First 8-Row Corn Planter

First 8-Row Corn Planter PLANTERS Planters 16-1-18 In the mid-1950's, Earl Schwarm, who fanned near Loogootee, Ill., got tired of waiting for a machinery company to come up with an 8-row corn planter so he went ahead and built his own. It worked so well, he used it right into the mid-60's. To build it Schwarm attached four 2-row Deere planters to the front of a front-mounted "pusher" toolbar. To lift the planters, he built a "bridge" over them and used pulleys and cables to raise them up. One control raised them all at once. One observer said, "When he got to the end of a field, an awful lot happened but it all worked fine."

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