Cotton Pickers

[Doc Tinker]

Just wondering how many of you guys haved picked cotton. I've been reading A Painted House by John Grisham, a story about a seven year old kid who's parents and grandparents ran a cotton farm and that's what's gotten me to wondering about cotton picking experiences.



What's the toughest farm operation?



Doc

 

[LarryB]

I picked olives once, does that count?



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[Jumbo Jet]

When I was a small lad, I picked cotton using a burlap sack. My two older sisters also used a burlap sack. My youngest sister used a pillow case. Mom and Dad used a regular sack. I was about 7 then.



Worst thing I ever did was cut grapes in August. Hot, dry, dusty, and waspy.



Picking strawberries ranks a close second - except you could eat a few.



I grew up on a farm with 6,000 peach trees. Started picking in late May and finished by mid-September. Mostly I got to drive the tractor and truck. Learned to drive a 3 on the tree 1961 Dodge pickup when I was 11.



Drove my first tractor (B Allis Chalmers) when I was 6. I have my grandfather's 1946 B Allis Chalmers today.



I sure miss the good old days!!!!

 

[B.G. Smith]

Cotton pickin

Picked my share of cotton. Was raised on a farm in Oklahoma. I think the worst job I ever did on a farm was cutting broom corn. It was harvested in August and it ate you up. Bailing and hauling hay would probably come in second. I think that looking back and seeing the cotton sack hanging on the fence at the end of the row made a helluva mechanic out of me. bg

 

[Okie-Go]

I also grew up on a ranch in Oklahoma. I never picked cotton but I think I hauled enough hay to fill up the astrodome. Digging potatoes and building fence would come in a close second I guess.

 

[illflem]

Larry, I was also an olive picker growing up 30 miles from the olive capitol of the world, Linsey Calif. They even gave us a week off from school for olive harvest. My folks had 40 acres of the damn things, sure was glad when a shaker was developed for olives. I still won't eat them though.

 

[Briar Hopper]

They now have combines that harvest the cotton, just like corn. However, I did try it during a school 4H field trip in Alabama. It was not a pleasant experience. Too young and city-pampered, at the time, to have tough enough hands to stand up to that. I enjoyed the sun, though, always have.

In later years, I helped on my uncle's tobacco farm in Kentucky, cutting and spiking it, hanging it in the barn to dry, three levels high, and stripping the leaves to bale them, after it dried. Very labor intensive, but somehow, just not as awful as cotton pickin' .

This was my mom's only brother, and he worked all the time, so the only way I could be with him was to get out there and work with him. It was very rewarding.

 

[Don M]

Family grew cotton when I was a kiddo. We picked our share. The burlap sacks brought up memories. I remember them being about 10 feet long.

I did the tractor thing too as a boy, but it was a farm-all. Propane powered jobbie. It is still alive in Oklahoma and is used all the time. The steering rod went right the center of the tank. Strange design. 42 year model I believe.

Got away from the agricultural lifestyle as fast as I could to avoid going broke. Family farm is still alive but is leased to a friend.



Cows, cotton and feed corn was our deal. A bit of maze too.



Don~

 

[Lurch]

Detasseling corn is pretty miserable too. That and bailing hay was how I spent my summers.



Lurch

 

[GSchlegel]

I'll agree with bal'in hay. We had a small farm and used an AC model C and a WD (not WD45). We first used a GMC 3/4 ton stake bed to haul hay and later got a hay rack. Never had an elevator to load the hay loft, by the time I was a teenager I got the job of throwing the bales up to the loft. hoped whoever was at the opening would catch it, otherwise duck and run! The last 10 or so were the hardest, tired and further to throw.



Brings back old memories. Too bad I live in town now and my boys won't have these kinds of experiances.



Gene

 

[The Sequel]

Shoveling the grain out of a flat bottom metal grain bin during a hot Kansas summer was the worst farm job I ever had. Between the stifling heat and hard work, you almost didn't notice the incredible itching and the fact that the wheat dust caused lung problems.

