hill drop and check row

Seen a post down below about planting corn and was there anybody but me that remembers hill dropping, check row,and drilling ?

I don't know if I've still got a roll of check row wire around here or not. It's probably rusted away by now. I got it years and years ago with a 490 Deere planter. It had the check row equipment on each side.

I remember dad talking about that. Can you explain that a little bit to refresh my memory? It didn't stick in my mind for some reason, and he is no longer alive to ask. Its times like these, that makes me miss dad. He no longer here to ask, and he was the guy I would always go to to ask untill he died.

Remember Dad doing all 3 methods back in the 1950's

Check Row used a wire stretched across the field with special stake at each end that held the wire. Wire had a joint every 38 to 40" that would trip a mechanism on the planter and drop the seed kernels in a hill. Get to end of the field, release the wire, turn around, stop and move stake and hook wire back in trip mechanism.

The purpose of this method was to make rows both vertically and horizontally across the the field so that you could cross cultivate to get weeds out between the hills.

Hill dropping was similar but no wire. There was a cam on the planter that would trip the drop mechanism but did not maintain uniform spacing from row to row.

The above methods dropped two or 3 kernels in a hill. Drilling dropped single seeds at shorter intervals across the field. End rows were usually drilled.

I never ran the planter, but did spend many summer hours on a John Deere A or B with 2 row cultivator. Cultivate 2 rows, skip two until you got across the field and then do same coming back.

I'd get across the field, look across the road at the neighbor with his 4 row and realized if I had his 4 row, when I got across the field I could be home watching TV rather being only half done and working my way back.

I think my brother still has the check wire and roll for a JD 290 planter if anyone is interested.

Yes i grew up crossing corn tht was planted with checkwire then we went to hilldrop single knocker and dropped three every 39in with John Deere 490 pulled with B farmall. Planted many acres that way from 1948 till around 65 when newer hybrids came along allowing heavier planting

I found one of those special stakes. Didn't know what it was for. My dad too, checked his corn in the 50's.

Dad was the last farmer in the neighborhood to change to drilling from checking. I do remember him getting off the tractor at every end to move and reattach the wire but I wasn't very old at the time, maybe 10 or 12. I can still hear the planter clicking every time a button went through. Jim