Farm Families and Change in 20th-Century America

Mark Friedberger

• Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780813186115
• Topic: Politica e relazioni internazionali
• Subtopic: Politica pubblica a livello agricolo

The farm family is a unique institution, perhaps the last remnant, in an increasingly complex world, of a simpler social order in which economic and domestic activities were inextricably bound together. In the past few years, however, American agriculture has suffered huge losses, and family farmers have seen their way of life threatened by economic forces beyond their control. At a time when agriculture is at a crossroads, this study provides a needed historical perspective on the problems family farmers have faced since the turn of the century.

For analysis Mark Friedberger has chosen two areas where agriculture retains major importance in the local economy—Iowa and California's Central Valley. Within these two geographic areas he examines farm families with regard to their farming methods, land tenure, inheritance practices, use of credit, and community relations. These aspects are then compared to assess change in rural society and to discern trends in the future of family farming.

Despite the shocks endured by family farmers at various times in this century, Friedberger finds that some families have remained remarkably resilient. These families evinced a strong commitment to their way of life. They sought to own their land; they maintained inheritance from one generation to the next; they were generally conservative in using credit; and they preferred to diversify their enterprises. These practices served them well in good times and in bad.

Innovative in its use of a combination of documentary sources, quantitative methods, and direct observation, this study makes an important contribution to the history of American agriculture and of American society.

Corn-Belt Farming

Changes in land tenure, inheritance, and credit mechanisms—subjects to which I will turn shortly—make little impact on the casual observer of agriculture. On the other hand, the abandonment of farmsteads, the introduction of Harvestore silos, the use of huge fourwheel-drive tractors, the wholesale leveling of the land, and vast irrigation projects could not fail to leave some sort of impression that agriculture had indeed changed over the past eighty years. Unquestionably, technological and scientific innovations have altered the way the corn-belt farmer goes about the business of growing crops and raising livestock.

The middle of the eighties finds agriculture in its worst crisis since the thirties. Many of the components of that crisis are due to the very success of farmers at producing basic commodities such as corn, cotton, soybeans, and milk in such abundance that they cannot obtain a fair return. One of the ironies of this success, made possible by highly scientific agriculture, is that it has come at great cost. At the social and cultural level, millions of families have left the land. In the long term, many probably secured better lives for themselves and their families, but certainly many others did not. Modern agricultural production methods, particularly such basic innovations as the application of chemicals and insecticides and the use of irrigation have done much to harm the environment. It would be ridiculous to suggest that the thousands of innovations that have become part of the daily round of farming should be eliminated and the clock turned back. At the same time, it is worth making the point that the present infatuation with technology has its drawbacks. In the corn belt, the overuse of chemicals on the land has polluted the groundwater, and some wells are now unsafe to use. Obviously, at a time when many are calling for a reappraisal of agricultural organization, it is worthwhile to explore how farming evolved from its frugal past to its present condition. First, let us look at the corn belt before the start of the agricultural revolution that began in the forties.

Classic Corn-Belt Agriculture

The genius of the typical corn-belt farm of seventy years ago was the circularity of its operations. The farm grew its own feed, which was then fed to livestock which in turn helped to renew the soil with their manure. Livestock raising was a method of marketing crops that had no other market. What economists call outside inputs—the feed, commercial fertilizer, pesticides, fuel, and even groceries that nowadays must be bought off the farm—were unheard of seventy years ago. Before the introduction of hybrid corn, farms even produced their own seed corn, and although tractors began to replace horses in the early twenties, their diffusion was slowed by the downturn of the economy. As far as the standard of living of the family was concerned, apart from the purchase of a few staples, and a twice-yearly splurge in the Sears or Wards catalogue, store purchases were less common also. Often all the cream, milk, eggs, poultry, and potatoes for the family were supplied directly from the farm, along with substantial amounts of meat.

