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Advice - farm field hunting

Jaichim24

Member
There's a 350 acre farm I pass on the way to and from work which I stopped by after work today. There were some hunters with geese decoy's out that morning. I talked to the owner explaining to him briefly about my hunting hobby. He gave me the thumbs up to hunt the corn fields during October. (he doesn't want me there during hunting season) The farm borders a fairly old turnpike that dates back at least to the late 1600's which connected Boston and New York. The town it resides in had it's first house built in 1707. The farm itself was purchased in the 1940's. I have yet to have success to see what if anything existed there prior to the purchase in 1940. However, since it borders an old colonial road, I'm assuming at the very least people camped out along it during their travels.

Any advice on how to hunt corn fields? My only thought would be to hunt closer to the road than farther away. I have no idea if old houses, barns, or other structures were located anywhere on the corn fields I have permission to detect. Am I on a wild good chase? (no pun intended)

Any advice on finding out more information about what might have been on it prior to 1940?

Any and all advice would be welcome. I'm going to post this on a couple forums here to try and get some feedback.

Thanks,

Jai'
 
Given the history of your region, I think you have a pretty good area with potential. I'd try to find some old maps of the area and see where structures may have stood on the land. Try searching here - http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gmdhome.html

Also searching closer to the road sounds like a good idea, I'd start there first.
 
hi jaichim. we all run into roadblocks as far as research on a spot is concerned. sure, you might have better luck searching by the road, and find more trash too. your're liable to get a lot of trash hits close to the road. that happens everywhere. just be patient and persistent. anytime i have unanswered questions concerning a potential hotspot, i simply get on it and get my coil to the soil! my machine will tell me all i need to know. it very quickly settles any questions i might have, for good or bad.
your window of opportunity is a short one; you should move quickly before the hunters get in the field and add another ton of birdshot targets. it will do you well to check the entire field if you can. it's big, 350 acres, so you might need to get a buddy or two in there with you. a good spot check in the first day or two will tell you a lot. good luck, and don't forget to cover your holes! let us know how it goes. hh,
 
It frequently helps to look for high spots in the field and start there and widen your search out from the high spot. When people camped they looked for a couple of things, ready access to water, wood, and elevation that would protect from wind and allow drainage. Also, these are frequently spots you'll find had homesites on them. Good Luck.
 
J, there's an easy means to spot a house site prior to say the 1880s and that is to find the pearlware fragments. Broken dinner plates, in other words. You're looking for the blue-rimmed or green-rimmed (feather edge) plate fragments that will date your site from the 1780s to roughly the 1880s, depending on the metal items you'll reocver.

Feather edge pearlware (or blue-rim china, as it's generally called) dates from 1780. It's like the "Tupperware" of the 18th and early 19th centuries. Everyone had it.

You can blow through a field at a fast pace looking for these fragments and not spend valuable time swinging a detector over the surface. Find the pearlware concentration and get in the middle of the iron that will be close.

Plan B is to hunt the road's edge, backing off from the road about 40 feet to avoid some "drive-by trash" (tin cans, etc) to see if you can locate an overnight spot.

Best of luck!

Richard
 
Cool, thanks for the advice. Sounds like it may save me some time if I walked the field prior to breaking out the detector.
 
Hey Jaichim, here's a picture I pulled from my book. It'll give you an idea as to what you're looking for, particularly the blue rim and green rim pearlware.

And, yes, you can blow through a field quickly to determine if a house site or structure was present.

Hope this helps. Keep us posted on how you do!

Richard
 
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