A pair of horses recently towed an antique piece of farm equipment through a cornfield in Kresgeville.

In their wake, columns of cornstalks fell to the ground, already bound together and tied with twine.

The equipment — a 2-horse drawn corn binder — is decades old, and members of the Pocono Old Tyme Farm Equipment Association decided to hold a demonstration so folks could get a taste of what farming was like in the past.

The binder was invented to eliminate the need to cut by hand. It slices stalks at the base, then binds them together with twine. From there, it drops the bundle — or corn shock — so it can be brought back to the barn for processing.

“This is an old piece that we acquired. My uncle bought this. He painted it up, and it sat out as a lawn ornament for years,” Roger Heckman, association vice president, said. “Some people like farm art. Then he donated it to our tractor club, or Pocono Old Tyme, as it’s better known.”

The corn binder didn’t work until recently.

“A few years ago, we had it out but we couldn’t get it to tie,” explained Dennis Borger, association president. “We took it to an Amish repair shop last spring and they did some repairs.”

Once it was in working condition, the association wanted to show it to the public.

“To make it more authentic, we have a member who has a team of horses. He brought his horses out and pulled it,” Borger said.

The horses, named Jerry and Dick, are owned by member Rocky Meckes.

“The ride was great. The horses did well, and everything seemed to work well. The binder worked exceptionally well,” Meckes said.

“This is our norm. We are strictly in farm agriculture. This whole area is our heritage, this is our love. The old equipment, the old tractors, but we don’t get to play much with the attachments. Today we are,” Heckman said.

While corn binders aren’t typically used in modern farming operations, Borger said that the Amish often rely on them.

Members said that on larger farms, combines are used to select and shell corn in one pass. By the time the corn comes out of the machine, all that’s left are the kernels. The corn tastes different when using the horse-drawn tractor method compared to picking it today.

The demonstration was held on the Kuehner farm.

“My dad farms it every year, and we’ve never had horses here before. We’ve always just done crops, never had any livestock,” Nicole Kuehner explained. “This is our first time having a horse-drawn anything on this property. We were so excited and thrilled when they needed a demonstration place, so my parents, with open arms, were like, yeah, please, please come here.”

“This is the first time in a long time that we’ve had a demonstration,” Borger noted. “We still have a grain binder, which takes grain off in the field, whether it be wheat or rye or oats. We would run it on a yearly basis but it just kind of pushed to the wayside.”

The association has the red barn museum at the West End Fair. Each year, the group holds a consignment sale.

Jill Whalen contributed to this report.