SD Agricultural Heritage Museum Blog

South Dakota’s pheasant hunting season runs from Oct. 15, 2022 - Jan. 31, 2023. Many people enjoy the crisp autumn days spent walking corn fields and pastures with their dogs and fellow hunters searching for pheasants. This hunting party at the Emil Francoli farm, Stratford, was from northern Wisconsin. They are showing off “…their catch to take home.”

• Throwback Thursday

Leaves or cuttings of tobacco mixed with molasses, honey or other sticky sweeteners are pressed into cakes or plugs. Stores in the 19th and early 20th centuries selling plug tobacco often would have plug cutters on their counter to chop off an amount of tobacco to sell to a customer. Tobacco companies sent plug cutters to merchants to use and as advertisement for their brand. Sorg Spear Head was a popular brand. 

This cutter is from the P. J. Sorg Tobacco Company, a division of the American Tobacco Company in Middletown, Ohio. In 1870, Robert Wilson, George Jacoby, John Auer and Paul J. Sorg founded their tobacco company. In 1877, Sorg withdrew from the company and formed The P. J. Sorg Co. After 10 years, Sorg sold his company to the Continental Tobacco Company, later known as the American Tobacco Company.

• What's New Wednesday

The Garden Prairie Band playing at an event at the 40,000-bushel Farmers Elevator. The upside-down American flag may be a statement against large privately owned elevators charging unreasonable prices. The postcard was sent to professor N. E. Hansen, Brookings, May 29, 1908. The sender of the card wrote the message in Danish, Hansen’s native language.

• Throwback Thursday

Long, broad bladed knives like this one were common implements on late 19th and early 20th century farms. Farmers used these sharp blades to cut corn stalks. Sugar cane, bamboo, and rice are also cut with this kind of knife. The farmer using this machete-like knife will swing the blade at the base of the stalk. The stalks are bundled, waiting for the cobs to be removed. The 1897 Sears, Roebuck and Company catalog sold corn knives for 22 cents each or $2.40 per dozen.

• What's New Wednesday

Marshal Reeves began his agricultural implement business in Columbus, IN. He brought his father and uncle into the business in 1875 and changed the company name to Hoosier Boy Cultivator Company. In 1879, the company name changed again to Reeves and Company. Reeves and Company now designed and manufactured threshers, straw stackers, separators, corn shellers, and clover hullers. In 1895, Reeves started to build steam traction engines.

This postcard from White, SD shows the Polzin family proudly posing with a new Reeves Compound Separator No. 2663. In the 1913 Reeves Machinery catalog, they feature the belts. The first paragraph of the separator’s description stated that “the belts on Reeves machines are the best quality of oak-tanned, non-porous leather. The belt driving the separating parts from the cylinder shaft is six inches wide. The belt driving the fan, beater, and minor parts from the other end of the cylinder shaft is five- and one-half inches wide, making a total of eleven- and one-half inches of belt to drive the separating and cleaning mechanism. This great width of belting insures a positive drive and prevents slipping and stretching occasioned using too light belts.”

• Throwback Thursday

The types of crops grown in the upper Great Plains began shifting in the early 20th century from small grain crops to row crops like corn and soybeans. With the change in crop types, farmers needed equipment that could provide the necessary tillage work. Engineers employed by tractor companies came up with the idea for motor cultivators.

• What's New Wednesday

N. E. Hansen travelled across Russia, the Near East and Asia seeking plant species that would be compatible with South Dakota’s climate and soils. He spent a lot of time exploring in the modern countries of Ukraine, Russian Siberia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan. Ever curious about the people and places he visited, Hansen sought out and met many interesting people. From this postcard image we see that Hansen (left) met with a falconer from the steppes to learn about this ancient hunting technique. The falconer is holding a juvenile Berkut Eagle. The Berkut is a subspecies of the Golden Eagle and is native to southern Russia and Central Asia. A fully grown Berkut Eagle has a wingspan of 7 to 9 feet These birds are used in falconry specifically to hunt deer and wolves.  In Central Asia, where sheep and goats are the main economy, hunters use the eagles to protect their flocks from wolf attacks. Kirghiz tribesmen use eagles to catch wolves, foxes, deer and wild goats.

• Throwback Thursday

Quilting requires lots of good light. Today, quilters work year round on their creations, but before electricity, quilting needed to be done during the spring and summer when there was a lot of sunlight.

One of the most recognizable quilt blocks is Sunbonnet Sue. Our Sunbonnet Sue is appliqued on unbleached muslin and the applique edges are with blanket stitched with yellow embroidery floss. The block measures 13” x 14 ½”.

The creator of Sunbonnet Sue is Bertha Corbett Melcher. In 1900, Bertha illustrated and published a book, Sunbonnet Babies, depicting girls with their faces hidden by large, brimmed bonnets. Ladies Art Patterns issued the first Sunbonnet Baby applique pattern in 1900. Throughout the early 20th century, other pattern companies and designers like McCall’s and Ruby McKim produced their variations of Sunbonnet Sue. Sunbonnet Sue’s popularity peaked in the 1930s. Whether you like her or hate her, Sunbonnet Sue is a quilting icon!

• What's New Wednesday

In this October 1944 photograph, Gerrick DeHaai, from Douglas County is driving a Farmall H tractor with an attached corn snapping machine. The photograph is one in a series of photos about the South Dakota and National Corn Picking Contest. Farmall H tractors are a medium sized row crop tractor. International Harvester produced the H between 1939 and 1953. The attached corn snapper removes the ears of corn from the stalk but does not remove the husk. A 1941 U.S. patent for a corn snapping machine describes how the machine operates this way, “…corn snapping machine of simple, durable and inexpensive construction in which the corn stalks both large and small, are firmly gripped between two rolls and pulled downwardly between them without breaking or crushing the stalks or pulling them up and in which the ears are prevented from entering between the rolls and, hence, are not shelled or crushed but are snapped from the stalks by snapping bars above the rolls as the stalks are drawn downwardly between the rolls.”

• Throwback Thursday

Nineteenth century laundry day was a strenuous chore. Before the scrubbing or agitating of the dirty clothes began, someone hauled water to the wash boiler, heated it on a laundry stove and then added soap. As you can imagine, water and suds slopped out of the boiler creating a mess that had to be later mopped up. For this reason, many women preferred doing laundry outdoors. One woman became fed up with the mess and invented this laundry drainer.

Made of galvanized metal, this device measures 10 inches deep and 18 inches in diameter. A patent was issued Aug. 12, 1902, to Harriet Blenkhorn of Minneapolis for this invention. Harriet had trouble with the drainer toppling over and clean laundry spilling on the floor or ground. She also did not like having her feet or floor get wet while doing laundry. In the specifications of the patent, Harriet describes her drainer, “My invention relates to improvements in drainers, especially adapted for use on domestic wash boilers for the purpose of draining the clothes saturated with hot water, thus obviating the objectionable wetting of the floor.” In addition to this she provided an improved means for supporting the drainer in an inclined position on the boiler by holding it so that the drainer did not tilt backwards or sideways under the weight of the clothes.

• What's New Wednesday