O/T Auction details 1940s

Does anyone remember the details of farm auctions in the 1940s about the end of WW 2 time frame. I was thinking of a McCormick Deering W-30 that my Dad bought at an auction in 1945 or 1946. I remember him saying he had to put his name in a drawing to get the tractor. It had something to do with the war rationing that was still in effect.

Strange the things that pop into my head, LOL. It would be an interesting piece of history to know the details of what this was about. I also recall how happy Dad was to get his name drawn because this was the first tractor he owned with rubber tires.

Put on your thinking caps and fill in some history. Thanks.

I remember Dad telling about those drawings,yes. He'd tell too,that there were price controls on some things,not on others,so they'd sell a bale of hay and a tractor went with it free.

Can't remember goin to any auctions, but remember goin with folks to the "Warehous" to grocery shop and almost anything else they needed. It was kinda like a Wal-mart...
Always got a few bags of cracked corn for the chickens in thos print sacks my Mom made dresses out of. Almost was always a mouse or two in the sacks and when my Dad dumped them into the feed barrell, He'd put our rat terrier in there and we'watch him get the mouse!!

Yes I remember those sales, in fact me being a little kid at the time , I got to pull a guys name from the hat . It was at a neighbors sale & the tractor was a Case CC.Seems to me that a cat was involved in the sale of the tractor, somehow. There were price controls set by the 'war board' on farm machinery. Not sure how it all worked. I do remember that Dad needed an electric drill for a building project , he went to the war board and got a permit to buy a new one. I still have it and it works like it did when new. Made in the U S A too! clint

Same thing here in the UK during the war. At a farm auction when the lot got to new price the bidding stoped and anybody wanting the lot put his name on a piece of paper and then they put the papers in a hat to be drawn out of. The first name out of the hat was the lucky winner of the lot at new price. MJ

I don'tknow of any auctions on farm machinery like you speak of.Dad bought either 4 or 5 new tractors in 1942-1945,one GF got 2,other GF got 1 plus 3 new combines(MH & A_C).Sugar and flour were the big rationing idems,bought sugar in 100lb.sacks.46 and 47 were big black market years on some special farm machinery.

Dad has never mentioned any auctions like those, but he told me he tried filling a ruined tire with sand one time and stitching the blowout back together with wire since they had no way to buy tires during the rationing.

He said it really seemed unfair at the time that there was not some way to prioritize people that lived out on a farm for tires compared to the folks in town...

I can't help but think of that every time I see the pile of take-offs around any tire shop.

Its amazing what people have gotten used to - in terms of throwing things away (tires, furniture, used cars, food, clothes, etc, etc, etc...)compared to really making do in a pinch like in the old days...


Howard

yep, auctioneers were pretty good at getting money. Because of rationing,price fixing etc you couldnt sell one at a auction because it would/could bring more than new/fixed price. This would of course be against the law as black market sales. What typicaly happened was you would throw your numbers in a hat,and someone would draw one out. whoevers number was drawn got to buy it by paying the fixed new tractor price. Of course this was to keep folks from buying new or nearly new tractors,and selling them at greatly inflated prices on the black market. Even with the laws and things,(and depending on whos numbers you go by) something like 1/2 to 2/3 or more of ALL sales in the US were black market sales. One of the biggest scandals of the entire war was when several soldiers were arrested,and some even hung for selling excess cigarettes and things from a military base on the black market. Legally just about anything rationed or that had prices fixed couldnt be sold at auction. Even though folks did it all the time, it was even illegal for instance for housewives to trade or sell rationed goods like sugar. Most folks would of course, but the idea/concept was if you didnt actually NEED it you werent supposed to BUY it. it was illegal to buy it if you didnt actually need it yourself and sell or trade it.

My mother grew up on this place. Really never changed much from the 40"s til about 1990. Milked 4 cows, raised 2 hogs/year, raised up to 2500 chicks to either fryer or hens, no tractor til late 90"s. Everything was done by hand. Grew almost acre garden, if you ate, you worked it, and canned/froze everthing. Cut and stacked corn and hay by hand.
The Store was 1/2 mile walk on gravel/red clay road. 30min ride to town for anything special like hardware/parts.
When it came time for canning, whole family sat around the living room, stringing/breaking beans, cutting corn off cob, whatever was in that week.
1971, sold off 7 acres @$500/ac. When I bought it back, it was more like $28,000/ac.

