[[They probably wouldn’t have wasted corn like that]]
Nope, but they would have put out corn that had goen bad- with blight or whatever- plus they’d put out the corn stalks, and every imaginable food source to draw deer and game in - life was a real struggle- especially in winter- it took extreme survival skills to survive, and getting animals coming into spots was one of them
They would even bait bear with rotten food, and dead animals, etc- These folks couldn’t just go down to their grocery store and buy a neatly wrapped, neatly cut and butchered sirloin steak or chicken or whatever- When you have to survive on your own- you use whatever means you can to get food, and the least amount of effort you can get food with, the better- because there are other important things to do besides hunting food for days with no luck- farm animals needed taking care of, piles of wood needed to be collected, cut, stacked, lumber had to be cut by hand (No Lowes store to go to to buy premilled wood)
Etc Etc Etc- Life was VERY tough In those days
Been there, done that. Bringing in the firewood was one of my chores when I was a kid on the farm. We had chickens, hogs and around thirty head of cattle so feeding them was also one of our chores. I even had to take turns with my siblings emptying the overnight slop bucket in the morning for the year or two that we didn't have indoor plumbing. I was fortunate enough in my youth to live closer to nature than most Americans nowadays.