Lois & Clark Forums Forums Fan Fiction Fanfic Related Farming Terms

One of the fics I was reading tonight got me thinking about some of the specialized jargon that farmers, especially Kansas farmers, might use. I'm a little out of date on this--it's been 22 years since I moved east from Kansas City--but I remember a few terms that people had to explain to a city girl like me when I was out in farm country, hours away from Kansas City. For example, the first time I heard someone refer to a "honey wagon," they had to explain that it was a manure spreader. And of course everyone knows that the local "elevator" is the place you sell your grain. "Corn" is field corn, "beans" are soybeans, "hay" is usually cut and dried alfalfa, and "silage" is what you get when the cut corn stalks are put into an airtight silo to ferment for cattle feed. (If you store your corn or wheat to sell, you put it into a grain bin, which is not airtight.) Winter wheat is planted in the fall and harvested in the spring; spring wheat is planted in the spring and harvested in the summer. A section of land is a square mile, 640 acres. If someone farms a quarter-section, that is a 160-acre field. A pivot is an irrigation pivot; it turns in a circle, so a square field often contains an irrigated circle of corn and dry corners. Since the land in much of the state was originally laid out by the section (it looks like a checkerboard from overhead), it is not unusual to have someone give directions to their farm as "go north out of town for five miles, then go one mile east and then two miles north."

If you raised cattle, they would probably be beef cattle, and you would sell them by taking them to a sale barn, where they would be sold at auction.

I could start talking about food--for example, "dinner" was the meal in the middle of the day, and "supper" was in the evening--but I seem to remember a thread that already covered that topic.

If I haven't bored you already, I thought it might be interesting to have people post terms that someone like Lois might not understand, to either give an explanation of what they mean or request one. Any takers?

How about:

steer- neutered male cattle
heifer- a cow that has not given birth

Those seem dumb. Maybe I'll think of some others!

I don't know if this would be an anachronism in 1993, but nowadays some folk also raise aplacas. It does make you do a double-take the first time you see them. And Lois would probably think they were llamas. They are raised for their wool, which is extremely soft and sold to specialty textile artists to be spun into yarn for knitting.

Not specifically farming related, and Cookie will have to tell us if it applies to Kansas, but in the East where Lois hails from, Coke is a kind of soda. In the midwest it's a kind of pop. And Lois probably sits on a sofa, but some folks in the western parts of the country sit on davenports. Also, Eastern kids get lollipops but midwestern ones get suckers.

Happy, who moved from D.C. to Indiana a few years ago, and who cringes every time her kids add "at" to the end of a sentence, as in, "Where's my jacket at?"

Salt - when I was growing up in Illinois, everything had salt on it - you shook salt on melons, dipped green onions and celery in salt. You don't cook corn with salt (makes it tough), but corn on the cob is almost dipped in butter and salt.

I've never heard of a davenport, but here in Frederick, Maryland, we sit on the couch. "Sofa" is just too hoity-toity to describe such a comfortable piece of furniture.

I remember a lot of my country friends discussing the possibilities of cow tipping. Took me years to figure out that topic. :p

JD

Tractor tipping in 'Cars' is very like cow tipping .

You also can't take a cow downstairs. You can take them up but they won't come down...

Ditto the davenport - I live about 2.5 hours from my fictional Smallville... Couch or sofa... but probably couch...

My grandmother used to call it "the davenport" but that usage has faded in our family since she passed away years ago.

Now I'm guessing that 'davenport' is more a generational difference than a regional one since I heard it from my grandfather as well.

Another thing that seems odd to city slickers: in the spring we get t.v. ads for what kind of corn seed or pesticide the farmers should be choosing.