another thing you have to remember, and its key to this very day, is that rationing WAS NOT due to folks not having money. Folks in the US literally prospered as never before or since. the US was for the most part supplying the entire world with goods,and they made a killing doing so. we simply could not produce enough, fast enough, of anything. according to the ag dept records 1945 was the very first year tractors out numbered horses on american farms,despite having rationing and price controls, millions of workers gone,most of the world in ruins and their industry destroyed,etc etc. The US was the ONLY country in the world that actually despite all the death/suffering actually MADE money during the war years.americas position in the world today, was won as much or more in its factories and farms of WW2 as on the battlefield.

here is a picture of my 1942 farmall m. it was origionally a kerosene tractor,. it was bought new by a neighbor back then. from what he told me, because of war time rationing, lotterys were held to buy a new tractor. if your name was drawn you could buy one. the fellow that ordered this tractor could not afford it when it came in to the dealer, and my neighbor was next on the list. he was in the army in ww2 in europe, his family had to wire him and he took the tractor. when i bought the tractor from him, he gave me the original bill of sale. ( i did the restoration)


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I don't remember how it went, but before the US got into the war, Hitler was quoted as saying something like 'equally supplied, America forces would never overpower Germany's fighting men, but if they ever fought and win, it would not be won on a battlefield, but factory floors'.

Dad got his name on different waiting lists. The first one that came up was for a W4, from an honest dealer that followed the list by date.

Then the local JD dealer told Dad that they had a JD "G" coming in. There were 2 days ahead of Dad on the list, but if the dealer let one of them have it, the other customer would get mad.

The dealer arranged for us to pick up the tractor from another dealership 30 miles away so the local customers wouldn't know that the tractor came from them.

That tractor was so much trouble we wished that the dealer had given it to one of the other people on the list. That was the last JD tractor on the farm. I think that it was assembled with defective parts out of the scrap bins.

and theres one other thing that you wont hear dicussed,and one of the very greatest myths of the war. We hear all the time that US factories switched to war production for PATRIOTIC reasons. Absolutly NOTHING could be farther from the truth!factories in the US switched purely for monetary reasons. they simply could make more money building war goods than the could making cars,sewing machines etc. if they could build a tank,or a rifle for several times more money they switched. price freezes set by the gov KEPT them building war goods. simply put, it was far more profitable to build a $10 rifle than it was to build a $3 sewing machine. most industrialists of the day sided very closely with the axis powers before the war,and looked to europe and germany and its increasing economies as their future. we were still a mostly agricultural country,one long mired in the depression with very little chance of recovering soon. All the big money folks didnt want war, they wanted trade.germany ,italy,japan was where the money was, largely built by american money and forgien policies. very simply and crudely put,these were white races who mirrored the american policy of manifest destiny.japan was the last area left needed to insure white dominance around the globe.and they were considered as white as anyone. that is why we simply stood aside as they overran the areas they did.it was gov policy.and it was fully supported by the us in pre-war years.

We lived on the farm in Loomis, CA it was out of town about 5 miles so we didn't get there very much. Except to go to school and we had to walk 1/2 mile to catch the bus terrible if raining. I didn't start school till the end of the war but I remember they never talked about it at school. I guess they wanted us kids to be free from the war. My neighbor would gather up old batteries poor the acid out on the ground and brake the case open then take the copper and zinc to sell. I think if you went there today you could still find parts of those batteries.
Mom would trade butter for sugar stamps they were very hard to get and she needed the sugar to can. We would spend a whole day with huge pans in the black berry patch picking them, at the end of the day mother would tell us to get some with red on them she needed these so they would jell.
We were not rich by any chance grandfather farmed sold cream from his small dairy and fruit in the summer. He raised some hogs to sell at the auction in Roseville. Mother worked at the Air Base in Sacramento she was an Aircraft Mechanic building engines for the war effort. I got in trouble later on when I was in High school they didn't believe that mother was an aircraft mechanic.
Life was real good out on the farm working and swimming in the American River. Mother was an excellent swimmer an made sure that all us kids could swim. Mother got in trouble when she bought a two piece swimming suit she looked very good in it but back then it was very risky to wear such things.
I could write all day about this but I better save some for later.
Walt

I don't know where you got your info from, but the War Production Board took over factories all over the country. Henry Kaiser resisted, and the Feds forcibly carried him out of his plant. I had a great aunt that built B24's at Willow run, a factory built by Ford, just for bombers. My grandads built tanks and worked in a steel plant. My mom's dad literally got drafted by the war production board, everybody had to register, and the board assigned him to the rouge plant. I think everybody wanted to do their part, unlike today.

according to the records after the war, average japanese soldier went into battle with 2 lbs of supplies per man. Average American soldiers had 30 lbs per man.

