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MIKE HANLEY
03-17-2004 11:29:57
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Re: numbers/coffee shop talk in reply to 70D, 03-17-2004 05:58:19
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I think there were several factors. The early 50's the tractor finally replaced the horse. The last team we had went down the road in 1953 replaced by a 1953 FORD Jubilee joining a 9N and a 8N. By the late 50's the average use of a tractor was several hundred hours of use. In the 50's 500 hours of use per year was the brake that that one reached to consider weather to switch up from a gas tractor to a diesel tractor. So many tractors bought in the early 50's were still running and there was mno reason yet to trade up. The use of N fertalizer boosted corn yields in the 50's. So much so that the goverment started buying up supplus corn and that is when all those round goverment grain bins were up all over the midwest. Prior to the increased use of N fertilizer, standard on a midwest livestock farm was one year corn, one year oats and two years alfalfa. All the manure was put on the last year of alfalfa and with the N in the manure and the N in the plowed down alfalfa no extra N was put on the corn. 100# of 6-24-24 per acre went through the corn planter. Plowing depth was 6". and farms remianed the same size. In the late 50's with all the surplus's the U's of Ag stated pushing to survive the way was to increase fertilizer use, and plow deeper, and get bigger and buy out the the guy next door before he buys you out. This finally cought on about the time the 4020 came out which explaines why the 4020 was the all time best seller of it's time. In other words, 1959 was the start of the goverments and the U's of AG answer to surplus, was to make more surpluses. By the late 60's and the early 70's the farm programs were so imbeded that guys were farming for the goverment programs instead of the open market. And here we go again,,,,, because we didn't learn anything in the 50's and 60's by going from 20 cows and a few hogs and chickens to a specialized dairy farm with 50 cows,,,,,we now have to go from 50 dairy cows to 500 dairy cows to survive. Oh yea here's a idea,,,,, lets take all the dairy cows in the whole township and put then all in one place so we can spent all that time running the roads hauling feed to one spot and haul out the manure to all over the township. So we can spent all that money buying all that equipment for the new werehouse size barn. 50 joggers each in 10 parks don't stink. 500 joggers running in a gym stink. Same way with cows. Did we miss something here by not keeping the cows spread out and keeping the feed and manure hauls short. So that the people milking could jump in a pickup and drive farm to farm and milk 50 cows a 10 farms. I wish some Ag grad student going for a masters in Ag econ would do the numbers on the two differant plans. I'm willing to bet a buck two eighty that the road time for the mikers would come out a lot less the then the road time for the feed and manure haulers. And the bigger plus here is the guys that want to milk 500 cows wouldn't have to fight the townboards and the DNR. And when it comes time to retire,,,,,who's going to have the mony to buy out the 500 cow herds? I asked my banker about that one day and he said they plan a load for a new mega barn to be paid off and written off on the same day the barn and equipment is woren out and out dated so it's no biggey to bulldoze the whole work down at that time.
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