SEGMENT: FARMING METHODS, GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS, & FARM BUSINESS
Ruth Pauling>NIU Collection>NIU Collection, Segment 17
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- FARM BUSINESS
- Does not recall price received for crops. Cattle 14 cents a pound in the 1940s. Everything cheaper in the 1940s. Details selling and trucking cattle. Humiliating experience at Chicago stock yards. Later years a buyer would come to farm. Corn was rarely sold but fed to cattle.
- GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS
- Did not participate much. Ruth feels most problems farmers had were not from government programs but from trying to get too big.
- FARM BUSINESS
- Rarely hired workers to help.
- REFLECTIONS
- Been retired for 6 1/2 years. Planned for future with good investments.
- FARM EQUIPMENT
- Tractors, combine, cars, not much large machinery. Husband preferred to have work custom done. Discusses cost of machinery compared to past and larger size of newer machinery.
- FARMING METHODS
- Used manure from cattle that they raised. Applied using a tractor and a manure-spreader. Recalls a story of having to spread manure on her birthday. Manure mixed with bedding. Does not think they used it on the crops unless their was an invasion. Used a spray tank pulled with a tractor. Couldn't see any difference in crops if it was sprayed or not. Using liquid nitrogen was dangerous. Took precautions.
