DeSmet Farm Mutual

Hoff Brothers cutting grain into bundles in 1905.

The Henry J. Hoff farm in the early 1900s included a shed, a horse barn, many horses and a house. Ted and Walter Heinrich with their dairy herd in 1911.

Work days were long, starting early in the morn and lasting until late at night. Power was supplied by oxen, mules or horses. The animals pulled one-bottom plows to break the prairie and reveal the rich, virgin soil beneath. Wheat and oats were harvested with hand scythes. When the McCormick reaper was introduced, average production increased from 2-3 acres per day to 10 acres per day. Corn was a secondary crop in the early days. Planting was done by hand and later by one-row corn planters. Steam-driven tractors first appeared in the 1890s and early 1900s. Steam tractors and more advanced threshers moved from farm to farm. Combined with the new tractors, farmers pooled their labor at harvest and the ability to harvest more acres in less time allowed more acres to be farmed. The 1920s and 1930s saw the advancement of gas-driven tractor engines. Despite how hard life on the farm was in the early days, humor was still appreciated. A report in March 1897 said: “During the big storm of January 2nd, one of Hassett and Connolly’s porkers got in between 2 haystacks and was completely snowed under. Search was made for him at the time, but he could not be found and he was given up as a gone sausage. This week, he crawled out of his hold as spry and chipper as ever, after an imprisonment of 71 days. Jim says he looks something like the Bohemian’s hog, ‘all before the ears is nose, and all behind the ears is tail.’ However, Jim said he will not winter any more hogs that way if he can help it.”

ALWAYS HERE. ALWAYS CARING.

For over 105 years, De Smet Farm Mutual has been helping to protect what we all love about South Dakota.

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Emma and Sophia Hoff finished picking corn by hand in 1945.

Lewis and Charlie Fryda and the combine they purchased together.

SOURCE

This essay is adapted from a chapter in the book “A Touch of Tripp,” compiled and edited by the Tripp Study Club in the nation’s bicentennial year of 1976. Accompanying photos are also reproduced from the book. Thanks to Heritage Hall & Archives in Freeman for maintaining an excellent collection of community histories.

Finally, a story in the Tripp Ledger in July 1937 provides a moral that is more or less as true today as it was then: “A farmer from over near Morgan told the editor the other day that the reason so many people have the wrong idea about the problems of the farm is that they never come out to the farm except when the weather is nice and the chicken is fried or the fruit is ripe. To get a true perspective of the farm, the farmer said, one must experience the other phases of this farm life when the weather is cold and wet and sloppy and when chores are done in the mud and corn shocked in the blistering heat and the field aquiver with heat. Or if that isn’t enough, one should try tackling a dozen cows at the end of a hard day’s work and take a hand at separating milk before turning in. There is a lot of pleasure about farm life, but one shouldn’t get the idea that is all fried chicken and apple pie.”