Evening times-Republican. [volume] (Marshalltown, Iowa) 1890-1923, 1916-03-28
Making Good on :
Farm After Paying
High Acreage Rental
Special to Times Republican.

Special to Times Republican.
Steamboat Rock. March 2S.-A 2c3-
acre farm IN this vicinity has been
rented for this year for 1926 per acre
cash. Twenty five or thirty years ago
the same place could have been leased
Tor just about one third Of this figure.
Two men started in on the job Of de-
termin.ng which Of the two tenants.
the present real one or the imaginary
one of years ago faced the better pros
pect of making good in his venture,
also that Of comparing net returns IL
the owner of the land then and now.
OF course they didn't get very far to-
ward a satisfactory solution Of the
problem. The more it was considered
the more complex it became and the
whole thing had to be given up. The
owner OF the farm remembered that
his land was worth $50 an acre and
that his land tax was $50 in the day
of s. rent. l, IS worth $3.50 per acre
now and the taxes are nearly seven
times as great now a. then. OF course
the land was advanced in price in
those years so that the owner has
never really invested SO much in the
place but the extensive buildings,
1eICtS drainage Oh the NAV Z
cost thousands Of dollars and a great
deal Of labor. The tenant viii! receive
much higher prices for what he pro-
duces :han would have been the case
in other days but there is the differ
ence between a thirty Ave or forty
dollar hired man and twenty dollar
one. an outlay of several times more
now for a complicated lot of farm ma
h ,,or hoy to- ha 4
Of the more simple farm implements,
$500 worth Of horses instead of the
$500 worth that would have been
enough before. a much more expensive
style of living. necessary now, what
ever the actual inclination in this re-
spect, these and other changes that
have come with the years are what
make it so difficult to compare oppor-
tunities present and pas, IL farming.
Most people agree that in one respect
the SO farmer enjoyed a decided ad-
vantage in the way Of an opportunity
to become land owner himself altho
this too is two sided question. There
is a farmer in Franklin county who
maintains that the proper thing for the
tenant 10 do is TO keep right on rent
ing and putting out at interest wha:
he can save each year. He is said ~
have accumulated $4,000 in this way
and doesn't let the question OF buying
d farm OF his own bother him at all. He
IS nv 10 means an old man and prob
ably few years later may be able 10
retire with enough to maintain him
in comfort and without having ever
been a landowner althO a successful
farmer.
Some Of the Old grey beared farmers
Of this country can tell very interesting
stories ot early day life when they get
going or the subject. There is Jo-
seph La wiess. for instance who owns
and lives on a fine half section farm
west of Eldora. His recolections begin
with the famine days in ireland seven
~ Years ago He can tell Of awful
occurrences or the boat journeys from
the stricken country to the land OF
hope and promise across the water Or
the boyhood days in Wisconsin, OF on
overland drive from the Badger State
to Nevada and California when there
wasn't 4 railroad turnout the entire
region OF the favorable impressions
the great prairie stretches Of Iowa pro-
duced on the minds Of the young men
Of the party some members OF which
announced their Intentions Of returning
and buying farm when the fortune
was made in the west OF the little
struggling collection OF houses on the
rugged land along the Missouri river
where the city of Council Bluffs now
stands. OF Salt Lake Ci!y where the
Mormon temple was being built ana
where the residence Of Brigham Young
was pointed Oh: to the visitor as an
interesting feature. OF how he saved
thousand dollars working in California
and then doing the very thing with
the money that ne had dreamed Of do
ing three years earlier-buying farm
IN Iowa Mr.. LaUless has just begun
the fftieth year Of continued residence
on his Hardin county farm. The orig
NAL quarter section was bought for
$3.50 per acre. OF the group OF set
tiers who came to this community ha!i
a century ago Mr. Lawless is the last
A great many people have tried to
make funny remarks about the corn
that was raised last year in northern
Iowa An old German expressed mis-
opinion the other day and said 1t dif-
ferently, perhaps from any other man
and he wasn't trying to be funny
either He was simply describing the
situation as he saw !t-from the outer
line Of the feed yard. You couldn't
hear the hogs eat corn at all last fall.
he complained. They might as well
have been chewing tobacco for al! the
noise they made
Here is one Of the devices that
well-known Hardin county farmer en-
ployed to build up his soil. He sowed
mammoth clover with oats in the
spring. III the fall after some Of 1t had
gone to seed" ne plowed the growth
under and next year planted the
ground to corn. In this way he main
tanned his clover growth for six years
with only one seeding. In the mean
time the fertility Of his land Increased
until a year ago last fall he paid man
for husking 4454 bushels Of corn from
his eighty-two acre field. ten acres OF
which produced little because OF It's
being newly drained land. This man
insists that any ordinary farm land.
after years Of cropping may be brought
to higher state Of fertility than In
it's best years Of natural fertility but
that this Is never so permanent as be-
fore In other words that Il tyo aeids
one of them in its first years OF cui-
tiyation the other an old farmed tract
brought to a high state Of fertility by
artificial methods then both cropped
continuously for term Of years the