“Two rows at a time, slow and dirty” is how Chad Coleman describes his corn harvest. He’s surrounded by crunching, brittle corn plants, dust, parts of shredded stalks and leaves, and a deafening noise ...

Harvesting corn in a $300,000, eight-row combine is a solitary, highly mechanized business. Such was not always the case. Up through the late 1930s, most corn was picked not by machine, but by hand.

The tractor coughed but didn’t catch, so the old farmer on the ground yelled up to the old farmer behind the wheel. “The black button,” Don Magee said. “You push it in.” And then it roared to life, an ...

Don Magee, who farms southeast of Lincoln, found and has restored a 1940s single-row corn picker. He tried it out in front of his neighbors Monday afternoon. Larry Gottula tries to fix a slipping belt ...