(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Illinois Stories is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the support of viewers like you.

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(upbeat music) - Hello, welcome to Illinois Stories, I'm Mark McDonald near Modesto with an agriculture collection that is second to none.

Jim Moffet has been collecting, oh, he's 92 years old now, he's been collecting these all his life, his parents, I understand were collectors and what we're gonna be focusing on first in this program, you probably never knew there were this many corn shellers in the world, but they're all right here near Modesto.

Jim, I guess a corn sheller was absolutely a necessity on a farm because that was basically, I guess, your biggest cash crop at the time and you had to make the most of it, didn't you?

- That's correct.

You're very true.

And of course, corn went to not only the hogs and the chickens, but they had to make whiskey out of the corn and they had to make.. - Gotta have the whiskey.

- I had to have corn meal.

So we have cornbread.

And so there was a lot of need for corn in various ways.

So, and as you said, there's a lot of ways to shell corn.

- We're standing Jim, in just part of your collection.

We're surrounded by corn shellers and you've gone all over the country, - That's correct.

- to find these, some of them are 200 years old.

- Yes, they are.

- Those are remarkable.

- We have the patents.

I do a lot of patent research and I have patents probably for every sheller out here, except one.

- You not only do patent research, but you've written two books about corn shellers and one of them is a patent book.

So you know what you're talking about?

(Jim chuckling) - Okay, we're gonna demonstrate some of these corn shellers and your family is here to help us do that.

- Yeah.

- But first let's look right in front of us here, because this is a fascinating development.

Okay.

You were explaining to me that there's a reason why this corncob looks the way it does.

- Yeah.

- What's that reason?

- Well, the old timers felt that the kernels that were on the middle of the ear, in other words, each one of these kernels, you see, are flat, large flat, and they felt that it produced a better stalk and as they were saving seed corn.

And so it necessitated the removal of these round kernels on this end and the round kernels on this end.

- So you'd end up with this.

That's what you would end up with.

- You ended up with that.

- And that's what this box was for.

- Well, one enterprising fellow designed this thing that they get rid of those and it was very easy for him get rid of the kernels on that end and this end.

(Mark laughing) - Yep.

It's just a hole with some nails sticking out and it rubs 'em right off, doesn't it?

- And see, you got rid of all those round kernels.

- And then you save most of what you get rid of, you save it.

- That's right.

And then he had that box full of these round kernels that he could feed the chickens with and the hogs or whatever.

- And then you use those for planting.

And then they came along and shelled these off with maybe a regular sheller, but millions of acres or bushes of corn had been shelled right there with a thumb like that.

(Mark laughing) - I'm sure.

But it can be done a lot faster.

- Oh yes.

- And what you've done is here, you've arranged part of your collection of shellers here so we can show how fast it can be done and how it's evolved through the years, right?

- Yes, you're right.

I mean, it's amazing how fast some of them could go and it's amazing how slow some of them are, but as time went on, they evolved into more and advanced shellers all the time.

- Okay, well, let's take a look.

- Okay.

- Jim, we're taking a look.

This is your, I think your son-in-law Craig.

- No, that's my son.

- Your son, Craig, I just don't know how he'd ever learned all this, but he learned it here, didn't he?

- Yes, he gid.

- What is this process called?

What's this.

- Well, we're just shelling corn and it just shows you how simple it is to build something your own, which it looks like a father and a son sheller here, and for a young boy to sit over there and shell corn, while dad was shelling corn here.

- Yeah, a smaller version.

That's the same tool or it's just a smaller version?

- It's just a smaller version.

- They do it together.

And then when dad gets busy, he can send son in to shell the corn himself.

- That's correct, yes.

- Okay.

That one's very basically and it's just manual.

Some of these are lots more intricate, there's a lot more going on.

- Let's move down the line a little and see them.

- Okay, all right.

- What's our next one?

- This is the oldest sheller that we have right here.

And it'll soon be 200 years old.

- Is that right?

- 1,824 is the patent on this.

And of course they had to have a working model long before they got the patent 'Cause he probably applied for the patent two or three years prior to this?

- Where'd you find this one?

- That came out of the Eastern part of the United States.

This was patented by a man in the State of Massachusetts and anyway.

- It's in a beautiful condition.

- Well, and apparently he was successful in both building and selling these things, because, you see several of these are known they'll still be in existence.

And it's remarkable to think that how fast this thing can shell corn.

- Maybe Craig can show us.

- Okay.

It all happens around on this side.

(corn sheller roaring) - Wow.

That's incredible.

You can't even catch that stuff.

It comes out everywhere, where would you put a bucket to catch it?

- Well, you didn't.

I think most people had to have a, we'll call it a shelling floor.

- Oh, sure.

Just sweep it up.

