What would have been involved in tending corn in the 17th or 18th century?

Corn in the 17th or 18th century was not corn like we have today. The corn was starchy and tough to eat on the cob. The cobs were not full rows of corn, they had poor pollination and there would be some kernels on the cob, but plenty of bare cob with no kernels.

Corn was not Genetically Modified to have the full rows of kernels and to be sweet until the University of Iowa identified the genes that made sugars and increased pollination, and genetically modified corn to what we have today. That was in the early 1900's.

Cultivating corn back then was done pretty much like a back yard gardener grows corn today. Except the farmer cultivated a lot more corn than a back yard gardener. The ground was tilled using a plow pulled by a Draft Animal such as horse or oxen. Sometimes men would pull the plow.

The corn was planted by using a planting stick. The farmer would walk in a line across the plowed earth and poke a hole in the ground with his planting stick. A seed was dropped in the hole and the hole immediately covered up by the farmers foot to prevent birds or rodents from eating the seed.

If the rains were good, the corn would get sufficient water to grow a good crop. Irrigation was not used during the 17 th and 18 th century. All farmers depended upon rain fall to water the crops.

Family members would hoe and pull weeds out of the corn field by hand. Children were considered a necessity since the more children a farmer had, the more people to help with farm chores.

Harvesting was done by hand. The corn ears were picked and put into baskets. The corn stalks were cut and made into all types of things such as matts and baskets, and even stuffed mattresses to sleep on.

The baskets of corn ears were taken to the barn or drying shed where they were "shucked" by pulling the leaves covering the ears back. The ears were then hung by the shucks on the end of the ears, to dry in the air until the kernels were hard. Once they ears were completely dried, the shucks were removed from the ears, and the ears were stored in a Corn Crib until they were needed for making Corn Meal or feeding to livestock.

In the 17 th and 18 th century, all corn was dried for storage and ground into meal or boiled when it was needed for cooking.

For one thing, you don't tend corn. Another thing is that there are different types of corn, that are grown and harvested in different ways. Sweetcorn is harvested ripe, for immediate use, while feed corn for animals and corn that is intended to be ground into cornmeal is allowed to dry on the stalk before it's picked. America, at least, many settlers adopted the Indian's method called Three-Sisters, where corn, beans, and squash were grown together in a hill. The tools are basic: a hoe for loosening the soil, and weeding.

Pull or hoe weeds.