Dad told me of the gentleman he was working for wanting a new tractor during the latter part of the war(It started in 39 up here remember)Wilson had put his name in to get a new tractor and when they were available you took whatever was offered. Dad went with his boss Wils. to pick up the new tractor this one day,a John Deere "AR" although they did stop at the local garage to get the clutch lever heated and bent upright like a "normal"tractor and when they got home they took off all the extra tin on the fenders. When Dad told me this we were at a tractor show in the late 1970's and was looking at a fully restored AO.He wondered if the extra tin was still hanging up in Wils's shed! (it wasn't) Mother chuckled when the recycling idea was starting up around here in the mid 80's...she said this was not new. During the war they regularly sent people around to collect glass,tin and rags on different days so the products would be sent back into use for the war effort. She had a bike that sat unused for almost all of the war because they couldn't get a tire for it.

Dad talked about filling a tire like that with oats. Some years ago I bought an unstyled JD A with a steel patch bolted into a split sidewall.

Hope this doesn't divert this thread to another direction. Your time frame reminds me of what my dad told me long ago. He said after WW II you could buy land and pay for it in one year with a good crop of soybeans! What a difference now, just heard this morning that the price of land in Iowa went up 24% the past year to $12,000/acre.

I was really young at the time, but do remember a few things.
Dad never owned a farm, always rented. His Dad dieing when Dad was only 8 years old might have had something to do with that.
Moved to a larger farm in winter of 43-44. Don't know where he got it, but replaced the McCormick 10-20 with a 31 Regular with cultivater, a newer plow, & 15 ft single disc. Remember guy buying the 4 horse, 2 row cultivator. Towed it away with his car.
Also helping Mom cut the ends out of any soup/vegetable cans, flattening the cans & returning them & empty paper bags to grocery store. Lots of clothes made from flour sacks. Didn't get store bought shirts or underwear until starting school. Windshield sticker on car "Save Tires, Drive Under 35".
Enough rambling.
Willie

thats actually funny right there. in FACT kaiser did everything possible to support the war effort. developed the welding techniuqes used to build the so called liberty ships, kaiser motors ( incedentally STARTED in 1945) made jeeps etc.war department over-saw production, guaranteed quality control,took steps neccessary to increase production,provided security ,searched out sabotage, and in fact very often sacrificed quality for production quotas. we needed war materials as fast and in as large of quantities as possible. their job was simply to keep production up.seems odd to me that people overlook all the riots ,strikes , work stoppages,and things that went on during the war years that often only were stopped by military intervention.these were not caused by the owners or industrialists,they were making money hand over fist. they were caused and carried out by the workers who were just like today demanding more and more. there was a sense of patriotism no doubt, but by and large the home front was fought for personal gain.america didnt want war,and in fact elected roosevelt on his promise of no war. but when it started it didnt take long to figure out where the money was. and folks who hadnt worked in years flocked to take advantage. my mother, her mother, and most her sisters worked in the aircraft plant here,and lived in the housing set up for workers. her oldest sister worked for the war dept and oversaw female workers at a furniture plant.dont know of any plants that were actually taken over by the gov,no reason too take them over. simple rule of buisness, go where the money is. make more money selling a desk to the gov,than i can joe blow, guess who gets it!

Mother made my shirts up into High School I alway had the best shirts because mom was an expert on the old treadle machine. I wore more flour sacks than anyone in school.
Walt

My Dad told the same stories about the hay bale auctions in SD during the war.
Angle Iron

Guy I used to ride to work with told me this story about his Dads first tractor.He was on the list and got a call from the Massey Harris dealer about a new tractor.Seems there were 2 names ahead of him but they were nieghbours and only one tractor was available.The dealer figured if one guy got the new tractor he would lose the other as a customer.The tractor was a 101 Junior row crop and my friends dad wanted a standard but the dealer said "take it or leave it I want it off the lot ASAP".A deal was struck between the father,the dealer and a hog buyer who financed a lot of tractors at that time where the tractor was paid for over time in pigs.

All this talk of wartime rationing prompted me to dig out these old coupon books. I have no idea how this program worked.

The coin with the triangular hole is a luxury tax token.

Just after WWII ended an uncle of mine was in California for something or other and found 3 new Farmall M's for sale. He called Dad to see if he wanted one. Well, yeah, so he called his bank (they were in Kansas), told them he was going to write a check for ??? and he would see them when he got home.

