Farming is a way of life for many people in our area. There are untold acres in cultivation in every county around here. There are chemical dealers, seed dealers, equipment dealers and the list goes on for products associated with farming. Farming puts an astronomical amount of money into our local economy every year.
My family, my ancestors were all farmers of some description at one point in time or another. I got involved in farming myself many years ago. I went to work for a dear friend on a farm in Burke County. I spent many years on the seat of a tractor working from early in the morning until way after dark.
I think we all have some affinity for farming because we don’t have to look far to see the fields that are right out our front door. I would venture to say that we all have some folks in our family who are or have been farmers at one time. This time of year, you need only walk outside to be met with the smell of freshly dug peanuts or that lovely smell of cotton defoliant in the air.
It's the harvest season. The crops are ready to be gathered after months of growing. In the spring the land is prepared, then planted and fertilizer is spread. The crops are tended all summer. There is always something to be done during the growing season, but now, the growing season is drawing to an end. It is time to hopefully reap what has been sowed.
Farming is not only a way of life, but a labor of love. It’s not just the money invested, but the endless hours spent trying to get a crop to the point it is at now. Farming runs through the veins of so many of us, and I am certainly not an exception to that myself. I no longer farm for a cash crop, but for wildlife instead. The reward, more accurately the satisfaction that comes from working the land and then seeing your work pay off is the same.
My ancestors all farmed. They started out with a small amount of land and a sack full of determination. In fact, several of my ancestors lived above the fall line and raised children and crops. They ultimately ended up in Burke, Jenkins and Emanuel counties. They didn’t have fertilizer back then on the scale we have today, so when the land was depleted, they had to seek new ground to till. I’m here today because of their love of farming.
When they started farming, they had small tractors and small equipment, but they worked hard and in time they were able to move up in equipment size as well as acres farmed. When I started farming with my friend we had smaller equipment. We did have a six-row planter, but we used a 2-row peanut digger and 2-row peanut combines. We had a 4-row cotton picker, and I thought we were in the space-age.
This time of year after the corn had been harvested with a John Deere 6600 with a 3-row header we moved into the peanut fields. We had a John Deere 4320 with a 2-row digger attached to the back. It’s a slow go, two rows at a time. The floorplate on that 4320 would get so hot you had to prop your feet up on the hood to keep from burning the soles off your boots.
After the peanuts had dried down, we hooked up the combines. They were 2-row Lillistons, a 6000 and a 6500. It was hot, it was dusty and there were frequent breakdowns, but we kept them running until all the peanuts were in the sack. If you have never picked peanuts on an open cab tractor, you have never really lived.
The cotton harvest was usually simultaneous with picking peanuts so there was a lot going with that small equipment and very little labor. We worked hard, but it was fun and rewarding. Those were truly some of the best days of my life despite being covered in dust and grease from a day in the field.
The cotton crop was picked with a John Deere four-row picker, but there were also a couple of two-row pickers as well. Back then we still “scrapped” cotton, which means we picked it again after the initial picking had taken place. That’s when those two-row pickers would come into play.
There was a John Deere 499 low-drum and a 699 high drum that were used to scrap with. We would scrap cotton in December and January after the bulk of the crop had been taken to the gin. It gave us something to do in the dead of winter and sometimes make a few dollars. Those old two-rows did not have much in the way of heat, so you would have to wear as many clothes as you possibly could to keep from freezing to death.
Ultimately, my friend acquired all six-row equipment which made it easier to harvest, but there was only the two of us. We continued to work hard and enjoy farming as well as life itself. Being outside every day, enjoying Mother Nature and watching a crop come full circle.
I will be eternally grateful for my friend along with all the years we were given together on that farm. Being on a farm every day, you learn more about life than you do farming, it’s the best part of the deal. Harvest time calls for lots of hard work, but it’s the season when you are rewarded for that hard work. In our lives, outside of our occupation, there is much work to be done as well. At times it may seem we will never “gather a crop” or that season of harvest will never come, but it most assuredly will.