- And they just sweep it up when you got done, majority of them.

- Wow.

- Many of the shellers of course it'd be easy to put.. - Let's take a look at that one.

- A container underneath of that to catch the corn as it came out.

- Let's go ahead and take a look at how that one works.

'Cause that one the delivery is a little more direct, isn't it?

- Yeah.

(corn sheller roaring) - Is that called a different style?

What is that called?

- Well, that's my latest acquisition and I've never seen a sheller like that before.

And it was another collector up around Peoria owned that and after he passed on why it was sold.

- I guess some of these were just homemade weren't they?

They may not have been patented at all.

They were just homemade and they worked.

So people used them.

- Yeah, well.

- No?

- Yeah, true.

I mean like this sheller right here, this thing was made in Oden, Illinois, which is kind of southern Illinois, and so there was a need there and he manufactured a lot of those shellers.

Not all of them looked like this, but this particular sheller here is a very strange way to shell corn.

- Well, let's a look.

- There's nothing inside of this drum.

This drum is sealed, there's nothing inside of it.

And the corn and cobs are both gonna come right out of here.

And with a demonstration here.

(corn sheller roaring) - I'm having trouble figuring out what's, oh, I see, what's rubbing the corn, these fins here are rubbing the corn.

Okay.

So, nothing goes on inside there it's just.

- No, nothing goes on inside.

See this, when they made this, the bolts that hold this board on, I've been sought out so that they have spring to 'em and of course the pressure has the size of the corn in there that is pushing against you.

- Yeah.

It would just keep it tight, little.

- Keep it against the shelling ribs right there.

- Okay.

- What's our next one?

- And this has a patent date of 1834.

So it's 190 years old.

- It's almost as old as your other one over there.

- Yeah, almost as old as the other one.

And moving on in the advancement of things, the shakers are attributed to the manufacturer of this sheller.

And you could, what you bought was this piece of wood and this piece of wood with a pin in it, and you could mount it on a board or whatever you wanted to, or you could lay it on a table and shell corn with it.

And, but while we're here, I guess he'll shell.

- What is this called?

What's this type?

- Well, they're scrubber type shellers, is what we call them.

(corn sheller roaring) - It's called a scrubber.

Is that what it's called?

I can see why.

- Yeah, at least that's what I call them.

- That's not as easy 'Cause you gotta turn that thing around with your hand and you might, if you get your hands stuck in there you can lose a finger.

- Yeah.

(Jim chuckling) - I tell you that looks tough.

- Anyway, that's was progress.

I mean, that'll date 1850 to '70s, something that end era.

- Yeah, I wouldn't wanna use that one so much.

- No.

- Now, what about this one?

You load this from the top.

- This one was sold by Sears and Roebuck.

So there were undoubtedly thousands of those around at one time.

And the idea here is that you could shell corn and catch it in a catch can.

- Yeah, they give you the bucket to go with.

- Yeah.

And this is reproduced and didn't get reproduced just like it should have been.

But anyway, you put.

(corn sheller roaring) - So that doesn't catch it all, does it?

- Yeah.

- Most of it though, it catches most of it.

- Yeah.

- What are these two feeds for?

- Well, now we're gonna make chicken feed now.

So you go ahead and dump that and then you pour it in the grain grinder and we're gonna make it (indistinct).

- Oh, it grinds it finer, huh?

- Yeah, I mean that's.

- Okay.

(corn sheller roaring) I see.

Yeah, it's kind of a dusty dusty process.

Watch your fingers there, Jim.

- Oh, no, it's okay.

- I Wonder why that one is going.

- Well, it's coming there.

- Yeah, it's working.

- I mean, it's just a slow process.

- You just need to weigh it down with something, yeah.

- But the advantage here, you had to put a bone grinder on this thing and you could use your steak bones or chicken bones or whatever.

- You make me lot your bones.

- And that the calcium gave to.. - I'm gonna show the camera what we got here because you can see that it actually was working.

I don't wanna pull that out.

- No, that's okay.

- Yeah, it's making a very fine corn.

- Fine meal.

- Yeah, fine meal.

- But anyway.

- So this does three things.

- That does three things.

- Now all of this was a result of like trying to improve on the hand corn.

- Yes, certainly.

I mean, it was progress over the years and I'm amazed that some of the, like that one is 200 years old.

- Yeah.

- I mean, it was so far advanced, I mean but why didn't more people cop onto that idea?

- They couldn't afford one.

I mean you had to build it, you had wood steel involved.

I mean, if you just have a little corn, you've got some of this handheld corn.

- Yeah.

- Let's take a look at some of those.

- Okay, all right.

That's fine.

- Well, Jim, just in case anybody's wondering if you know what you're talking about.

(Jim and Mark laughing) - Yes.

