SEGMENT: ACTIVITIES, FARMING DURING GREAT DEPRESSION & FARM BUSINESS

Don (Anonymous)>NIU Collection>NIU Collection, Segment 2

SEGMENT: ACTIVITIES, FARMING DURING GREAT DEPRESSION & FARM BUSINESS,

duration 09:04
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RETIREMENT
Don discusses activities undertaken after retirement. Mentions community organizations, serving on school board, working with Pure Milk Association. Planned to learn fishing for retirement, took up golf. Mentions taking escorted tours to see country. Winter best time for a farmer to take vacation.
LAND ACQUISITION
Notes his philosophy on farming. Describes why he paid higher price for land & purchasing it with war bonds. Mentions parental wisdom
FARMING DURING GREAT DEPRESSION
Don notes that his family never suffered during the Great Depression because, as his father stated we "…didn't happen to be in debt at that time." No debt meant father could buy land cheaply in early 1930's.
FARM BUSINESS
Mentions average farm size in DeKalb County More land helps you spread out cost of owning expensive farm equipment. Mentions obsolete combine he bought a while ago & his son-in-law bought a used $30,000 machine. "You can't prove it with a pencil… but you can loose a crop by not having your own machine to harvest when it is necessary. Mentions his profitable custom hay-baling operation & scheduling use of his hay baler so it would always be available when he needed it. Notes crop-share arrangement with son-in-law & modern milking machines now in use. Machines today will not damage cow's udder.
LIVESTOCK
"I am a nursemaid for the pigs." He comes back from vacation in time to help furrow pigs.
FARM BUSINESS
Mentions that his son-in-law has 4 sons to help with the farm.