He sold his car, bought a truck and trailer, the 3 Farmall M's and headed home. On the way from California to Kansas he sold one of the M's for enough to pay for 2 of them and beat his check home. I think Dad paid him 750$ for the one he got and he had it for 22 years.

If I knew how to search the pictures here I think there is a picture of him, his M, and his German Shepard in the yard.

I thought you were going to say the first thing out of the hat said 6 and 7/8! Sorry, just had to say that.

When I was a kid, our neighbor had a M Farmall that was built during the war and it was painted brown. He said they couldn't get red paint during the war. Anyone ever seen one or heard of this?? Chris

I would like to see some facts that support what you printed. I never heard of any strikes during the war years. Some if not all auto plants were given money to put in crane bays when building new plants after WWI, reason being so the plants could be converted to building war supplies in case of government need. Most auto assembly plants did not need crane bays to build automobiles. Most, if not all factories were converted to war supplies, they did not have an option. Even Mitsubishi built war supplies for WWII.,airplanes with that big red dot on them, I think they were called zeros. The men and mostly women and a lot of blond women who build the liberator bombers at the willow run plant and war supplies at other auto plants were responsible for taking all those zeros out of the sky. I doubt any of them struck for higher wages. Show some facts or your post will be considered B.S.

Grandad's brother talked about putting your name on a list if you wanted to buy any new tractors or machinery during the war. He also talked about the neighbors who magically moved to the top of the list when one came in. You had to take whatever brand came in, or pass. Chris

I will eat a little crow, there were strikes during the war. The strikes did not involve wages. And they were not authorized by the UAW. They were wildcat strikes.

There was very little farm equipment made during the war. Plus the farm economy was booming suppling the war effort. It took several years for the factories to get switched over to full farm equipment production. Tractors where still ration into 1946.

The way the raffle auctions would work was like this. The auctioneer would sell the piece just like he does now. That would determine the price. You bid just like you where going to be buying the piece. When the top bid was in the auctioneer would ask all the people that would pay that for the piece to put their name on a piece of paper and they would draw the "winning" name out of a hat. That person would pay the high bid on the auction item.

Then in the heart of the war 1943-1944 there where even price controls on used items too. There was a list of how high a tractor or planter could sell for. Some things did not have price controls. An example of this was chickens. So there where many auctions around here where you bid on a coop of ten chickens that happened to be setting on the hood of a truck/tractor. You where legally paying for the chickens but got the truck/tractor thrown in.

Kind of sounds wild!!!

My dad was on a list and got a new H farmall in the winter of 1946. I have that H now. He had a F-12 converted to F-14 engine specs. Sold it to someone in Illinois for 600 bucks with cultivator. Paid about lk for H with cultivator.

One more thing, Kaiser did not build jeeps for the war. Kaiser Motors started in 1945 at Fords abandon Willow run bomber plant. Not too many jeeps needed for the war effort after Ford stopped building bombers. Kaiser built ships and other water craft on the west coast for the war effort.

I recall a story I heard about selling tractors in the price control era during WW 2. Fellow ran a local sale then,according to the story there were no price controls on parts tractors,so this fellow would remove the carburetors and magnetos,sell the tractors as parts tractors,and after the sale,hand the carburetor and magneto to the buyers.Always an angle-to say nothing of the black marketing going on back then-

At 70+ years I assumed I was one of the older ones on here. seem there are many that actually remember things in the 39/40 years so they had to be 5 or 6 then.. So we do have some 80 + year old members. I like a lot of the others remember mother talking of the war efforts. My father was gone when I was born and stayed until the war was over. Lots of sacrifice during the war that is for sure and as any all ways someone figuring out how to beat the system.

Still use that method today. I've seen several "questionable" items "thrown in" with other items to get them sold.

My late father-in-law told this story. In 46-47 or so he"d heard that there was going to be a huge demand for paint..and in those days paint meant linseed oil which was derived from flax.So he planted 100 acres of flax and sure enough the price of flax went thru the roof. Said he paid for the entire farm (160 acres) from that one years flax crop.

I still have ration books and ration coins from those years which I got from my parents. The coins have different colors but were mostly the size of our dimes and were made of some kind of hard cardboard. Jackinok is right that you still had to have the money to buy rationed things but the books and ration coins gave you "the right" to buy. Don't feel too good Jackinok because a lot of your diatribe is pure horse pucky. I lived thru that era, don't have to read about it.