Nearly all the labor needed on the farm was performed by the farm family. Wives and children under the age of nineteen contributed as much as 15 percent of all labor during the year. The farmer devoted half an hour every day to such household tasks as gardening and fuel hauling. The precise budgeting of a family’s time underlines the kind of work ethic and routine that was required sixty years ago. With few labor saving devices either in the home or on the farm, there was little time off for any member of the family.¹

The Hog-Dairy Enterprise

Nowhere was this kind of dedication and industry better illustrated than in the northeast Iowa counties where dairy and hog farming flourished. Here the frugal farmer reigned supreme. Because the soil was not capable of producing successive grain crops, dairying had been employed since before the turn of the century. Hogs, raised on skim milk and surplus corn, supplemented the dairy. Something in the range of 30 percent of the total farm area was in pasture, with the remainder of the area cropland. Local creameries provided a market for most of the milk produced, and the hogs were shipped to larger markets like Waterloo and Chicago. The average farm size was 150 acres. Almost all the labor, except at peak times, was supplied by the family. In 1923 only 17 percent of all farms had tractors. Four horses were required to work eighty acres of land, and each additional forty acres needed another horse. To emphasize the importance of livestock products on these farms, 42 percent of the total income came fromdairy and cattle products, 27 percent from hogs, and 10 percent from poultry. Cash income from crops amounted to only about 5 percent.²

The interconnectedness and circularity of the operation, where most farm products were utilized by the farm itself, was the hallmark of the hog-dairy enterprise. In the prechemical era, crop rotation played an important role. About 41 percent of the cropland was in corn, 37 percent in oats, and 25 percent in hay. Corn and oats followed each other in rotation, with every fifth year given over to hay. As a result of good soil management and the use of manure, corn yields on these farms had risen from the turn of the century to a greater extent than in the rest of the state. Moreover, there was a tendency for the higher yields to come from farms with smaller acreages in corn, for the simple reason that these farms concentrated more on dairy production and thus applied more manure to their fields. Farmers tried to be as selfsufficient with their corn as possible. About 18 percent of the corn crop was fed to dairy cattle, and 66 percent went to the hogs. The secret of hog-dairy enterprise was to find the correct mix of production of butter fat and pork from the corn grown. Concentration on hogs and corn, of course, required less labor than dairying. The two other important crops, oats and hay, were used primarily to feed cattle and horses. Much of the hay land was not as productive as it could have been because many wet areas were not drained and were impossible to work in the spring.³

During the peak of prosperity, 1915-1920, farmers in the hog-dairy area concentrated on hog production, but in the twenties and through the early Depression before the introduction of price supports, dairy once more came into its own. An average farm kept fourteen sows and seventy-one hogs, producing an average of about thirty thousand pounds of pork per year. In the dairy enterprise a typical farm had fifteen cows, but in 1923 the industry was undergoing a shift from dual-purpose cattle towards speciality dairy animals. The dairy stock was almost all Holstein with a few Jersey or Guernsey herds. As regards the breeding cycle, almost half the herds freshened in the fall months, so that winter dairying could take place when prices were more favorable. About a quarter of all calves were kept to maintain the herd; the rest were fattened on whole milk and sold for veal.⁴

With the onslaught of the Depression, hog prices continued to fall, and for this reason dairying retained its position. Although the crop system remained very similar to that of the twenties, the smaller numbers of hogs allowed farmers to grow more legumes. Soybeans, for instance, were grown for the first time and utilized as a feed for dairy cattle.⁵

