Labor-saving agricultural technical change has brought welcome relief from some farm tasks that were seen as just plain drudgery. Technical change in farming has been as astounding as technical change in the broader society.
A half century ago, who could have imagined that it would be easier to contact a colleague on the other side of the globe than to get hold of your neighbor two doors away, or to contact your kid who, although having a cell phone, won't respond unless receiving a text message? And who among us once using the "advanced technology" of a Surge milking machine could have imagined cows voluntarily walking into a parlor and, with the aid of a computerized system, milk themselves and are fed individual rations?
Technical change affecting economics also causes social change. The combine greatly reduced the labor required to harvest grain. In reducing required labor, it eliminated the need for the neighborhood to pool its labor in order to complete the task.
The combine illustrates the point, but was only one technological change that altered agriculture so dramatically.
At mid-20th Century, a majority of farms in this neck of the woods ranged from 160 to 240 acres, each a self-contained unit with a dairy herd, a supplementary hog operation, and a flock of chickens. Increasingly capital-intensive technology, substituting capital for labor, inevitably pushed farm operations toward specialization and the "fewer but larger" phenomenon.
The "advanced technology" of the Surge milking machine and electric can coolers that farm kids of my era grew up with was replaced by pipeline milking systems and bulk tanks. Later, milking parlors and loafing sheds replaced the once-modern driveway barns. Supplementary hog operations, a natural complement for use of the whey, a by-product of cheese industry, started to disappear. Then came what seems like the ultimate - computerized systems where cows "milk themselves" and are fed computerized individual rations.
Specialization is near complete; all but gone are diversified farms with cows, hogs, chickens, maybe a couple of beef cattle, augmented by a garden and an orchard. Farms that don't have livestock now rent out the land, predominantly used for the money crops, corn and soybeans. The old barns, hog houses, chicken coops, and small machine sheds, now obsolete, are gone, or in various stages of deterioration.
Technology has even changed the landscape beyond absence of corn and oat shocks. Sure, we still see fields of alfalfa and corn. But herds of milk cows grazing on pasture are increasingly rare. Fences have all but disappeared.
The mid-20th Century standard crop rotation around here was corn, corn, oats, alfalfa for hay for two or three years followed by a year of pasture, before going back to corn. As most fields were pastured for at least a year, they were fenced. With cattle now confined to loafing sheds, the need for fences, other than line fences between farms, has disappeared. Besides, larger fields accommodate the ever-larger machinery used for crop farming.
Is the disappearance of fence rows an explanation for the disappearance of the meadowlark? They do nest on the ground. I fondly recall the melodic song of meadowlarks sitting on a barbed wire fence down by the spring. It's been a long time since I have even seen a meadowlark around here. If anyone has, I would like to know, and would find it to be reassuring.
This is not to say that we would go back to those days of yore, even if we could. But it's a human tendency to recall some of what was lost, and nostalgically reminisce on the old threshing rings, recalled by many as highlight of the summer. This, in addition to wishing we still had the strength and stamina to pitch bundles all day, as we once did.
Those threshing days are long gone, but fondly remembered, including by those of us who "graduated" to the tougher jobs, beyond the tractor driving days enjoyed by the kids. It has often occurred to me that the kids and grandkids of our old threshing crew are still around, bump into each other frequently, but probably have no idea of their common legacy.
Sure enough, on a Friday evening of the day one of my threshing columns was published, I was sitting at the Turner Hall bar with my two kids who, on a rare occasion, were both back in town. Richard Leuzinger approached me and, referring to his late father, Hank, who farmed a mile north of the Waelti farm, and said, "Hey, I saw my dad's name in your column today" Richard was a toddler during those threshing days, with his sister, Barbara, a bit older. Younger brother, Curtis, had not yet been born.
As we were chatting, Herby Scherer's son, Louie, Monroe's moving miracle man who can squeeze a fat sofa through a doorway so narrow a thin man couldn't get through, entered Turner Hall and wandered over to chat. He had just got back to town from one of his cross-country junkets and hadn't seen the column. But I now had Richard Leuzinger and Louie Scherer together, and the opportunity to test my hypothesis.
"Richard and Louie, do either of you realize that some decades ago your fathers were part of the same threshing ring, and sat at the same dinner table enjoying those threshers' meals?"
Nope, neither had the foggiest idea of that.
It reinforced my hypothesis that kids and grandkids of those threshers have no way of knowing of their common legacy.
It also reinforced my regret that we didn't have the foresight to take any photos of the threshing crew or the operation. What the heck, we were just threshing, normal farm work. Who would ever be interested in that?
It was just another thing you couldn't predict with changing agricultural technology.
