7.8o AROUND AN OLD HOMESTEAD. 



In the early days the farmers occasionally used the 

 hollow stumps of sycamores as their granaries, boards 

 being laid across the top as a covering, or roof; and 

 these hollow stumps, cut high purposely and sometimes 

 being very wide and deep, held a great deal of grain. 

 Some of these old sycamores were really giants, and 

 all generally very hollow at the base; and, when these 

 big cavernous stumps were filled to the overflowing, 

 they contained more grain than would ordinarily be 

 imagined. They served the purpose well, and were 

 very valuable adjuncts of Nature to the barn. I know 

 of one still in existence, which is now up on props and 

 is used as a corncrib. 



The raising of field corn, or the Indian maize, is 

 one of the largely followed branches of farming in the 

 South and West. Most of the work of harvesting it 

 on large tracts of land is all done now by horse-drawn 

 corn cutters. But it is a pleasure to slash away with a 

 corn knife among the rustling leaves ; and then to pile 

 your armfuls together slantingly in a shock, around a 

 "buck" made of the bent-over stems from four adjoin- 

 ing "hills;" and later to bind the tops together with 

 a twisted rope of the stalks themselves. "Corn husk- 

 ings" and "apple bees" in the old days were great occa- 

 sions, and lots of fun; and people entered into the 

 work of it willingly, and with no thought of pay, in 

 a way they would hardly do nowadays. Nowadays 

 it is generally all husked by hand in the field, with the 

 aid of a stout metal, bone, or wooden peg, bound by 

 thongs to the fingers, with which the shucks are easily 

 torn apart to the ear; or is husked, and the fodder 

 shredded at the same time, by machinery. But in an 



