mestell
Colonel
- Joined
- Feb 12, 2008
- Messages
- 8,117
It might be a little out of season for this, but I have been "planting corn" on my 4' x 8' diorama table for the past two days. My inspiration has been the "Miller's Cornfield" diorama (made by Ken Osen for W. Britain) that was on display at the Wisconsin Veteran's Museum on Saturday 9/15 and also a similar one on display in the W. Britian room at the Chicago OTSN show this past weekend.
Interestingly, today when us TS collectors decide to make a diorama most of us create a scene using ideas and mental images that are familiar to us. Take a cornfield for example. The first thought perhaps would be to create a field of corn in tightly packed rows. After all this is a common sight that we see quite often. How many of us would even think that agriculture practices have changed considerably since the time period we were trying to create. In talking to Ken Osen about his cornfield layout and the placement of the cornstalks, and also doing a little on-line research myself, I have learned that there is a big difference in the cornfields of the 18th and early to mid 19th centuries than the cornfields we are used to seeing today. At the time of the Civil War a very common agriculture practice for growing corn was to palce it in mounds. Mounds were placed about 4 feet apart in straight rows. In alternating rows, the "corn mound" was staggered so that it would be in between the previous row's corn mounds parallel to it. Several kernals of corn were placed in each mound and would be thinned down to 3 to 4 stalks after germination. Also, another common practice was to grow beans and squash with each mound of corn. The agricultural term "three sisters" refers to the growing of corn, beans, and squash together. What a great use of land . . . beans used the cornstalks as a trellis and the corn and squash/pumpkins shared the same harvest season. One must also understand that the use of herbicides was unknown back in the "old days" so there would be plenty of evidence of wild grasses and weeds growing between the rows. This method of planting corn aloud the farmer to freely move about his crop easily while tending to it by hand and harvesting his produce. It would not have been all that difficult for a Brigade of ACW soldiers to move through a cornfield planted thusly. I would think as tighly as corn is planted today that it would be extremely difficult to do the same.
In any event I decided to remove the cornstalks from all my W. Britain 18th-20th century corn row sets (#17614) off their bases and individually pin each stalk to my playtable/diorama. This took a little bit of time since there were 179 cornstalks which I placed one-at-a-time in clumps of three and four. I ended up placing the "corn mounds" at about 5 feet apart in scale instead of 4 feet apart in order to accomodate the bases of any figure used within the corn. I feel that the resulting cornfiled is much better than what I had originally (stalks mounted on thier bases). Without the bases, the corn stalks certainly look more natural and I can now easily place my figures within the corn rows and between the corn mounds.
Here are a couple of photos of the finished project. The WB 6th Wisconsin has come through the cornfield and is now in a firing position opposing the FL 13th Alabama (first photo) while the WB 2nd Wisconsin is still moving through the cornfield to take up a supporting position on the 6th's left flank while the FL 55th North Carolina is advancing to support the 13th Alabama (second photo).
:smile2: Mike
Interestingly, today when us TS collectors decide to make a diorama most of us create a scene using ideas and mental images that are familiar to us. Take a cornfield for example. The first thought perhaps would be to create a field of corn in tightly packed rows. After all this is a common sight that we see quite often. How many of us would even think that agriculture practices have changed considerably since the time period we were trying to create. In talking to Ken Osen about his cornfield layout and the placement of the cornstalks, and also doing a little on-line research myself, I have learned that there is a big difference in the cornfields of the 18th and early to mid 19th centuries than the cornfields we are used to seeing today. At the time of the Civil War a very common agriculture practice for growing corn was to palce it in mounds. Mounds were placed about 4 feet apart in straight rows. In alternating rows, the "corn mound" was staggered so that it would be in between the previous row's corn mounds parallel to it. Several kernals of corn were placed in each mound and would be thinned down to 3 to 4 stalks after germination. Also, another common practice was to grow beans and squash with each mound of corn. The agricultural term "three sisters" refers to the growing of corn, beans, and squash together. What a great use of land . . . beans used the cornstalks as a trellis and the corn and squash/pumpkins shared the same harvest season. One must also understand that the use of herbicides was unknown back in the "old days" so there would be plenty of evidence of wild grasses and weeds growing between the rows. This method of planting corn aloud the farmer to freely move about his crop easily while tending to it by hand and harvesting his produce. It would not have been all that difficult for a Brigade of ACW soldiers to move through a cornfield planted thusly. I would think as tighly as corn is planted today that it would be extremely difficult to do the same.
In any event I decided to remove the cornstalks from all my W. Britain 18th-20th century corn row sets (#17614) off their bases and individually pin each stalk to my playtable/diorama. This took a little bit of time since there were 179 cornstalks which I placed one-at-a-time in clumps of three and four. I ended up placing the "corn mounds" at about 5 feet apart in scale instead of 4 feet apart in order to accomodate the bases of any figure used within the corn. I feel that the resulting cornfiled is much better than what I had originally (stalks mounted on thier bases). Without the bases, the corn stalks certainly look more natural and I can now easily place my figures within the corn rows and between the corn mounds.
Here are a couple of photos of the finished project. The WB 6th Wisconsin has come through the cornfield and is now in a firing position opposing the FL 13th Alabama (first photo) while the WB 2nd Wisconsin is still moving through the cornfield to take up a supporting position on the 6th's left flank while the FL 55th North Carolina is advancing to support the 13th Alabama (second photo).
:smile2: Mike
