Different Crops

The Depression years brought the AAA programs and some definite changes in farming. One of these programs was the “ever normal granary.” Always the one to take advantage of a money-making endeavor, Uncle Carl proceeded to store corn. The hog house and the chicken house were lined and strengthened to hold corn for storage. Two new single cribs were built alongside the double crib. I don’t know how much income was garnered from this, but I do know that through the years following the Depression, all the remaining Peterson children would receive a check from the farm income each year.

It was Grandfather Peterson’s wish that the farm not be sold as long as Grandmother lived. She received an allowance for her personal expenses and the remained was shared with her children. When the Peterson family estate was settled in 1959 — forty-four years after Grandfather had died — the lawyer was astounded that there had not been a suit for partition of the estate. Knowing Uncle Carl as I did, I doubt that any one of his brothers or sisters dared question his authority as financial manager! Needless to day, the yearly checks were greatly needed by my folks during those years, and also needed by the others of the family as well.

During those years of the AAA programs, there was a trend to plant other crops. Always one to try something new, Uncle Carl planted a variety of crops not common to our area. Several years he raised flax. One year it was popcorn. During the war years he tried to grow sugar cane, but I think it froze and went for cattle feed. He also planted and harvested a number of grass seed crops. These were red clover, sweet clover, and alsike clover. Since these needed bees for pollination, he contracted with the Soder brothers of Stratford, Iowa, to place bee hives on the lower farmstead. They didn’t bother us much (the bees) but occasionally would swarm or seek water at the cattle tank.

At one time he contracted to raise waxy-maize instead of regular corn. This maize was used in the manufacture of food stuffs such as macaroni and noodles. He was also one of the first to grow soybeans which have since become a major crop in the Midwest.

Uncle Carl’s interest, as mentioned before, was not in livestock but in grain crops. During one of the last years of his farming career, he raised a mixture of flax and oats. At the time of the settlement of his estate, this combination was still in the bin. He took them as part of his share of the estate and sold them to a hog farmer. The Book of Leviticus in the Old Testament (Chapter 19:19) states that “you should not sow your field with two kinds of seed.” I doubt that he had an inkling that what he had done was such a statute of the Torah!