 

[CTabor]

Just for yall's records a combine harvests grain or it can harvest peanuts same name diffrent machines. Cotton is either stripped or picked. A stripper is a very simple machine that strips the cotton plant of everthing leaves, cotton, burrs and all. Price range for a new cotton stripper 4 row about 120,000 thousand. A cotton picker is a very complex machine that when it picks the cotton it only takes the lint from the burr' seed and lint is all you take to the gin. price for a new cotton picker is around 280,000 thousand.

 

[DRR-24V]

Little Okies All Pick Cotton !

I also read the book and loved it. I agree picking Cotton and Potatoes rates right up there with a circumcision on an adult.

 

[Bill Stockard]

Hey Doc,



What a coincidence--my wife is reading the book too. She read the new daughter in law visit/out house/s--t snake episode to me for a good laugh.



I have to agree with an earlier post. Shoveling out grain bins in the hot Texas summer and spraying them down for the new wheat crop is the worst job on the farm--sweltering heat in those metal bins and coughed up grain dust for a week afterward. I worked on a farm during my college years.



My father picked cotton when he was a kid and swore if he ever had a farm there would NEVER be a stalk of cotton on it--even in the flower bed. He bought a 210 acre farm when he was 45 years old and kept his word!!



CTabor

Yep, being from Winters, TX, you would know all about cotton strippers and cotton pickers!! Good explanation!!! I went to work for International Harvester Company as a Farm Equipment Sales Trainee in 1966 and the first thing I had to do was setup 2 cotton strippers with overhead baskets on tractors for a farm show in Lubbock, Texas. Sure glad I was a country boy with a little kowledge of equipment!!



Bill

 

[Jff24Gordn]

Tom, his barn was only 3 tiers tall? Thats kind of short. You outa try the top of my 6 tier barn. Its alot better than the bottom. *cough* *choke* *i cant see too much dust in my eye*

 

[rrausch]

Planting strawberry plants with my uncle Albert who lived across the road from our farm was my first paid job. I was 5 years old, and couldn't believe my good fortune--I got PAID 25 cents for the morning and 25 cents for the afternoon! He used the shovel and I put the plants into the ground, then his big foot mashed the ground back around the plant. I'm 54 and I still remember that big black boot coming down next to my hand time after time.



Bucking hay in July is the dirtiest and dustiest job I ever did.



Nastiest job was my first week in the Army, at Fort Leonard Wood. Big fat corporal comes through the barracks and grabs me... takes me out to the back of the kitchen and stops next to 3 BIG garbage cans full of slop. Corporal points to the 3 garbage cans and says... "That there slop goes to the General's hogs... General's hogs don't like Cigarette butts... Take off your shirt and stick your arms in there and fish out all the cigarette butts!"

I did it.

 

[Skydiver]

Yes

Once in 1971 I picked cotton for 4 hours. I was 11 years old. I have never in my life seen someones hands so dried out and cracked open as the old man that owned the cotton field. Yes he had the hired help but he did most of the picking.

Talk about miserable try picking okra in 90 degree heat with 90% humidity,that job will make your skin feel like it is on fire.....

I don't miss the good ol days at all.

Tim

 

[Bill Lins]

Originally posted by Bill Stockard

the first thing I had to do was setup 2 cotton strippers with overhead baskets on tractors

Bill- Are you talking about those Farmalls that had a basket on top of a 3-wheeled tractor turned backward? While flight training in the RGV in '70 I saw a lot of those laying on their sides @ intersections- a bit top-heavy, what?

 

[CTabor]

I rember one Christmas eve we came in from the field,stripping cotton 32 foot cotton trailer in tow. Opened Christmas presents and then it was on to the gin with the trailer. I still love everything to do with farming and cotton. And yes I have picked it by hand and I still love it.