Four wooden devices with metal boxes attached, all lined up in a row, hang in a museum in Hancock County, Iowa. They’re relics from the earliest days of farming.

Your challenge is to figure out what they were once used for. Occasionally, someone uses them today, but for a special reason, maybe in a research plot. For the most part, those that remain that aren’t in museums are hidden under decades of clutter in the back of barns and toolsheds yet to be cleaned out from the early days of farming.

Name what these tools were used for and send your answer, along with your name and mailing address, to [email protected], or mail to: P.O. Box 247, Franklin, IN 46137. We will pull a winner for a gift card from all the correct entries.

Popular corn picker

Now it’s time to reveal the model number of the New Idea ear corn picker pictured in the October issue of Indiana Prairie Farmer on Page 24 and online. Thanks to everyone who entered, whether you guessed correctly or not.

Some pegged it as a No. 10 model, dating to the 1950s Others thought it was even newer. According to historians, it’s a New Idea No. 7, manufactured by the New Idea Spreader Co., Coldwater, Ohio, sometime prior to World War II. A farmer in Hancock County, Iowa, bought the one-row picker featured in the article in either 1945 or 1946.

Congratulations to Tim Henslee, Indianapolis, winner of the gift card drawing for correctly identifying the No. 7 New Idea corn picker.