“All you need in this life,” said Mark Twain “is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.” We had a full measure of both. We realized to be satisfied with our own opinions and our scant farming knowledge was a sure recipe for continued ignorance so we sought and accepted good advice hoping to increase our ability. We found in order to be practical in farming that we must have a sense of adventure, believe in research, be willing to ask questions and to listen, and that perfection comes by slow degrees. Fortunately too, we found that a sense of humor does much to ease tensions. Nothing is so difficult, no thing so grim, but it relaxes before a hearty laugh.
Since we have retired from farming I have become increasingly aware of how quickly and how well my husband assimilated the information that he obtained both from the written word and from his day to day experiences. We had not known before buying the farm that there was a County Farm Bureau and Extension Service complete with County Agent. The New York State Extension and Agricultural College at Cornell University was also readily available and very co-operative. We read everything we could lay hands on and tried to listen attentively to all suggestions and facts. We were often accused of being “book farmers”. We spent a very profitable hour one Sunday afternoon at one of the Cornell dairy barns watching the herdsmen milk and feed the cows. In that short time we learned that it is not necessary to strip each cow by hand after removing the milking machine. This chore can be done by the proper manipulating of the machine, which saved us time and energy. We began using the veterinarians from the Veterinary College at Cornell, and had many interesting experiences, gathered a great deal of worth-while information and made many friends.
The stork paid a visit to the barn for the first time and left not one, but two healthy calves to separate mothers. This blessed event occurred in the dead of night, and when we arrived at the barn the following morning and found the two newly born additions racing up and down the platforms, the problem arose as to which calf belonged to which cow. We soon discovered that each mother knew her own offspring and after a couple of transfers back and forth, all four animals became contented and peace reigned once more. As we approached each new job and as each new event occurred and was resolved successfully, we found the experiences exhilarating and it gave our morale a tremendous lift.
Al worked long hours and very hard preparing the fields for that first year’s planting. Most of the farm was in hay and pasture at that time, so the first year we planted only one field in oats and one in corn. I recall clearly that it was a Sunday when the oat field was ready for planting. I also remember that the weather report indicated that rain was imminent by the following day. We hadn’t been at the farm long enough to know whether the neighborhood frowned on field work on Sunday and we were reminded of the commandment “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but, the seventh you shall not do any work…”. Over the years I decided that this probably was never intended to apply literally to farmers. Certainly the cows had to be milked at the allotted times and as the weather is always an all-important factor, the seventh day was very often of necessity, just another working day. We decided to proceed posthaste with the oat planting.
We hitched the team of grays to the old seed drill, filled up what we figured was the right compartment with the oat seed, and then wondered just how the mechanism was supposed to work. To a couple of novices it appeared to be a very involved piece of machinery and we knew it should be treated with respect. Naturally there was no booklet of instructions, the model had long since been obsolete. We pushed and pulled at gears and levers, chirping to the horses to start moving it forward, while I ran behind peering under the machine to see if any of the kernels were filtering through. Finally Al struck the right combination and at last I could see the golden seed falling down through the boots of the drill. I screamed “Hold!” before he played further with the levers, and light of heart we proceeded to the prepared field.
My job was to watch that the compartment holding the seed was kept replenished, and I must say that inexperienced as we were, it did occur to us that we were using a lot of seed. We kept beating a path from the field to the granary in the barn, filling up bags with oats, hauling them in the car, planting them and returning for more. No one had told us nor did we realize that we should have been applying liberal quantities of commercial fertilizer along with the seed. Nor did we learn until too late that there is a gauge on the seed drill to be set manually for different sizes of kernels and kinds of grain.
