What would we find if we could travel back in time to a typical Midwestern farmstead belonging to a 1920s farmer? We’d see four to six farms on a 640-acre section. A dirt road lined with telephone poles gave access to the farmstead. A barn, storage buildings and chicken house would be near a two-story farm house with a path leading to an “outhouse” out back. Several fenced lots provided spaces to isolate various animals.
We might find fruit trees – apple, pear, plum and cherry – bordering a 3/4-acre garden laid out to receive maximum sunlight. A windmill with a wooden water tank nearby provided water for milk cows, sows, horses, chickens and young calves and pigs. If natural tree lines bordering creeks or established timbers were not close, the homestead likely had double or triple rows of evergreen trees on the north and west sides of the house and outbuildings to divert winter winds. Fences outlined fields where grain and pasture land provided feed for livestock.
Monotonous manual labor kept the farm and its occupants running. Cows were milked by hand. Pitchforks, iron scoop shovels, hammers and pliers were the primary tools used for many jobs. A walking plow or gangplow pulled by horses was the primary tillage instrument. Chores were performed by hand. Horses and humans provided the power needed on the farm. Wood and steel-wheeled wagons moved products around the farm and to off-farm destinations.
In 1923, there were telephones on the farm; the radio was just coming on. Perhaps one in three farmers owned a Ford Model T. Indoor plumbing and rural electrification were little more than a pipe dream. Tractors were available, but were beyond the reach of many. What did it mean to be a farmer 100 years ago?
Life emerges from winter
Mother Nature has provided the Midwest 1920s famer with four seasons. Spring of 1923 is coming. It’s sneaking in on us, steadily crowding out winter. Nature has provided the right amount of sunlight, rain and moderating temperatures. Life forces are enabling seeds to sprout to life, pregnant animals (both domestic and wild) to birth, trees to begin to reclothe and green grasses to emerge. Change is taking place!
The sun rises a few seconds earlier each morning. The farmer has been anxiously awaiting the longer days and is completely aware that his mental and physical preparation for the spring season is about to be put into practice.
I welcome you to follow me for the next few weeks as I approach a new crop year on our quarter-section (160 acres) farm here in southwest Iowa. The spring thaw is occurring. Cattle and hog lots are knee-deep in mud and manure! Steel wheels are sometimes frozen solid in the ground on a frosty morning.
Maintenance and manure
I need to do yearly windmill maintenance. The windmill sits over our drilled 130-foot-deep well that provides critical water for all the animals in addition to our household needs. Although a water tank is near the windmill, water has to be carried to the chicken house and hog lots. The lots have been arranged providing dairy cows, feeder cattle and horses access to the water tank at all times. When the wind fails to provide power for the windmill, I have to fill the tank using the hand pump. All household water is carried from the well hand pump up to the house.
Cleaning the cattle and hog sheds, chicken house, horse barn and their loafing-lots of manure has to be done immediately. The steel-wheeled manure spreader will be filled using the long-handled pitchfork. I’ll hitch my trusted team of horses to the spreader to make many trips down the lane to the fields. There are places where pulling the full spreader is difficult as it sinks into the thawing ground.
Getting manure on the fields before plowing is so important. It will be “turned under” by the plow and new seeds will utilize it as fertilizer. It always amazes me how much bedding and animal waste the horses, cattle, hogs and chickens can generate over the winter. No coat is needed on the chilly March days as I tug, pull and lift the pitchfork time after time to fill the spreader. Of course, spring is a good time to clean “night soil” from the outhouse. It too goes onto the fields.
Caring for livestock is critically essential to 1920s farmer
We depend on the animals for our food as well as family income. Their health and comfort results in more nutritious food and more profits for us. This philosophy is what gets me out of bed before daylight each morning to do the morning chores of feeding, watering and checking the general health of each animal. A kerosene lantern will provide light as I go around the various sheds, loafing lots and barn.
I feed the sows and pigs ear corn that I throw on the ground after carrying it by bushel basket from the corn crib to the feedlot. Once a day, I carry a mash of skim milk, oats and tankage to their hog troughs on the ground. The mash has been mixed in a 55-gallon drum and left to ferment for a day or so.
Milk cows are fed a diet of corn and oats as well as an ample supply of alfalfa hay pitched into their mangers. The spring pasture will soon supplement the hay and eventually I’ll not need to feed hay at all. Some of the first green growth in the pasture is wild onions. Cows seem to crave anything green after a long winter and yes, you can taste the onion flavor in milk we drink at the dining room table.