- John Waelti of Monroe can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Fridays in The Monroe Times.
A half century ago, who could have imagined that it would be easier to contact a colleague on the other side of the globe than to get hold of your neighbor two doors away, or to contact your kid who, although having a cell phone, won't respond unless receiving a text message? And who among us once using the "advanced technology" of a Surge milking machine could have imagined cows voluntarily walking into a parlor and, with the aid of a computerized system, milk themselves and are fed individual rations?
Technical change affecting economics also causes social change. The combine greatly reduced the labor required to harvest grain. In reducing required labor, it eliminated the need for the neighborhood to pool its labor in order to complete the task.
The combine illustrates the point, but was only one technological change that altered agriculture so dramatically.
At mid-20th Century, a majority of farms in this neck of the woods ranged from 160 to 240 acres, each a self-contained unit with a dairy herd, a supplementary hog operation, and a flock of chickens. Increasingly capital-intensive technology, substituting capital for labor, inevitably pushed farm operations toward specialization and the "fewer but larger" phenomenon.
The "advanced technology" of the Surge milking machine and electric can coolers that farm kids of my era grew up with was replaced by pipeline milking systems and bulk tanks. Later, milking parlors and loafing sheds replaced the once-modern driveway barns. Supplementary hog operations, a natural complement for use of the whey, a by-product of cheese industry, started to disappear. Then came what seems like the ultimate - computerized systems where cows "milk themselves" and are fed computerized individual rations.
Specialization is near complete; all but gone are diversified farms with cows, hogs, chickens, maybe a couple of beef cattle, augmented by a garden and an orchard. Farms that don't have livestock now rent out the land, predominantly used for the money crops, corn and soybeans. The old barns, hog houses, chicken coops, and small machine sheds, now obsolete, are gone, or in various stages of deterioration.
Technology has even changed the landscape beyond absence of corn and oat shocks. Sure, we still see fields of alfalfa and corn. But herds of milk cows grazing on pasture are increasingly rare. Fences have all but disappeared.
The mid-20th Century standard crop rotation around here was corn, corn, oats, alfalfa for hay for two or three years followed by a year of pasture, before going back to corn. As most fields were pastured for at least a year, they were fenced. With cattle now confined to loafing sheds, the need for fences, other than line fences between farms, has disappeared. Besides, larger fields accommodate the ever-larger machinery used for crop farming.
Is the disappearance of fence rows an explanation for the disappearance of the meadowlark? They do nest on the ground. I fondly recall the melodic song of meadowlarks sitting on a barbed wire fence down by the spring. It's been a long time since I have even seen a meadowlark around here. If anyone has, I would like to know, and would find it to be reassuring.
This is not to say that we would go back to those days of yore, even if we could. But it's a human tendency to recall some of what was lost, and nostalgically reminisce on the old threshing rings, recalled by many as highlight of the summer. This, in addition to wishing we still had the strength and stamina to pitch bundles all day, as we once did.
Those threshing days are long gone, but fondly remembered, including by those of us who "graduated" to the tougher jobs, beyond the tractor driving days enjoyed by the kids. It has often occurred to me that the kids and grandkids of our old threshing crew are still around, bump into each other frequently, but probably have no idea of their common legacy.
Sure enough, on a Friday evening of the day one of my threshing columns was published, I was sitting at the Turner Hall bar with my two kids who, on a rare occasion, were both back in town. Richard Leuzinger approached me and, referring to his late father, Hank, who farmed a mile north of the Waelti farm, and said, "Hey, I saw my dad's name in your column today" Richard was a toddler during those threshing days, with his sister, Barbara, a bit older. Younger brother, Curtis, had not yet been born.
As we were chatting, Herby Scherer's son, Louie, Monroe's moving miracle man who can squeeze a fat sofa through a doorway so narrow a thin man couldn't get through, entered Turner Hall and wandered over to chat. He had just got back to town from one of his cross-country junkets and hadn't seen the column. But I now had Richard Leuzinger and Louie Scherer together, and the opportunity to test my hypothesis.
"Richard and Louie, do either of you realize that some decades ago your fathers were part of the same threshing ring, and sat at the same dinner table enjoying those threshers' meals?"
Nope, neither had the foggiest idea of that.
It reinforced my hypothesis that kids and grandkids of those threshers have no way of knowing of their common legacy.
It also reinforced my regret that we didn't have the foresight to take any photos of the threshing crew or the operation. What the heck, we were just threshing, normal farm work. Who would ever be interested in that?
It was just another thing you couldn't predict with changing agricultural technology.
- John Waelti of Monroe can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears Fridays in The Monroe Times.
