WIMMER: Farming in Harvey County changes through the years

Our city of Newton has been many things. Among them was a rough-and-ready railhead cattle town, a railroad hub for Santa Fe, and a farming community.

Since agriculture still is a big business in this area, I thought some discourse about old farming practices and farm machinery would be of interest to a good number of Kansan readers.

I was fortunate to obtain the use of some old (antique) books on farming subjects from the library in our FFA classroom at the high school. The teacher, Nute Rucker, was kind enough to let me borrow them for some research.

The one that particularly took my interest was titled “The Modern Gas Tractor: Its Construction, Operation, Application and Repair.”

It was “modern” when it was printed way back in 1913. I’m using the “third impression,” printed in 1919.

The dedication in the book is extremely interesting, viewed in retrospect, as well as in the 21st century”

“This work is respectfully dedicated to the backbone of our national prosperity, The American Farmer.”

In light of this statement, it seems Kansas should have some sort of memorial to our farmers, at least as big as Wichita’s “Keeper of the Plains.”

The sad fact is I had no luck with an Internet search for monuments to farmers.

Newton has its stately statue of the “Mennonite Settler” standing in Athletic Park. Most of those immigrants were farmers, so I guess that statue will have to suffice.

Every year, the casual observer can watch fields being plowed, sown, irrigated and harvested while driving along almost any highway or county road in our state.

We see the huge multi-bucks high tech equipment now in use, and younger folks find it hard to fathom it was ever any other way.

Lots of progress has happened in less than the lifetime of two generations, and there’s more to come!

Many of today’s farmers are much more specialized than their grandparents. In the past, running a farm required a multitude of talents.

A farmer had to be a mechanic, plumber, carpenter, blacksmith, accountant and a practical engineer. Besides those talents, knowledge of how to raise crops and animals was required. You couldn’t just call the co-op and have someone come change your tractor tire or bring a load of fertilizer back then.

This is not to say that many of today’s farmers don’t have many or all of these skills, but they are not as crucial to the operation as they were on the isolated single family farm of the past.

Today’s farmers could not manage the large acreage required for profitable farming without the help of those agencies that specialize in farm support services.

One of the last places near Newton to view vintage farm machinery and practices is at Goessel during their “Threshing Days” celebration.

Antique farm equipment is re-activated and used in demonstrations.

A couple of interesting notes:

We used to see roadside signs that said “No lugs,” meaning steel-wheeled tractor tires, because they tore up the pavement.

The first rubber tractor tires were not sold until 1932.

Also pictured is a Farmall tractor, introduced by International Harvester in 1925. In September of 1927, Willie Wiebe purchased the tractor for $350 from Newman Hardware and Implement store in Whitewater.

The tractor saw several owners before settling into the Kauffman Museum in North Newton.

Wiebe sold it back to Newman’s in 1936 after nine years of use. Another rural Whitewater resident bought it from Newman’s but sold it again in 1946 to Carl Dieck, who owned it until 1987.

Willie Wiebe’s children and grandchildren bought it at auction for $1,050 (three times its original price, after 60 years ).

Before being donated to the Kauffman Museum in 1997, it was restored by Harold Shoemaker from Esbon, a small town about 15 miles west of Mankato. We city folks probably think cabs for tractors are a modern convenience. Take a look at the picture of a 1939 Minneapolis Moline.

It has a hood and headlights that resemble a car. It also has an enclosed cab. The caption for the picture was, “ You can plow with it all week, go to town in it on Saturday night and drive it to church on Sunday.”

Vo-ag teacher Larry Goering also told me this tractor was the choice of tractor racers around Indianapolis during the time they were produced. He said they would go about 45 mph.

Do you suppose these were the rural version of an “Indy Car?” Note: The first Indianapolis 500 was run in 1911, according to Google.

Many changes have come to farming in the last 50 years. The most common probably is the gradual disappearance of the small family farm.

As they were no longer viable, they were consolidated into the holdings of larger farms to provide them with the advantages of “economy of scale.”

Expensive, new equipment made it possible to work many more acres with less time and manpower. The expense of this new technology effectively shut out the small farmer.

However, the small farmers did not give up easily. The men took day jobs in industry when they were available. The farm wives even found employment in town when the children were old enough to fend for themselves. Even today, some of this is ongoing.

J and H Farm Equipment Inc. is the last surviving tractor and farm equipment company in Newton.

Wayne Hiebert told me Meridian used to be a veritable row of tractor and farm implement dealers. He even recited the names of a number of them.

J and H Farm Equipment first was located on the lot behind Anderson’s, where the city parking lot is now. J and H purchased the dealership in 1956 from Dave Little.

The J and H stood for owners Victor Hiebert and his brother-in-law, Ben Jost. Victor’s wife, Viola, was Ben’s sister. Viola and her son, Wayne, still operate the business today.

J and H outgrew the Broadway location and moved to its Meridian address in 1964. The building on Meridian was constructed by Ben’s brother, Irvin Jost.

Through the years, J and H has handled from eight to 10 different brands of tractors and equipment.

They currently offer the AGCO brand of tractors and equipment. AGCO Corp. has a plant in Hesston.

Farm tech has come a long way. The farmer on an open tractor pulling a two-bottom plow might have had an umbrella for shade.

The huge modern tractors have heated and air-conditioned cabs. The latest thing is the use of GPS units to guide the tractor, using a computer connection.

The driver can listen to the radio, watch weather on TV or work on his laptop to figure costs of the next crop. The new machinery can cover many more acres per day than the older methods.

Goering said he used to work all day pulling a three-bottom plow to finish 10 acres. Now, he can do 12 acres an hour pulling a 30-foot disc. New discs cut as deep or deeper than the older plows and have replaced the almost obsolete plow for tilling large acreages.

Moving from an agrarian economy to a manufacturing economy required an adequate and dependable supply of workers. Factories could not operate without workers, and workers needed an independent and dependable food supply.

This is where we see the truth of the American farmer being the backbone of our national prosperity.

Next month we’ll examine the other half of the equation that helped the farmers in their extraordinary ascendance in building our prosperity — the rural school teacher