The cows are milked each morning before I eat my breakfast and the milk is carried in open buckets to the back porch where it is run through the cream separator. Most of the cream is used in our kitchen to make butter, pour on cereals and use in baking. All extra cream is sold to the creamery. Milk from the separator is used at the dinner table and in the kitchen, with the excess taken to the hog troughs.
I shell corn in our one-hole hand sheller for the feeder cattle and keep their gravity-fed self-feed bunks full. They are provided all the shelled corn they can eat. They are also fed alfalfa and legume hay; their bunks always have hay in them. The chickens are fed hand-ground corn, wheat and oats. Oyster shell grit is also provided.
I find morning and evening chores very time consuming and labor-intensive yet satisfying, knowing I’m providing the best care possible for the livestock. As I labor, my thoughts continually turn to spring field work and putting those jobs in priority. I wonder, “Is everything ready? When the unpredictable weather breaks, what needs to be done first? Is the machinery ready? Are the horses healthy? Am I ready?”
Chick and seed orders: Harbingers of spring
Some 200 chicks have been ordered from the hatchery and the kerosene-heated brooder house is ready for them. They will arrive by mail in a day or two. As we introduce them to the 101-degree warmth under the hood in the brooder-house, we’ll dip the beak of each individual chick in treated water. When mature, the males will provide food for our dinner table. The females will eventually supply the family with eggs. All extra eggs will be sold at 35 cents per dozen. The eggs and cream sold regularly provide cash income throughout the year.
Garden seeds have been purchased and are ready to plant as soon as the ground is prepared. The Farmers’ Almanac instructs us to plant potatoes on St. Patrick’s Day and hopefully (weather permitting) tomato, sweet potato and cabbage plants will be in the ground by Mother’s Day. Fruit and vegetables raised in our garden will sustain us through the entire year. We plan very carefully what seeds to plant and nurture. I also find the Farmers’ Almanac quite accurate when it tells me when to wean calves and castrate pigs.
I use four horses to power my two-bottom gangplow. Their harnesses are mended and oiled. Spring weather is always such a factor in getting the ground prepared for planting. I have to guard against getting too anxious or irritated when the weather doesn’t cooperate with my wishes. Each year is different and I have to make adjustments if we get too much rain or not enough.
How the 1920s farmer calculated livestock optimization
When using my horses for field work, I find through experience and research that they can be driven about 20 miles at a pace of 2-1/2mph for each 10-hour day without ill effects. Time must be allowed for harnessing, hitching, driving to and from the fields and occasionally checking harness, feet and the well-being of each animal. I cannot use a sick or lame horse.
Thus, I plan on driving 20 miles per day with the gangplow to get 5-1/2 acres plowed. I will follow-up with the four horses pulling a 6-foot disk or a four-section harrow (or both) to smooth the ground for planting. Sometimes I use the disk before I plow to kill weeds and aerate the soil.
On our acreage, corn is planted with a two-row corn planter. On more level ground, I check-row the hills, which allows us to cultivate both ways. On sloping ground, I sow the kernels 8-10 inches apart in rows across the slope, rather than up and down the slope, to decrease soil erosion.
The wheat I planted last fall looks good. Oats will be broadcast with a seeder from the back of a box wagon. Small seeds such as alfalfa, timothy, sweet clover, red clover and legumes are mostly broadcast by walking back and forth across the fields using hand seeders.
Most of our grain and hay are not sold. Instead, they “walk off the farm,” fed to cattle, hogs and chickens. Sale of these animals and their byproducts bring income to our family. Feeder cattle are now selling for $6.03 cwt and hogs for $7.39 cwt.
The planning to balance grain production with animal units is critical. Intensive physical labor and much gambling on the weather is needed to make this farm profitable. Many days will find us doing chores before sunrise and long after sunset. Only church and its activities will cause us to leave the farm this spring.
The two boys are constantly asking if they can take their shoes off for the rest of the spring and summer. We tell them that when the hedge tree leaves “get as big as squirrel’s ears,” they may go barefoot.
Let’s get to work!
Four Seasons for a 1920s Farmer continues in with the summer in the life of a 1920s farmer. FC
Retired school principal Don McKinley grew up on a farm in southwest Iowa. In writing this series, he gratefully acknowledges the assistance of his daughter Connie Palmer. Don has created a museum of 1930s-vintage farm collectibles at his home in Quincy, Illinois. Contact him at 1335 Boy Scout Rd., Quincy, IL 62305; email: dearroad@adams.net. Visit his Facebook page at 1930s Ag Museum.
Originally published in the April 2023 issue of Farm Collector.
