plantingcorn

This picture makes me feel how weak we have become as individuals compared to men like this.

I agree.

Reminds me of my own childhood growing up in Maine.

piękne zdjęcie ! dziś przypomina przeszłóść

Except that the tractor is pulling a set of harrows, not a drilling machine. Preparation for planting corn perhaps?

Yup, harrowing to prepare the ground and the planter is way at the upper end of the field [based on an earlier photo].

the implement being pulled is a "disc" or "disc harrow" or "disc cultivator" depending on what part of the country you are from. www.everythingattachments.com/tractor-field-garden-disc-h... A "drill" is used to plant small grain crops in very narrow rows, 3 or 4 inches. Planting corn requires a "corn planter" www.binkleyhurst.com/Sales/kinze_page.htm which is also used to plant soy beans. Currently common planting spacing is corn planted in 30 inch rows and soybeans in 15 inch rows. I was a farm boy from 1950 to 1965 and operated this type of machinery.

So what work is the horse and buggy doing, when the tractor seems to be making such good progress in the field?

I think the tractor is actually plowing or tilling up the earth. The horse is pulling a seeding machine to drop corn into the rows just tilled. At least that is the way I see if when I enlarge the photo.

Those are mules, I think, based on their ears, and the fact that lots of mules were used in this part of the country.

These comments are so funny; really illustrates the difference between the times!

Looks like a sizeable river for the area -- I'd guess the Holston, maybe the French Broad. With all the TVA work in east Tennessee since 1940, there's a good chance this farm is at the bottom of a lake today.