[AT] Cubs

[Robinson]

Larry D. Goss wrote:

>The first time I remember seeing wording like you heard George use was
>in literature advertising the John Deere L.  
>
>As I understand it, part of the rationale for the aliquots of land in
>the public survey system containing 40 acres was because this is a much
>land as a man with a single team of horses or mules could maintain.
>This same amount of land was supposed to be able to sustain the farmer
>and his family.  It also just so happens (duh!) that when you divide a
>square mile into a checkerboard pattern, each aliquot ends up being 40
>acres.  It's kind of a chicken and egg situation.  If none of these
>reasons make sense to you, then make up your own story.  :-)
>
>It was nice to travel through Farmer's "greenway" trail last month.  As
>I was driving over it in Ol' 191, I was reminded of the way the fields
>on the farm where I grew up were broken into smaller patches because
>they needed to be "horse size".  And there were a number of large trees
>in between the fields and along the fence rows which were absolutely
>essential for the welfare of the horses.  That's one of the things
>that's missing from Farmer's nature trail -- not enough shade trees at
>the edges of the fields.
>
>Now that the farm where I grew up is farmed by modern big machinery, all
>the green belts are gone, and so are the trees.  They "got in the road"
>of the equipment.
>
>Larry
>
>  
>



    You have to remember too that farming a 40 acre mid-west farm in 
those days had a fairly small amount of grain crops involved. You had to 
have pastures for the horses, cow or cows, sheep and small lots for the 
hogs. Then you had to have a hay field to get them through the winter. 
By the time you took out space for the house, garden, barn and chicken 
house and chicken lot there was maybe only 25 acres left for "tilled" 
crops like corn, wheat and oats. Soybeans are a "relatively" new crop in 
the US. You about had to grow wheat and oats. The wheat straw was 
bedding and the oats for feeding. Oats straw was often fed to cattle.

    You probably noticed a lot of small trees, mostly walnut and ash, 
along the trail. Kind of hard to get any size on them quickly...   :-)   
You may have also noticed the X-mas trees in the back corner. The small 
Norway Spruce are still shorter than the grass. The Scotch Pine are 
ready to be trimmed this month again. A number have been damaged by the 
deer but I left them standing hoping they will keep using the same ones 
to rub their antlers on. I badly need to get another 200 in the ground 
this fall.

    My father and I fought long and hard about trees. If he would have 
had his way every tree would have been gone and every square foot 
planted to corn or soybeans. He was very angry that I would not clear 
that back corner so he could have the old trolley grade dozed and plant 
corn all the way to the railroad tracks. The farm was badly overgrown 
when they bought it in 1951 and needed a lot of clearing then, he just 
never knew when to stop...
   
    Speaking of oats... I have been baling the field of oats across the 
road from the house as hay. I cut them green and bale grain and all. I 
grew them as a nurse crop for timothy and orchard grass and as something 
to sell off of the field early. They were planted a little thin so that 
they would not compete too hard with the new grasses. We also baled some 
"mixed stuff" off of a neighbor's back lot. We baled about 1,000 bales 
the last of the week. I still have a few acres to go on the oats and 
maybe another 8 acres of mixed stuff to bale yet. We had some needed 
rain Saturday night and the orchard grass has jumped several inches 
overnight now that the oats are gone. Some people claim that critters 
won't eat oats hay but we used to feed it to cattle and sheep and the 
horses at the west barn have given it "two hooves up"...   ;-)

    The patch we plowed at cubfest is now home to about 600 hills of 
pumpkin plants. If each hill makes 5 pumpkins...

"farmer"