First Iowa Husking Meets
Reeves Hall · The Palimpsest · 1943
Into the office of Henry A. Wallace, then editor of Wallaces Farmer, strolled one day in 1922 an old friend of his, Frank Faltonson, a retired farmer.Frank was "good and mad", he told the editor: he was tired of reading about big cornhusking records made each fall."Even if they are true," he told Wallace, "who knows how much corn they left behind in the field or how many husks they left on the ears?There ought to be some way to give credit for the best husking job, not just the bushels."And thus began a series of discussions which eventually led to the birth of cornhusking con tests in the Tall Corn State.Faltonson "wanted to debunk the hot stove league records."Wallace desired to give farmers the impetus to husk com faster and enjoy their work.Because both of the men knew farming, they realized that cornhusking was the most time-consuming task performed by the farmer throughout the com belt.