American Falls press. [volume] (American Falls, Idaho) 1907-1937, 1915-11-11
4 HUSBAND AND WIFE PARTNERSHIP THAT
HAS PAID 0 A VIRGINIA FARM.

bocuon OIL virginia, without having q dollar to
start with: A good reputation. a wife who has
just as much brains and energy as he has, and
the fact that the previous owner Of the place was
a long headed business man.
He and / had just come I'D out of a sixty-acre
bluegrass meadow that does more than Craze a
steer to the acre, and crossed a field Of alfalfa,
nearly waist high, to the porch, where Mrs Saun-
ders and six children, the youngest in a baby car
riage, were waiting for us.
We had spent some time in that meadow among
the cattle. and 1 could not help thinking that a
capital of just nothing was a mighty poor start
when they had come SO far.
But that was twenty years ago" said Mr.. Saun-
ders.
Even So" l said; begin at the beginning"
Husband and wife looked at each other and
smiled. do you know anything about the kind of
farming that was done in this country twenty
years ago" he asked.
There's a lot Of 1t done now, isn't there! You
mean raising a bit Of wheat and corn to buy fer
tflizer to raise tobacco to sell in town for enough
money to buy" Both burst out laughing before
the eternal circle was complete.
Sure, that's 1t, said he. "Then wheat was fifty
to sixty cents a bushel, corn twenty-five to thir-
ty-five cents, hay six to seven dollars a ton, and
beef two and a half to four cents a pound. /
was born on that kind of farm here in Bedford
county. 1t was the only kind of farming 1 knew
anything about-and that was not much, because
l didn't like 1t, couldn't see anything in 1t. I got
disguised and went out to Missouri, where
saw farming of another sort. Those Missourians
showed me enough to make me think l could come
back here and do even better. So back I came,
married, and took this place over as a Tenant, on
a one-year lease, share and share alike"
And you had nothing?"
"NOt a dollar The Owper had pona IN 7 vnch-
burg and was making money. He was a fine bus
mess man, not a farmer, though the land was in
fair condition under the circumstances. With him
cattle and hogs were only a side line, so to speak.
or course, I had to defer to him in many things,
so we began much in the old way. But selling
pretty nearly everything off a place to meet e-
penses gets you nowhere This was in 1896.
"In those times a lot of new machinery was be-
ing invented and Improvements were being made
on the old. l had seen more farm machinery in
Missouri than I had ever heard of sewhere For
tunately the owner of this place was in the hard
ware business, so when / found an implement
that would do more work with less labor 1 went
right after it. He invariably met me half way.
with the labor-saving machinery l began to see
what these red hill could do. By 1903, seven years
later, we owned half of everything but the land
that is, the personal property, implements, crops,
cattle and SO on. The place was fairly we'll
stocked, considering, and If l remember correctly,
we had made about 1000 bushels of wheat and
800 barrels Of corn that year.
"In 1904. a ~neighbor, my brother and 1, bought
the farm under a partnership agreement, paying
$16,500 TO the 63 acres-$27 an acre. 1t was put
up at auction two years later. and a friend of
ours, my brotherr and l, bought it for s23, 900.
Neither of them bothered me. my brother being in
the coal business, while our friend simply wanted
a good investment.
1--WE used to think we were robbing people when
they paid four cents a pound for beef cattle. But
prices had begun to go up and we got feeders.
With machinery we were raising bigger crops to
feed them, and at the same time we had cut down
the labor mere than half.
"Then in 1908 my brother and l bought our
friends half. We paid him $4,000 in cash and gave
him six notes OF $1,000 each. maturing two years
apart; this fixed the value of the farm at $50, 900.
1t had nearly doubled in value, but 1t was proving
cheap at that, since 1 had cut out the tobacco and
the big fertilizer bills and half the labor.
we used to think that the corn belt was the
only place where cattle could be raised at a
profit. But the corn belt was widened by a good
many hundred miles in each direction Wherever
the farmer is using good, heavy tools and select
ing his seed he is doubling his acreage, and more,
without the addition of a rod of land.
Hitch a silo to good corn land and native blue
grass sod and you've got a team that simply can't
be beaten.
us there more money In buying and fattening
than in raising your own beef stockT"
That's a much debated question that depends
largely upon conditions. Personally I think SO,
provided you are careful in buying your feeders.
That s the marrow of this question. l buy grade
cattle only-Hostiy Herefords, Shorthorns and
Angus.
Years ago, when cattle we're three and a halt
and four cents, 1t didn't pay SO we'll. They were
merely kept over the winter on roughage. They
put on no weight They were usually inferior
cattle at that. But now. with a silo. cottonseed
meal and a generally balanced ration. it pays
well to fatten them over the winter, when the
conservation OF manure helps a lot. I get cattle
to weigh 500 or 900 pounds in the fall. I sell
them next fall to weigh 1900 to 1300-if prices
suit me. II prices are too low, l put them in the