- I wanna show a couple of books that you've had published.

And one of them is "the American Corn Huskers, a Patent History."

And this is interesting because in your searchings and in your findings of all these old equipment that you've got, you've really done a lot of work to find out what went into getting the original patent and that's what this book is.

And on this one, I mean, this is "the Handheld Corn Sheller."

And most of these photographs are probably from your own collection, aren't they?

- Yes, they are.

- It's amazing.

It is just amazing.

And I know it's a very small bunch of enthusiasts that would want these, but are there people that really are enthused enough to wanna pay for one of your books?

- Well, we've sold you quite a few of them a little less than a thousand, but.

- Well, that's more than I would think.

It's so specific.

There are a lot of people that go around, in fact, you probably run into 'em when you go to sales, you run into the same people trying to find the same collection.

- There's competition, isn't there?

- Very much so.

- Yeah, we're standing at this table because you got out a number of your, now you've got a huge collection inside this building.

- Yes.

- But you got out a certain number of these.

These were the hand shellers that a farmer would use before all these more bigger elaborate machines were build.

- Well, or you didn't have as need for a big quantity of high capacities shelling.

So they had this where you could shell a bush of a corn or they like to picture the grandma walking out into the chicken yard there and shelling an ear corn, two ears of corn or something like that.

And that's what these were put on the market for.

I mean, it's you had not, some of them were, but just for example, that one right there is.. - This one?

- Right there.

It pits on your thumb and you could operate this end and you can shell an ear corn with this thing.

- Craig's come to the rescue again.

He's gonna show us how one of these works.

Do you need to catch that Craig?

Or are you just gonna go ahead?

- No.

- Okay.

(corn sheller roaring) - Wow.

That's fast.

Look at it.

Well, he know is what he's doing.

(Jim chuckling) - Well.

- Well, it takes some months (indistinct).

- It'd take a couple of days, you'd know what you were doing.

- I have plenty of blisters to show for it too, but, no, that's fascinating.

So if you were just gonna do a small amount, you'd use one of these, but if you were gonna spend a day shelling corn with the harvest you'd be over sitting on one of those.

- Yeah.

- Fascinating.

- Let's see.

- You have an entire small room of these things inside and we may get a chance to see some of those, but you're also an enthusiast for apple cores and peelers.

And I wanna show some of those too.

Can we do that?

- Well, we could try.

- Okay.

Why would we have to try and not actually succeed?

- Well, sometimes things don't work like you want them to work.

(Mark laughing) - Well, they are old, right?

- Well, we're proud of our apple stuff that we have 'Cause we have a collection of apple peelers and apple related items and.. - I have seen them.

- I appreciate you.

- We're gonna show them.

- Okay.

(Jim and Mark laughing) Well, we'll maybe disappoint somebody or even you.

- Jim, if you were on the farm, there's a good chance you had access to apples at least for a few months of the year anyway, right?

- Yes.

- And then you'd try to get some dried to get you through the winter because all of a sudden produce wasn't available anymore.

So you've got a, now this is a very small part of your collection of apple peelers and cores.

But you're gonna show us how it was done.

And on this particular one, I like this because this shows how you would've sort of taken layers off the apples, thin layers, so they could be dried and get the family through the winter, right?

- That's correct.

Yes, it gets it reduced to a very small and easily driable and to get them so that they would be preserved all through the winter and get them where you want.

- Yeah.

So show us this one.

- Okay, well, this, I have a small apple here today but you put it on the fork and then you release this and bring the blade up here.

(apple peeler roaring) Anyway, that's what.

- Right down to the core.

Hold that up for us.

Yeah.

Now this, you want this thin 'Cause it's easier to dry, right?

- Right, absolutely.

And you see that there's a little bit of peeling on each side there to keep it reinforced so it'll all stay together.

And of course you would, when you ended up getting them dried you may have real small pieces, - That's brilliant.

It would dry real quick.

And then you put it in the (indistinct) or wherever and there you go.

- Yeah.

- And in February when some apple you got.

- That's correct.

- Neat.

- You're absolutely right Mark.

Yes.

- This one's ready to go.

- This one will also peel the apple and you can see the.

- That's just the skin, just the skin comes off on this one.

- Just the peeling comes off, the skin and there's an old wise tale that the women could show those behind their back.

And that would form the letter of her husband to be's name.

- Oh, is that right?

Okay, life's greatest mystery solved.

Okay.

Peeler.

- But anyway, after we peeled it, then we want to reduce it.

So.

- Wow.

So this is what you end up with pieces like this and you better catch them all because it's precious stuff, but you could see if you had a cloth or something.

- If you had a cloth, you would see it around here.

where they would've all landed.

- And then you end up with just a core and that's probably animal food, right?

Or you probably throw that out from.