As the shadows lengthened in late afternoon we finished and wearily returned to the barn, breathing a sigh of relief that our very first crop was now planted. Now let the rains come! The seed was safely in the ground and the moisture would help germination. Our joy was short-lived, however. A neighbor arrived, purportedly to pass the time of day, and after a few friendly remarks mentioned that he noticed that we had been planting oats and he wondered how much seed we had been putting on to the acre? Al did some quick calculating and came up with a figure of about five bushels. At that information the man became convulsed with laughter. He advised that the accepted amount was about one and one half bushels to the acre. Again, too late, the Newcomer was given important information. It was then that we also learned that the drill had been set for and last used to plant buckwheat, and as we hadn’t known to change it, naturally we had overplanted. Need I say that our first crop of oats left much to be desired?
When we purchased the farm about twenty bushels of good potatoes were stored in the cellar under the house. There was a potato shortage that spring so we utilized them to the utmost in our diet. Al also decided to plant potatoes in a sizable chunk of ground so that we would have additional income from this cash crop. As so often happens in farming everyone else seemed to be struck with the same idea, and the following winter there were so many potatoes available that they could hardly be given away. However, we could not anticipate this at the time and filled with the spirit of getting our hands into everything, we planted over two acres of potatoes. I was given the pleasant job of cutting the seed. I was supposed to have remembered from my youth on the farm in Canada some twenty years previously, how my father had cut potato seed. Although I seemed to recall from the dim past that leaving one ‘eye’ on each piece was sufficient, I grew bolder as I confidently wielded the paring knife and I left two and sometimes three eyes on each piece. Finally the planting was accomplished, and then we had a visitor. Always, the arrivals seemed to be timed after the damage was done. This time our caller allowed that it appeared to him that we had planted a very large patch of potatoes, and he hoped that we knew how to take care of them and could get them harvested. He wondered if we were aware of the necessary time and the work involved? Looking back on this new experience I wonder now where we did find the time to weed, to hoe, to cultivate and to spray. But this we did, and the plants grew and thrived.
When September and early October rolled around it was time to harvest our crop. As we started to dig with potato hooks and forks, we were amazed and very pleased to find that we had raised a fabulous crop of potatoes. As we turned them out of the soil—my husband warning me to do it carefully so that no bruising or pricking would occur—we unearthed tubers beautiful to behold. All sizes and shapes came to light, the skins smooth with no sign of scab or blight. Nodding and smiling and congratulating each other, we dug, and picked, and bagged, and hauled, and emptied in the cellar, and then retraced our steps and repeated the exercise. After a few days we found that the operation was not nearly as pleasant and interesting as it had at first seemed. We were not making the kind of headway that we had hoped for. Although the cellar was quickly filling up, the undug acreage in the field did not seem to diminish. When a couple of weeks had elapsed we got to the point where, with a sneer, we would cast aside any but the choicest specimens. We filled the large cellar and still we weren’t finished. We advertised for people to come and pick them on shares. This was done, and while we worked at filling the silo with corn, the balance were salvaged and spread out on the hay-barn floor, which was the last available spot we had. They might just as well have been left undug in the field. Late November that year brought a very early severe spell of frigid weather. Before dawn one cold morning when I arrived at the barn, I decided to check on the potatoes before proceeding with the dairy work. As I had anticipated, I found that the frost had been at work and that they were all solidly frozen. Several days later when we found the time, we shoveled them onto the wagon, hauled them to the field from where they had so recently come, and disconsolately cast them back. We never again planted a potato, even in the vegetable garden. Sometimes it was hard to go to bed believing…“to-morrow will be the great day that I had hoped today would be.”
From the beginning I marveled at the fact that not once did I see my husband noticeably discouraged and he never did complain. His philosophy was to live for the day, do the best possible job, and hopefully the tomorrows would take care of themselves. He had a monumental drive to succeed. Where I had the tendency to anticipate pessimistically and to worry, he could always see the sun breaking through the clouds of despair. As a team, fortunately we harmoniously achieved a middle course. Some farmers seem to have an elusive touch which makes them excel, perhaps certain personality characteristics are involved. Certainly it would have been unfortunate had my husband been denied the opportunity to own and operate a dairy farm. He always felt that the pleasure and satisfaction that he obtained more than compensated for the hard work, the long hours and the lack of much cash remuneration.