This always bugged me since I am not farmer. Travis is plowing between the furrows of an already planted and growing corn patch when Old Yeller first shows up. Was that a common practice back then? We've always grown corn in our back yard garden
and only tended to it to water and pull weeds. Didn't plow (rotor till) til next planting season.
Maybe they were getting ready to plant beans between the corn rows. Apparently the bean vines will climb the corn stalks.
shareHe was tilling the crop to kill weeds between the rows and to loosen the soil so it would absorb moisture. This was done until the corn got high enough to shade out the weeds. Then the crop was said to be laid by as there was nothing more to be done until harvest.
shareThank you mommamitchell, I like it when someone shows up who actually knows what was going on.
shareHaving grown up on a farm in the 1960s I saw that done every year when plants got up a few inches in height. Cultivators/tillers for middle of the rows and laborers to chop weeds from between the plants.
BTW there was no minimum wage for farm labor until the late 1960s. When it started the wage was $1.00 per hour with it going up 15 cents/hour annually until top wage of $1.60 was reached. Min. wage didn't apply to family laborers.
Until this workers got some set daily wage for their labor.