In general, no farm families worked harder than those in the hogdairy enterprise. In the 1930s it was calculated that in northeast Iowa the total labor on a farm was the equivalent of about two men working nine hours per day all the year around. The operator provided half this labor, and the rest of the family furnished approximately 23 percent of it. Hired men were often used from March to October. Farmers usually worked an average of 12½ hours per day from May to November, and even in January they toiled 8½ hours a day. The dairy was the heaviest user of labor throughout the year, especially in the winter, when five or six hours were needed for chores. The hog-dairy combination worked well for the full utilization of labor as well as land. Hogs required relatively less labor but large amounts of corn, while dairy cows needed a great deal of labor but less time spent in forage preparation. According to the detailed figures available, one milk cow required twenty-two minutes a day of labor, a litter of pigs only five minutes. Evidently all this hard work paid off. In spite of the lingering Depression the incomes of hog-dairy farm families were above average.⁶

Diversified Farming

In most of Iowa corn was the staple crop on which farming was built. In one area during the twenties, corn was planted on at least one-third of all land over a period of four years. In the pretractor era and until the early thirties, this corn was the self-pollinating variety with maximum yields of around sixty bushels per acre and an average of around fifty bushels. Continuous corn cropping took a heavy toll on the soil, making a sound rotational system imperative. In the twenties an average of eleven hours of labor was needed to produce an acre of corn up to the time it was picked. Picking by hand required another eight hours per acre. Mechanical corn pickers did not save appreciable amounts of labor. Increased yield was the best way to reduce expenses, and the rapid diffusion of hybrid corn, with its greater yield potential, was therefore all the more understandable.⁷

In corn cropping labor requirements were high during two periods of the growing year. The first, from May to July, took care of planting and crop cultivation. A forty-acre field, on average, needed thirty-six man-hours of labor a week during this time. The second period, from early November to the middle of December, when picking took place, required from twenty to sixty man-hours a week. Counting on an eight-hour day, ten days would be needed to plow forty acres, five days to disk, two and a half to harrow, and three days to plant the corn. All in all, it took about three and a half weeks to fit and plant the seedbed. Later in the summer cultivating would take a further three weeks with a one-row machine. In the fall one man and a team could take care of picking in about thirty-five days, or a month and a half. After that, ifthe weather held, plowing would take about a week. With corn rotated every two years, manuring was a priority, and about four tons of animal manure was spread on each acre of corn land. Most corn was picked for grain, while much smaller amounts were cut for silage or left in the field to be hogged down. Hogs consumed about 55 percent of the picked corn; about 10 percent was fed to the general-purpose herd of cattle; steers got 13 percent, horses 5 percent, and poultry 3 percent. Only 7 percent was sold on the open market.⁸

Tenant operators increased in the 1920s and during the Depression, and because they paid their rent in shares of the crop, they were forced to devote a larger percentage of the land to corn. The expanded corn growing had a detrimental effect on soil conservation in many parts of Iowa. In the west-central grain area, corn usually took up 40 percent of all acreage and oats about 32 percent. Corn was emphasized most heavily on hog and crop farms, and least on beef-raising operations. Hog farms consumed about 70 percent of the corn they produced. On a rented farm, the size of the hog enterprise was determined by the amount of corn needed for the crop share, but on all farms, before the tumble in prices after 1930, corn that was converted to pork was more valuable than in its natural state. Hogs required relatively little labor except at farrowing time, and their equipment needs were minimal also. Most farmers saw to it that sows farrowed only in the spring, when there was more time to look after the newborn pigs, although those who could find time to raise litters in the fall did so. Farms averaged between six and twelve litters per year.⁹

In Iowa generally the cattle enterprise had four usual forms: the family dairy operation, the dual-purpose herd for both beef and milk, the dairy farm that also produced baby beef, and finally the all-beef herd. Beef raising, which concentrated on breeding and fattening cattle for the market, produced greater income and required greater expenditure than other kinds of operations. In the cash-grain area farmers who specialized in beef raising had to purchase 50 percent of their corn. Their fixed expenses were greater, and in addition, they spent large amounts of money on the purchase of animals for fattening. While hog farms had average expenses of only $2,341, beef farm expenses, in the shape of feed and the cost of animals, totaled $10,561. Although gross incomes were over eight thousand dollars more on beef than hog farms, net incomes were not significantly different.¹⁰

