Way back when I was a kid working for Lee Roy Hays, I did whatever he wanted me to do around the farm. Might be chopping weeds, hauling hay, pulling pumps, helping with cattle or driving tractor. I done it all. I could run a breaking plow, cultivator, bailer, pull a disc or run a cotton picker or combine.
But I’ll never forget the first time that he wanted me to make rows. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to make em straight. He said “ahh you can do it, you can do anything else around here and you can make rows too.” No GPS, no markers, just make a pass then run back in the furrow to stay straight.
So he set out to get me started.
We hooked up the Oliver 1850 to the 6 row lister and went to the field. The rows I was fixing to make were just shy of ½ mile, kinda long for this country, most are about ¼ mile.
I was told to line up a fence post at the end of the field and then to find something way off out in the pasture and line em up like a rifle sight and drive straight with both marks lined up and when I got to the other end they should be straight as an arrow. Then turn around and run back two rows and stay in the furrow making 4 rows at a time. Easy peasy… and he left.
Whelp, I lined me up a fence post and waaay off down there halfway to Mexico, and I found me a dark stump that stood out and I lined up, let er down and dumped the clutch and hit the throttle. I remember him telling me “don’t look back till you get to the other end or you’ll lose your marks and make a bobble.” So I didn’t.
Well I get to the other end and I’m feeling pretty good about how it all went until I turn and look back… my stomach did a flip when I saw the biggest curve you ever saw! It almost looked like I was making ‘em for one of them circle sprinklers like they have in some places (not quite that bad but it seemed like it).
So I drive all the way to the other end and find Lee Roy. I tell him I think it would be best if I knock em down and start over. He says “oh they’ll be good enough just go make em ain’t nobody gonna see em way down here anyway.
So I went to work. “Cotton don’t care if it grows on a crooked row or a straight one.”
Well I figured out what happened… way off down there in no mans land what I thought was a stump was actually a cow. Yep she was just a grazing across the pasture and I was just a following her along. Made the nicest curve in them rows you ever did see.
Lee Roy later came and looked at them and said “you know you can get more plants on a crooked row than a straight one… but I ain’t ever had point rows on this farm before.” He laughed at me and ribbed me a good while over that.
From then on I got me some milk jugs and stepped it off from the fence row. After that there weren’t many people could make rows as straight as I could… I doubt if anyone could make em any crookeder than I did that first go around either.
Sometimes you gotta learn the hard way, but we never stop learning.
