| Show Mechanical Picker Dooms Husking Bee To Romantic Past AUDUBON IOWA lOW The The A.-The The familiar thud of corn against the wagon bang boards is being relegated to the ro ro- romantic romantic romantic mantic past on Iowa farmlands as the machine age muscles in on old- old fashioned corn husking bee and corn husking contests Romanticists notwithstanding man cant can't compete with the ma ma- machine machine machine chine when it comes to picking corn com and as a result those popular pas pas- pastimes pastimes pastimes times of the past are being dis dis- carded A two-row two corn picker can har har- harvest harvest harvest vest to bushels a day while a aman aman aman man working alone can pick only 80 to bushels Mechanical corn pickers are becoming increasingly available to do the harvesting job in inthe inthe inthe the tall corn state The number of machines has tri tri- tripled tripled tripled pled since 1939 when there were mechanical corn com pickers to harvest nine million acres of corn Now it is estimated there are more than pickers an average of one machine for every acres of corn Despite the invasion of mechanical cal pickers Elmer G. G Carlson king of the nations nation's corn huskers buskers in 1935 and now owner of a hybrid seed corn company here doesn't believe the corn husking contest is gone forever Corn husking is a farm sport and mechanical pickers do not detract from the of the time old-time contests Carlson contends He believes husking contests would be as popular as ever His brother Varl Van whom he dethroned as national champion agrees that the national contests should be re re- But even the former national champions have given way to the machine age Both use nse me me- mechanical mechanical mechanical pickers in their own cornfields 1 |