From 1900 to the late 1930s, the production system in the corn belt remained stable. Corn and oats were the principal crops, with hay and legumes for forage also emphasized. The basic objective of most livestock farms was to remain self-sufficient, so that the crops grown could be recycled into pork, beef, butter, and milk. In some areas of the state, corn was grown for sale on the open market, but in general, whatever the specialization, every farm had a few milk cows, beef cattle, hogs, poultry, and work animals. As the farms relied largely on horse and man power, hours were long, and the family had to work hard. Although the basic orientation of farmers was toward the market, agriculture in the corn belt was also a way of life.

The Revolution

Although the Depression slowed change, the seeds of drastic alteration were planted at that time. The twenty-five-year period from 1928 to 1952 saw a virtual revolution in technology that would irretrievably alter corn belt agriculture. The most obvious changes were the substitution of mechanical power for human and animal energy and the application of scientific ideas to livestock breeding and crop production. With the retirement of horses, most implements were adapted to tractor operations and equipped with rubber tires. Combines replaced binders and stationary threshing machines, and four-row planters and cultivators replaced two-row. The universal availability of electricity was a revolution in itself; water could be pumped with some reliability, and hydraulics allowed many heavy and unpleasant tasks to be performed mechanically. Hybrid corn was rapidly diffused after its introduction in 1928, and after World War II came commercial fertilizer and soybeans. In the twenties most farmers used their own livestock for breeding. By 1952, in some areas of the corn belt 75 percent of them used artificial insemination. Similarly, by the fifties feed had become much more sophisticated, with proteins, concentrates, minerals, vitamins, and antibiotics routinely added to rations. Consequently, about a quarter of all feed had to be bought. Obviously all this change had a drastic impact on the farming operation. At one level, considerable labor time was saved, but the new techniques and machinery cost money and added to the expense of doing business.¹¹

This first revolution in agriculture, was in good part the result of government pressure to update and improve family farming devastated by the chaos of the Depression. The USDA, together with state experiment stations, sponsored a vast array of research and hands-on projects to push and pull farming out of the dark ages.

Farmers were slow to adopt the new ideas that came out of such programs in the forties and fifties. For example, it took seven years for the majority of one sample of farmers to adopt weed spraying, with herbicides, and as many as nine years for half to employ antibiotics in hog production.¹² Another study traced the adoption of commercial fertilizer in corn. Again, farmers were conservative, and only 41 percent of all corn acreage was given an application in 1953. The slownessof diffusion was in marked contrast to the rapid change that would occur in the sixties and seventies.¹³

The fifties were also a decade when large tracts of land that had previously been unsuitable for cultivation were brought into production. The quest for a more rational agriculture, with larger farms and bigger machines, saw a wholesale assault on land that was too wet to till. Some drainage had been attempted in Iowa in the nineteenth century, but its expense prevented adoption on marginal land until after World War II, when government programs began assisting farmers.

The purpose of drainage was to control soil moisture by removing excess water from the upper three or four feet of soil. On well-drained soil, water drained downward to a water table more than four feet below the ground. But on poorly drained land, the water remained near the surface, preventing work in the spring. Tiling and open drainage systems solved the problem of standing water, allowing a longer growing season, better use of all available land, and more productive farms.

One of the more positive legacies of the Depression was a concern for the conservation of resources and the scientific application of methods in this direction. Appropriate land use and fertilization practices needed to be supplemented by supporting practices such as contour plowing and sod waterways if soil was to be conserved and improved. Contour cultivation, strip cropping, and terracing were comparatively simple measures designed to prevent water runoff and soil erosion. Any of these measures could be used by itself, but strip cropping and terracing were usually introduced to blend into the contours of the land. All these practices were profitable, since they permitted more intensive cultivation, reduced loss of topsoil, and increased crop yields. On more level ground the introduction of grass waterways had the same effect as terraci...