- Well, yeah, the chickens would be glad to have that.

So I mean, they would anyway.

- I don't know, did we figure this one out?

- Well, we're going to come down here and we're gonna show this thing and it's not working just like it should be.

I got too big of a hurry here.

- There's the blade.

- But anyway, there's the blade and now we're gonna, well, it's not.

- That apple's pretty small.

Oh, there it goes.

Yeah, it's peeling, yeah.

- See now, but we'll watch it go through there.

Now we should have peeled apple, but we have, and we do have, but partially, but you see.

- And it's slice too and it comes right off the core.

That's brilliant.

Look at that.

comes right off the core.

- You take a knife and slice right down through here and then you have individual slices to see.

- That's neat.

- Well, if you wanna wait for me to process that?

- No, let's move on.

- Okay, all right.

- Let's look at this one here.

- Well, this of course is a slicer.

It's obvious that it is.

Then when we process apples, we took the core out of 'em and the skin out of 'em and we lay them up here and we over like that.

And so now these slices here are ready to go into the drying.

- Okay.

Again, if you're gonna dry them for the winter, that that's another way to do it.

Sometimes you had a hotel or you had an operation where they needed a lot of apples to be sliced and cut.

Like for instance, if you're gonna make a bunch of apple pies, maybe a hotel would use an upgrade like this.

- That's right.

Yes.

I mean, and 'Cause you can get a lot of mileage we'll say out of one of these, I mean you can get bushel apples processed in a short period of time and we'll kind of go slow here.

(apple peeler roaring) - Look, I forgot to put an apple on there, but you gotta go through them like this.

- Yeah.

You could go through them real quick.

And I love this look at this perfectly cored and you just chop this up or for whatever form you wanted, right?

For pies or whatever?

- Well, yes, I mean.

- Perfectly formed.

- But anyway, you were ready to quickly reduce those into and make chunks out of it.

- Take just a guess, how many apple machines do you have?

(Mark and Jim laughing) - Well, quite a few.

- Can we go take a look just for that?

- You sure can.

- Just to see the mass of what a collection you have.

- You wanna see this one?

- Well, sure, why not?

We got time.

- Okay.

All right, yeah.

This another way to reduce apples and we're gonna make apple wedges and which dried and would make good apple sauce too.

(apple peeler roaring) Then we ended up with all the wedges been but then we ended up with the core.

- Perfect.

With the core, look at that very little waste.

Look at that.

That's neat.

- But that was patent in 1856 that's pre-Civil War, so it's.

- Brilliant.

- But that's our apple machines that we have.

- Those are the ones you got out working.

- If you wanna see them on the wall, we can take a picture of that.

- Let's go take a look.

- Okay.

- Well, Jim, we're about to look at your apple peeler collection, but we see part of the outbuilding that we were standing in front of and you and your wife, Phyllis have an enormous collection of farm memorabilia, I guess, pioneer life memorality and we're gonna see some of that later on.

- Okay.

- But first let's take a look at this apple peeler collection because this probably isn't all you have either, but you have an entire wall and shelf lined with these things.

- Yeah.

And the floor.

- And the floor.

Hey, answer me a question.

What got into you to want to collect all these?

- Well, I really don't think I can honestly answer that because there was too many options that I guess you might say to go down this road or down that road.

But for some reason or the other, I was inspired by apple peelers and the ingenuity went into developing these things and so they just overtook me.

- Yeah.

(Mark chuckling) And you're still collecting, aren't you?

- Well, to a degree yes.

- You never wrote a book on apple peelers.

- Never wrote it, but I was, - There's still something to do.

- Well, I provided a lot of help.

I have over a hundred pictures in an apple peeler book that was done by a friend of ours in California.

- So we.. - You're contributing author.

- We contributed.

Yes.

- Yeah.

If you were gonna pick two or threes of these that you find particularly fascinating, we have time to show them.

- Well, this one is a kind of a unique little deal there.

I don't think we can work at all because it's too close to the wall.

But when this is a berger, this is made in Washington, Missouri, and this is a very collectible apple peeler.

And this is designed so that after you peel the apple, which there's a knife, you're gonna shove it through this segment and you'll end up with wedges like we ended up with out there.

So they're highly desirable in everybody's collection.

- I know what you mean by ingenuity.

We saw it not only in the corn peelers and cores, but also in the corn shellers.

I bet you're glad you've met Jim Moffet, in a future program, you're gonna meet his wife, Phyllis, who has been a partner with him in this collection and the rest of it, which is behind me, which we do not have time to show you during this program, but will in a future program.

With another Illinois Story near Modesto, I'm Mark McDonald.

Thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Illinois Stories is brought to you by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, Illinois Arts Council Agency, and by the supportive viewers like you.

Thank you.

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