be free to guide the plow. You would touch the reins to guide the horse right or left. A more recent development was the sulky plow. It had two wheels and a seat to sit on. Sometimes the farmer would have to walk behind to keep watch on the turning soil or even stand on the crossbar to keep the plow in the ground in hard soil. (Examples of these plows are on display at the Clay Historic Park either outside or inside the barn.)
Haying took the whole summer in those days. Only one section at a time was cut and left to dry in the swath and then raked with a dump rake into windrows. Then it was “cocked” by hand with a fork into haycocks. These were pitched into a wagon with a fork and taken to the barn, where a pulley system transferred them to the hayloft. A second raking was done to pick up the droppings. These were called “rakins.” This was a boring job, riding behind the horse pulling the rake. He could do it without commands.
Grains, oats and wheat were cut with a “reaper and binder.” When it failed, the bundles had to be tied by hand. They were gathered and put into shocks by hand. When threshing time came, a threshing machine would go from farm to farm, as it was too expensive for one farmer to purchase his own.
Corn harvesting and silo filling required much more manpower. The bundles of corn had to be picked up off the ground and handed to the man (or men) in the wagon. The corn was cut with a corn harvester — one row at a time, which dropped it in tied bundles on the ground. If it was a wet, rainy fall, the corn was cut by hand using a sickle-like corn knife. These wet bundles had to be fed by hand into the cutting box, chopped and blown up the pipe in the silo.
All those who told me stories agreed on an important aspect of that era: It was the fellowship of neighbors helping each other, which they called “exchanging work.” An important part of this experience was the mealtime shared by around a dozen men. It was prepared by the wives every day of the job, which could be two or three or more days. Everything came from the farm and the garden. Huge amounts of potatoes, meat, vegetables and pies were prepared. Of course, before the men sat down, they scrubbed at the back door where washbasins, soap and pails of warm water were waiting.
This is what many call “the good old days.” Neighbors worked together to complete a project. It was a sense of great accomplishment to see the job completed. A survey done in 1917 states that there were 5,770 farmers in Onondaga County farming exactly like this.
