Re: farming pictures, late 60s, early 70s

Posted by JL2510 on February 13, 2021 at 17:13:24 from (206.83.250.201):

In Reply to: Re: farming pictures, late 60s, early 70s posted by swindave on February 13, 2021 at 14:18:56:

I never heard the number of acres although adding up in my head I'd say they owned at least 800 plus rented ground, Milking around 200 Holsteins, + heifers at another farm, 5 60' silos at this farm and 1 at the heifer barn, double 9 herringbone parlor, milking took 2 hours, there was 2 sets of "cow lots" each with rows of open faced stalls, and each with a long feed bunk fed from the silos in the middle, (nowadays I guess there would be a giant freestall barn instead), later I remember the middle manger having computer feeders that read an electronic tag each cow wore which would automatically spit out the individual cows ration, they got the design for the farm from the milk coop Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers. I was working in neighboring West Virginia a few months ago and passed an identical farm. I figured they had the same plans back in the day.

There were 5 boys in the family and 4 girls. When the oldest 3 boys each got married great grandad (Chester, the one carrying the bale in front of the old open combine) would give them 30 cows and tell them to start paying him back. By 1964 Chester, 3 of the boys, and one son in law joined together and built this farm. The 2 older sons stayed on their own. From what I can tell Chester had a good mind for business and they were a state of the art operation in their time.

In time, 2 of the brothers left to pursue other careers, and Chester passed in the mid 70s. Grandad and Uncle Fred kept going together until around 80. By then their families were getting older and they realized they were going to have to double in size or split to make room for the next generation. They amicably divided the equipment and farms. Grandad entered the Dairy Buyout in '86, and crop farmed until retirement. He was tired of milking cows and he would have soon had to have put in manure handling facilities as those regulations were starting to come around.

One of his son now is a grain farmer continuing the tradition.

They used John Deere tractors. 2 3020s, 3 4020s, a 4320, and 4520 in the era of these pictures. Later these would be traded in. My earliest memories are of a 4430, 4640, and one of the old 4020s. The rest were gone.

I'll try to tack on a picture of the tractor line up.

And for a year or 2 they got with one of the older brothers along with a neighbor and rented some big farms in the county. I have a picture of them all together plowing too. The red tractors are the neighbor.

Replies:

• Re: farming pictures, late 60s, early 70s swindave 05:30:12 02/14/21 (0)

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