I was 8 1/2 yrs old at the end of the war. I still can see in my mind a guy running to the fire station to turn on the fire siren in celebration of VJ day. I remember hearing about the bombing of Pearl Harbor (I was almost 5 yrs old then). I wondered why the Japanese would bomb a harbor full of pearls as that would ruin a lot of pearls.

My father drove a '37 flathead V8 Ford F5 truck hauling cream before, during and after the WWII years in east-central Iowa. He was allowed to buy a couple tires for it during the war because of the need for fresh milk and cream for everyone, including the war effort, was so important. If you didn't have a real valid reason to buy tires you just waited until whenever how many years they would be generably available again. Or you scrounged around for used tires. He hauled cream in 10 gallon cans for 26 yrs. I liked arriving at the creamery with all the steam and hissing going on. As they cut and packaged the butter in 1 lb blocks, the excess was tossed in a big open tub. Us kids would walk by that tub and pull out a finger full of butter and it tasted so good. No employee cared that we did that! So it must have been ok in those days.

Our car was a '36 Olds 6 cylinder with 3 on the floor and it had bullet headlights. For several years after the war you still had to have your name on the dealer's list to buy a new car (Don't remember what year "the list" was done with.) Dad had his name on the list of the local Chevy dealer and he eventually worked his way to the top of the list; when us kids saw a new Chevy at that dealer I always hoped dad would buy it because he had the first chance. He kept turning them down and it drove me nuts...I wanted to ride in a new car! He never did buy a Chevy but finally bought a used 1948 "98" Olds in 1950 with a straight 8 that looked like it was a city block long. (The next yr Olds came out with their Rocket 88.) Dad sure loved that Hydramatic transmission; the first in the industry.

I worked in a country elevator 1957 to 1960. A lot of protein still came in cloth bags but most were in paper by then. A farmer would bring his corn and oats to be ground up and protein added and then haul it all home. He would often have a small swatch of a cloth pattern in his pocket and he would go in the "feed room" and try to find a match of the pattern; wouldn't you know it, the pattern he wanted almost always was at the bottom of the stack and guess who had to work thru the piles to get the sacks he chose!
But the man's wife got the pattern she needed to make shirts, underwear, etc.

A little girl in our grade school, about 1947 or so, wore under pants made from feed sacks because us boys knew how to check that out! To this day I know an old schoolmate who still identifies her by the old nickname we used "Feedsack Dirtypants"! Kids are cruel.

LA in WI

I remember Dad telling about selling chickens to the "official" livestock market in Cleveland for the rationed price. The truck driver came back with a check for the fixed price amount, then started peeling off cash to make the difference between that and the black market price. Same sort of thing always seems to happen whenever someone thinks they can artificially set the price on anything.

Thanks folks for all the history lessons. I'm 70+. Someone commented that those responding here are probably in their 70s and 80s to know these details of war rationing.

Thanks again for some very interesting reading.

@ LA in WI:

You sure know how to bring back a guy's almost forgotten memories. I was born in Sept. 1946 & my mother used to make my diapers out of Flour sacks. When my sister was born in 1950, my mother used those same diapers for her, & I can remember wearing underpants and shirts that my mother made on the old treadle sewing machine.

Although I lived in the city (L.A. suburbs), I wore Flour sack shirts that mother made on the old treadle sewing machine, until I was in 6th grade (1957) & my sisters wore flour sack dresses. I also remember mother buying ground Horse-meat because we couldn't afford ground Chuck (Hamburger). I also remember mother saving all of the fat drippings & grease in a 1 pound coffee can, which when it was full, I would take up to the Butcher at the Piggly Wiggly Market who would buy it (Korean War era - the processed Glycerine from the fat was used to make Explosives). With the money from the Butcher I had my choice of either 1 stick of Horehound Candy or a large Dill Pickle from the Pickle barrel, I usually got the Dill Pickle (5 cents) & took the rest of the money home to mother.

Walt:

You're lucky you had a bus to ride, I grew up in the L.A. suburbs & I walked 3 1/2 miles one-way to Jr. High School and 5 miles one-way to High School and this in the late 50's & early 60's.

You talk about your mother getting a two-piece swim suit; well I have in my photo album a photograph of my mother taken in July of 1946 when she was pregnant with ME (I was born in Sept. 1946) wearing a two-piece swim suit at the beach.

WOW!, I'd sure like to buy a bale of Hay & get a free Tractor. Must have been damned expensive Hay.

