Making it in these conditions requires crop-share leasing, with little or no cash leasing. By sharing rewards with the landowner and reducing risk, the crop farmer buys a slight margin between survival and failure. Usually, landowners hedge their bets and take out their own hail insurance. Laying down a pattern twice as wide as the existing unit lets Strouf track better with his planting rows. To manage inheritance taxes, the well-maintained, older equipment has been gifted to the younger Strouf.
Land is also sublet within the family in a creative, flexible arrangement that works for everyone.
Watching father and son work together echoes the wisdom of the King family. Dale Strouf wants to learn the expensive lessons his father already paid for and cash in on his elder's knowledge base. Sitting across the street from the train depot in Billings is a reminder of the promise of Montana homesteading and the living that some hardy families like the Strouf clan continue to carve between the buttes. A passing freight train rattles the walls of the Western Heritage Center as a reminder of the railroad's influence. Eventually, many spur lines were abandoned, cutting off the few surviving farmers from reasonable access to their markets.