Page 36 2025 Logan County Spring Outlook LINCOLN DAILY NEWS March 2025 HENRY FARMER BY NAME AND OCCUPATION Young Henry Farmer is a farmer both by name and by occupation. At just twelve years old, Farmer has already begun growing a corn crop of his own and started a popcorn business. Farmer’s parents started growing popcorn in a garden at their house when he was just three. When Farmer started growing popcorn, he said it was just for fun with the hopes of using it for a project when he got older and joined FFA. In the fall, Farmer provided a virtual field trip of his popcorn business on their East Ranch Acres Facebook page. To introduce himself, he said, “Hi, I’m Henry Farmer and I’m 12 years old. I’m a multi generational Farmer, both occupational and name, so I guess you could say that farming is in my blood. I grow my corn on 1/3 of an acre on my family farm. This is the same ground that my great great grandpa made his living with.” For the virtual field trip, Farmer showed everyone around the East Ranch in Beason, Illinois where his Grandma T lives. Farmer said, “this farmstead was home to my great great grandparents. It’s a warm and fuzzy feeling to be farming the same ground that 3 of my grandpas have also farmed.” Farmer said, “In May we prepared the soil for planting by disking it. First we tried to pull my dad’s John Deere JB disk with my, new to me, Allis Chalmers CA. Unfortunately, the hand clutch was slipping so we ended up using my dad’s Allis Chalmers WC to pull it.” To get ready for planting the corn, Farmer said, “We went over the soil a few different times in different directions to ensure it would be the perfect condition to plant the seeds in. We wanted to give them the best chance to grow. The rest was up to mother nature!” Soon it was planting day. Farmer said, “my dad was able to borrow a John Deere 494 planter from work and we used his WC to pull it. It was a challenge to find the correct plates for the small popcorn kernels but after trial and error at the shop my dad was able to narrow it down to B Sorghum plates.” Luckily J.O. Harris in Alexander, Illinois had some in stock. Farmer said, “the plates weren’t perfect, but they did a fine enough job. I was able to do the planting, and I learned a lot that day. It is difficult to keep straight rows without auto steer! We checked the field regularly anticipating the corn sprouting up and when it finally did, we were all pretty excited.” Though it had taken several nights to prepare the soil, Farmer said it only took one evening to plant the corn. Continued --
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MzExODA=