Fall Harvest Archives | The Saturday Evening Post

It’s time to gather the bounty from the fields and orchards! This gallery kindles memories of the bounty of autumn.

Corn Harvest

Mead Schaeffer

October 9, 1948

Iowa
This Mead Schaeffer cover shows corn being picked by the “bang-board” method, which allowed a man to throw ears into the wagon without looking, because they would bang against a high board at the far side of the wagon and drop in. By 1948, most big farms used mechanical corn pickers, including the Lawton, Iowa, farm of Louis Peterson, the setting of this picture. The mechanical picker had already been used on much of the field, as the rows of stubble indicate, but the day Schaeffer was there, the machine was busy elsewhere. Farmer Peterson needed a little corn for his hogs. He got it the bang-board way—and Schaeffer got this cover.

Apple Picking Time

John Falter

September 27, 1947

Bring Home Pumpkins

John Falter

November 1, 1952

Peach picking

H. Lyman Sayen

July 14, 1906

Wheat Harvest

Mead Schaeffer

August 12, 1950

This cover coincided with the wheat harvest in the famous North Dakota-Minnesota Red River Valley. Usually the Red River Valley “run” was well under way around mid-August. Mead Schaeffer, conditioned to small patches of Eastern wheat, was amazed by the endless golden seas of Midwestern grain. One day, in the fields, Schaeffer wondered where everybody’s lunch was coming from, and an airplane appeared, bringing same.