This is a re-worked version of a composition that I originally prepared in May 1992 for a class in Ozark Folklore at the University of Missouri-Rolla (now known as the Missouri University of Science & Technology).
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Before modern technology prevailed upon the world, working the farm was the focus of an Ozark family's activities and the means of their survival. My grandparents began farming in western Sainte Genevieve County after moving there in 1936. They grew grain and feed crops, raised cattle, hogs and chickens, and maintained a garden and an orchard. The methods of harvest and production that were a large part of their life on the farm are presented here, as recollected by Ruby McDowell.
Before any farming could be done, the land had to be made ready for planting. Much of the area was covered by woodlands, so the trees were cut and used for lumber and firewood, the stumps were removed with a team of mules, and the ground was plowed for planting.
One of the first crops to be sown was oats. The oat seed was usually sown in early spring around February or March along with a combination of grass seed, such as hay seed, lespedeza, and orchard grass. The oats would then be ready to harvest in May and could be cut for hay or combined and threshed like wheat. If it was combined and threshed, the straw was left in the field and the oat seed was sold for grain or feed. The grass seed that was planted with the oats would then be beginning to grow and would be ready to cut for hay in the summer and fall. The grass would continue to grow from year to year and could be cut for hay or used for pasture.
Hay would be ready to cut when the grass was tall enough and could be cut as many as three times in a good year. The grass was cut using a horse drawn mower with a long blade and scissoring teeth. The loose hay was piled on a wagon and taken to the barn, where it was hoisted into the loft using a two-claw hay hook on a pulley that was pulled up by a mule at the opposite end of the barn. The hay could also be stacked in the field. A haystack was laid out in a circle as large as needed and loose hay was thrown from the wagon onto the stack where it was distributed evenly and tromped down good and tight. When the pressure from tromping was removed, the stack would naturally adjust itself, forming a round top to shed rain. If alfalfa hay was being stacked, it had to be topped with grass hay for weather resistance. In the winter, an ax was used to chop into the side of the stack to get hay for feed. The stack was cut in the side to minimize the amount of rain that penetrated the stack.
By mid-June wheat would be ready to harvest. Many people were needed during the wheat harvest, so families in the area worked together to prepare their wheat for the threshing machine. A machine binder pulled by horses or mules would cut the wheat and bind it into bundles. Men following the binder would then bind the bundles in shocks consisting of ten to twelve bundles with a couple bent over the top to keep the rain out. The shocks were then left to dry for a couple of weeks.
The threshing machine was usually owned by one man who traveled from farm to farm when the wheat was ready. The thresher would be stationed at one end of the field, while three to four wagons worked to haul bundles to it. Each wagon had a driver to handle the team of horses or mules and two loaders to throw the bundles of wheat onto the wagon. At the thresher, bundles were thrown into a hopper at the top of the machine. The grain came out the bottom, where it was put into sacks, and the straw was discharged into a strawstack through a pipe at the top. While the men were busy bringing in the bundles and threshing the wheat, the women were busy preparing food for everyone, so that it was truly a community activity.
The harvested grain was then taken to the mill where three bushels would trade for fifty pounds of flour. The straw could be used as bedding for the animals or as filler for mattresses. Cattle could eat straw when times were hard and nothing else could be had, but the nutritional value was less than that of hay or corn.
Corn would be planted in May and was ready to harvest about October. The stalks were cut with a corn knife, stood in shocks and allowed to dry. When sufficiently dry, the ears of corn were broken off, gathered up, and taken to the corn crib for storage. The stalks were tied into bundles and stored to be used as winter feed for the cattle.
Sometimes the corn was left standing in the field. When it was good and dry, the ears of corn would be picked from the stalks, five rows at a time. One person on each side of the wagon would take two rows at a time while a third person followed the wagon and took the down-row, which was the row that was run over by the mules and wagon. The down-row was the hardest to handle because the picker had to pick from the ground and try to keep up with a wagon being pulled by tempermental mules.
Once the corn was picked, the cows could be turned into the field to feed on the stalks. The corn was taken to the corn crib for storage and would be used to feed the farm animals. The ears of corn were shucked and shelled to feed to the chickens and broken into smaller pieces to feed to the cows. When times were hard, this corn could be ground to make corn meal, but usually sweet corn from the garden was used for this purpose.
Sometimes, after the corn had come up, pumpkins were planted with the corn. They were then both ready to harvest about the same time. The pumpkins would be picked first and then the corn.
Sugar cane was planted about June and was ready to harvest in the fall just before the first frost, usually in September. A corn knife or a board was used to strip the leaves while the cane was still standing. Then it was cut with a corn knife, the seeds at the top cut off, and the stalk thrown onto the wagon. The seed could be collected for bird feed, chicken feed, next year's seed for planting, or just left on the ground.
The cane was then taken to the processing machine, which was a homemade contraption, consisting of a vertical pair of rollers that were turned through gears by a boom pole to which a mule was attached. The rollers were in contact and opposed one another in rotation. A bundle of cane stalks would be fed into the rollers, squeezing out the sweet juice into a trough that emptied into a large barrel. From the barrel, the juice was taken to be cooked into molasses, known locally as "sorghum."