I remember an uncle who bought a new 2N Ford-Ferguson, hand cranked, that had steel wheels all around as rubber tires were rationed then. It also had a magneto and no electrical system, copper shortage. After the war ended he updated it with a starter and lights and continued to use it till he died in 76.
My mother made most of our clothes from chicken feed sacks or any other sack material. Since we were a large family she bought extra feed
sacks for 10 cents apiece from a neighbor lady who had no children.
We had plenty to eat as we raised hogs, cattle and chickens along with a large garden and corn to be ground at the mill. Don't remember the exact "toll" at the mill but it was something like getting 40 pounds of meal for 50 pounds of corn.
Tires were rationed so car and truck tires with boots in them along with knots on them were common sights. Roads were so poor and speeds so slow that being out of balance wasn't noticed. People did not gripe much about rationing as winning the war was the most important thing. They were people who had survived the depression so knew how to make do with very little.
Joe

Before high schools had driver"s training classes(prior to about 1952-1953 or so in our area) the only way many learned how to drive a car was by having your dad, uncle or an adult take you out on a rural road to practice. Automatic transmissions were still in the minority thru most of the 1950s. So it was interesting (and great fun) to watch new drivers start in 1st gear. The motor would roar, the driver let the clutch out quickly and the gravel would fly! Farm kids had a big advantage with clutches because of spending so much time on tractors (except John Deere hand clutches).

The greatest fun was watching an older neighbor trying to teach his wife how to drive. The car was in the alley next to their big garden. The wife got behind the wheel, her husband was talking loud about what to do. She started the motor, put it in gear, revved motor to a scream and popped the clutch. That old Plymouth accelerated in reverse and she backed clear thru their garden and into the neighbors yard! She had mistakenly put the car in reverse.
About 6 of us boys laughed so hard we ached.

Buick came out with their "Dynaflow" auto transmission in about 1950...no real gears like Hydramatic..and that Dynaflow slipped a lot just to get those heavy cars moving. So the motor had to rev a lot even for moderate starts. With a heavy car, their auto trans, and a huge straight 8 motor, mileage was not good.

Story went around a Buick owner stopped for gas, the attendant was pumping gas and after a while he said to the owner "Shut the motor off, you are gaining on me"!!

An old German driver told the attendant "Don"t monkey mit da caburator because you vil give me trouble for 3 veeks".

Chevy"s first auto trans. was "Power Glide"; much like Dynaflow but had 2 gears in the trans. With only a 6 cylinder and Power Glide those cars were real dogs at a fast start. That trans made many auto trannys to be called "slush boxes".

Chrysler had "Fluid Drive", still had a clutch pedal but was nearly an automatic....with lots of slip.

Ford had "Fordomatic" and Mercury had "Mercomatic"....same thing with 3 gears (I think) and was a pretty good tranny...about equal with a Hydramatic.

Pontiac used the Hydramatic and even Hudsons and Studebakers ended up with that toward the end of their productions of cars.

But Oldsmobile with Hydramatic and Rocket V8 ruled the road. I once beat an Olds with my "56 Ford in a flat out race on a lonely stretch of Iowa highway and both of us drivers were astounded. Must have been an unusually slow Olds.

My Ford had manual overdrive so that was a good combo for flat out high speeds.

I always wished I had the money to buy an Olds in those days and race any poor sucker who came along....but by the time I had the money the 1970s Olds was just another GM car.

Enough, LA in WI

Can anyone tell me how the rules for selling meat that you raised and slaughtered yourself were during WWII? My grandfather told me that my great grandfather raised, slaughtered, and sold a lot of pork during that time period and our approx. 24x24 smokehouse is full of whittled hooks in the rafters, so I'm sure he also cured a lot of meat for his own family and tenants. He had fences along all of his property lines and let the hogs run in several hundred acres of woods in the floodplain of the Cape Fear River and fed them in certain places so they could be caught. They foraged for a lot of what they ate, so I don't know if they would have been top-notch hogs by today's standards but the investment was low and the demand was high. My grandfather died young when I was a teenager and he said that large trucks came a long way to buy meat and that they slaughtered a lot of hogs, but I never got a clear idea of the legalities of the time from him. There are still some ration books left at my grandmother's house, along with a large sack of well worn but sharp knives that were used to slaughter hogs when you could still legally sell pork in NC that was killed on the farm. I can't imagine how people would react now if we were faced with another national emergency that required effort from everyone and extreme sacrifice from so many.