Farmers Mutual Insurance Association

reapers had to be raked together before binding. The grain was bound with straw taken from the grain deposited on the ground by the reaper. Four good binders could keep up with a reaper and sometimes bind side by side, and the better binders would help the slower ones … at its best, "ground binding" was a hard and disagreeable job and the harvester was soon introduced with good success. The Marsh harvester, later the Deering, was the first one introduced in Sioux County. The first (harvester) we ever saw was on the farm of Walter Van Rooyen, living a mile south of where is now the hamlet of Newkirk. They used three horses tandem on the machine, one on each side of the tongue and another at the end of the tongue. Cornelius Van Rooyen, the oldest son, stood in front on the binding platform, his father stood at the rear, while the oldest daughter, Gertrude, stood between the two to help with the hard work. The second son Huibert drove the machine, while the third son John, rode and guided the horse in front. As the work was a little too hard for father and daughter, they hired a "green" Hollander to help with the binding, and it fell upon Cornelius to show him how to bind and to break him in on the harvester. While the Hollander was confident and bravely tackled the job, he could not handle it. At that moment, Lane Vogelaar, a neighbor came along, and the new Hollander complained that it was no job for a human being. Then said Vogelaar. "A little binding job amounts to nothing. I will show you how to do it." … While the exhibition was going on, the elder Van Rooyen stood on the corner to watch and had a good laugh out of it. There was much rivalry among the young men then as to who was the best binder, as there is now in cornhusking. But binding on a harvester was hard work … it was killing work which no boy of 16 would now be expected to do. But fortunately it was the last year that we had to do it, for we traded the harvester for a Champion Twine Binder to Gerrit Rozeboom, the then famous implement man, and the next year when we had a harvest of 100 acres of small grain and 100 acres of flax, we cut it all ourselves, with pleasure and satisfaction.

(After a day of harvesting), we would go home, we younger ones lying on our backs on the fragrant straw in the wagon box, watching the stars and singing the songs we loved. Harvesting in pioneer days was hard work, but there was also poetry, romance and joy in gathering the golden harvest, for the customs of the people were simpler than they are today.

Reaping oats the old-fashioned way. Painting originally published by the Quaker Oats Co.

THE BIG CROP

The year of 1894 was the last of a series of dry years and wheat yielded only about 10 or 12 bushels, oats a little more, and corn was almost an entire failure. During those dry years the states of Dakota and Nebraska were completely dried out … LOCAL | RELIABLE | SERVICE

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Before the McCormick Reaper, the grain harvest was done entirely by hand.

The McCormick Reaper harvesting in heavy grain.

… Living at that time was not on as high a plane as at the present and consequently the economic pressure not so intense, the shortage of crops did not affect the financial world as at the present, and with renewed hopes the farmer again worked in the spring of the following year. At that time the country was slowly recovering from the panic which began in 1892 but while money was short there were few financial losses in this part of the country and not many farmers lost their homes. The growing season of 1895 was ushered in rather dry and fear was expressed that it would be a repetition of the year before, but enough rain fell to start the crops and later about as much as was needed.

At first the small grain looked yellowish and suffering but as time went on there developed the greatest crop Sioux County had ever known before or since. That year was the second of our career as a traveling salesman and mechanical expert for the Warder Bushnell and Glessner Company, manufacturers of Champion binders, reapers, and mowers. As the Champion binder was a low and light machine, we had a hard time in handling this enormous crop. Wheat went as high as 45 bushels to the acre, oats up to 125, and we cut barley in the Floyd bottoms that yielded 72 bushels per acre. The weather before September was cool and a peculiarity of that year was that it froze in every month except September … As cool weather suits small grain, there was no rust and the straw was a beautiful yellow. The quality of the small grain was of the very best except in the flat lands of Lynn and Capel townships and similar places where it was nipped by Jack Frost while in the milk and some so badly that it was unsaleable and had to be used for feed. September was very hot with hot winds, and as the tasseling was over long ago this hot weather was just the thing for corn and an enormous corn crop matured as if by magic. But while the quality of the kernel was unexcelled, the cob had grown too fast and was spongy and it was soon discovered that the corn would not keep. As the panic was still being felt and the crop so immense, the price was low. Wheat sold at 40 cents, barley at about 15, oats at from 5 to 8, and corn 8 to 10 cents.

(Speculators) bought the corn and stored it in cribs near the railroad stations. As the following summer was rather wet and hot, trouble with the cribbed corn soon developed and crews of men and boys were hired to sort the rotting corn. But as the cob was so spongy, the corn that had been thought safe to keep again began to rot. As corn was cheap and coal was the usual price, corn became the principle fuel in homes, business houses and schools. It was a strange sight to see farmers driving up to the coal bins and unloading the beautiful yellow grain for the object of furnishing heat and going up in smoke.

The McCormick Reaper was promoted in an advertisement in the Sioux City Journal in May 1872.