The cooking setup consisted of four pans about 3 feet square arranged in succession over an air passage with a fire at one end. This arrangement allowed high heat at one end for initial cooking and the flow of heat through the air passage to the opposite end where less heat was required for final cooking. The juice was placed in the pan nearest the fire where it was allowed to cook. The pulp and other unwanted material would come to the top where it was skimmed off and discarded. When the juice was sufficiently cooked at this stage, it was allowed to flow into the next pan. Knowing when the juice was sufficiently cooked was knowledge gained from experience and careful observation of the work of others. The juice would continue in this manner until it reached the last pan. When final cooking was complete, the molasses was drawn off into buckets and later placed in jars and jugs. It could then be sold or kept and eaten with homemade biscuits or used in cooking.
The production of grain crops served as a source of income for the family, as well as, provided feed for the cattle, hogs and chickens that they raised.
Although cattle provided a significant source of income, hogs were the primary source of meat for the family through the winter. Hog butchering time came when the weather was cold, no earlier than November, but as late as January or February. The hogs to be butchered were shot, their throats were cut, and the blood allowed to drain. Two to three huge kettles of water were kept fired to have plenty of hot water on hand. Each hog was hung from a boom pole and dipped into a big barrel full of hot water to loosen the hair. When the hair was sufficiently loose, the hog was placed on a table and the hair was scraped off. The hog was then splashed off with water and hung on a beam by placing a rod through both hind legs. The entrails were removed, the insides were washed out and the carcass was left hanging and allowed to cool. Lard was scraped off the entrails and the heart, liver, and melt (i.e., the spleen) were retained to be ground for liver sausage.
Once cool, the carcass was ready to be cut up. The head and feet were cut off and used to make head cheese. To make head cheese the head was cooked until tender and the bones were removed. The feet, when cooked, produced a gel from the juices which helped to hold head cheese and liver sausage together. These juices were poured into bowls with the meat, which was seasoned with salt, pepper, and sage. The mixture was allowed to cool and set, after which it was removed from the bowls and wrapped in wax paper. The heart, liver, melt, and tongue were ground to make liver sausage or lunch meat. All the scraps and trimmings that were left over were ground into pork sausage.
After the hog had been cut up, the meat was ready to cure. The shoulders, hams, sides, and jowls (cheeks at the side of the head) were salted, put in a large box, and left for two weeks. After two weeks, the meat was taken out of the box, washed off and sprinkled with a mix of borax, red pepper, and black pepper. Then it was hung in the smokehouse, where a fire was built in a washtub. The fire was made using green hickory or oak to produce plenty of smoke. The object was plenty of smoke, not a big fire, so ashes would be put over the fire to keep it from blazing. Having the fire in a washtub made it possible to move the fire around the smokehouse, so that all the meat would be well smoked, but not burned. The fire required constant attention, but was allowed to go out at night and was restarted each morning for a week. After being smoked for a week, the meat was ready to eat. It was left hanging in the smokehouse and would keep until it was all used, which was around mid-summer.
The backbones and ribs were often salted and used while fresh. The tenderloin, ribs, sausage, and head cheese could also be canned, in order to store for an extended period. The meat was placed in mason jars with zinc lids and rubber seals and boiled for three hours to obtain a pressure seal. Canned meat would be good for about a year.
Cattle were also a good source of meat, but, unlike pork, beef could not be preserved by salting and smoking. They didn't have freezers then and there wasn't any other way to preserve the quantity of meat that was produced from a butchered beef. As a result, the cattle were usually sold instead of butchered. Some people in the area would butcher a beef, keep what they could use, and sell the rest.
In addition to being a source of meat and income, the cows produced milk from which butter and cottage cheese were also made. After the cows were milked, the cream was separated from the milk. To make butter, the cream was allowed to sour and then agitated in a churn. The agitation caused the butter to form in chunks, which were removed, washed and put into one pound molds. The liquid that was left after the chunks were removed was buttermilk, good to drink or for use in cooking. When the butter had set, it was removed from the mold and wrapped in wax paper. To make cottage cheese, the skimmed milk was allowed to sour and then heated over low heat until it separated and formed kurds. It was allowed to cool and then poured into a colander to separate the liquid part, leaving the cottage cheese.
Chickens also provided meat and a little variety to the dinner table. In contrast to both beef and pork, chickens could be killed as needed without the need for preservation. The head was chopped off and the bird was soaked in scalding water to loosen the feathers.
In addition to the meat produced by raising cattle, hogs and chickens, the family maintained a large garden in which they grew beans, sweet corn, tomatoes, cabbage, spinach, lettuce, onions, radishes, potatoes, carrots, and turnips. They also had strawberry beds and rhubarb and an orchard with apples, peaches, pears, and plums. The fruits and vegetables that they produced were often canned for later use. Turnips, apples, carrots, potatoes, and canned items were placed in the cellar for use through the winter. Wild growth also provided extras for the table. In the summer, blackberries, dewberries, and gooseberries were gathered to make pies, cobblers, and jellies. In the fall, walnuts and hickory nuts were gathered.
The farm required a lot of hard work and the effort of the entire family. But as modern technology became more accessible, self-sufficiency became less necessary. Mechanized farm machinery made it possible for fewer people to do more work with less effort and modern methods of food preservation replaced the salting and smoking processes. As a result, the old methods and practices were abandoned as the character of life in the Ozarks was influenced by the changing power of PROGRESS.
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Information for this composition was obtained through interviews with Ruby McDowell, Route 1, Bonne Terre, Sainte Genevieve County, Missouri on March 11, March 13, March 29, and April 19, 1992 with additional written information being provided on May 9, 1992.
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Original composition by Steven E. Weible
