SEGMENT: HYBRID SEED, TRANSPORTATION, & FARM BUSINESS
Rolland Stone>UIS Collection S>UIS Collection S, Segment 23
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- HYBRID SEED
- In 1928 started growing open pollinated corn or selecting it from the fields to ear test it and sell it to farmers. Few bushels per year. In 1932 obtained an acre of hybrid corn from the University of Illinois, the first year you could get inbreds to cross. Later add seeds of wheat, oats, soybeans, grass, flowers, garden.
- TRANSPORTATION
- 1922 first road to area completed. Asked to describe Beardstown hard road and steam engines. Railroad car pulled several cars of cement and gravel. Road to Farmingdale finished in 1930. Remembers Lindbergh landing his mail plane in a field off Hazlitt Lane, the first airport in Springfield. Rode the train from Farmingdale every day. Loaded seed onto the train at Bradfordton.
- FARM BUSINESS
- Land has inflated by five times in the last twenty years (1952-72). Grandfather's account books show 1932 prices very low - corn at 15-20 cents a bushel; sold 768 bushels at 35 cents each ($268).
- RECOLLECTIONS
- He tells story about a Civil War incident of a soldier killed in a saloon in Rock Island, Illinois.
