By CINDY LADAGE
Illinois Correspondent

DAVENPORT, Iowa — For those who know Don McKinley, it is no surprise this educator/collector/museum owner beat the bushes to create a display for the 2010 Gathering of the Green last month to tell the story of corn planting in the United States.
“It started when they wanted me to bring my George Brown corn planter to the Gathering,” he said.

McKinley hit up collectors from all over to complete this display that shows the evolution of the corn planter. “The first planting was by the Woodland Indians, with a hoe,” he said.

This crude hoe was used from around 210-272 A.D. The corn that was planted back then McKinley referred to as pod corn, an early version of the hybrid engineered corn used today.

“They can trace pod corn pollen back to 10,000 B.C., under Mexico City. We went from pod corn to Indian corn, to the corn of today,” he explained.

Next was the dibble stick. This instrument was used to dig a hole, and then the Indians would place a fish alongside a kernel of corn to serve as fertilizer. “This was quicker than the hoe and was used around 1620-1800,” McKinley said.

He moved to the introduction of the wooden corn planter, of which several different versions were made, many of which would later be owned by Deere & Co. “Everyone jumped in the game developing this,” he added.

McKinley identified a hand planter used around 1850-60 with the adaptation that gave it its name of the Trigger planter – “You pulled the trigger after putting it in the ground and it released the seed.” Another version had Emerson of the Emerson-Brantingham line as a partner; this planter was made from 1895-1909.

The Mansur-Tebbetts hand planter, which had a cylinder that pushed the corn into the ground, was circa 1890. The Acme Hand planter was an advanced version with a fertilizer attachment – this nifty planter was used during the 1930s.

The centerpiece of McKinley’s display was the item that began the hunt for corn planters, the George Brown corn planter. In 1855 Brown patented his planter in Galesburg, Ill. The heavy wooden contraption revolutionized corn planting.

Before the machine started planting, the field was cross-marked in what is now referred to as “check planting.” These rows were made by a check row field marker at 48-inch intervals. “The markers were drug across the field both ways to create the cross-check,” he explained.

Then the Brown machine would take to the fields and a young boy sitting on the planter would flip a stick every time the lines crossed, planting two rows at a time.

Rapid advancements were being made in 1889; Deere Mansur and the Deere Rotary Drop corn planter were created. “George Brown, though, sued John Deere on patent infringement,” McKinley said.
The Deere & Mansur planter did not infringe on Brown’s slide-drop version, so Deere’s production continued. The company’s planters continued and thrived, while Brown’s eventually faded away. (See Ladage’s column in this week’s issue, “Wrenching Tales,” for more details on Brown.)

It was around 1901 that John Deere developed its two-row corn planter, which had been preceded by a one row planter with a fertilizer attachment. The 999 JD planter was used from 1912-51 and the 290 JD corn planter, in 1941. A four-row planter, the JD 190, was manufactured from 1940-59, but stirred mixed reactions.
“A guy shared a story with me,” McKinley said, “that his dad used a 290 corn planter and got a new 490, but he wouldn’t use it because it was too technical.”

Big advancements were made in the 1960s and onward.  With the River Center in Davenport only being so big, the later developments were covered by photographs in McKinley’s display, and ended with 2009 and a 48-row corn planter relying on GPS.
McKinley gestured toward the picture, shaking his head and saying, “The guy with the hoe was lucky to plant an acre a day; in 2009, I heard we can plant 100 acres an hour. Is it better? You tell me.”