The workers throw the corn over their shoulders into a wagon
driven by a boy, who follows them in their slow progress, and it is then
hauled away to the cribs. When a field has been picked, the cattle are
turned in and all winter they nibble at the dry corn blades and tramp the
stalks into the ground. All day long on the wide western prairies when the
gray fall days have come, you may see the men and the horses working their
way slowly through the fields. Like tiny insects they crawl across the
immense landscapes. After them in the late fall and in the winter when the
prairies are covered with snow, come the cattle. They are brought from the
far West in cattle cars and after they have nibbled the corn blades all
day, are taken to barns and stuffed to bursting with corn. When they are
fat they are sent to the great killing-pens in Chicago, the giant city of
the prairies. In the still fall nights, as you stand on prairie roads or in
the barnyard back of one of the farm houses, you may hear the rustling of
the dry corn blades and then the crash of the heavy bodies of the beasts
going forward as they nibble and trample the corn.
In earlier days the method of corn harvesting was different. There was
poetry in the operation then as there is now, but it was set to another
rhythm. When the corn was ripe men went into the fields with heavy corn
knives and cut the stalks of corn close to the ground.
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