Cattle or hogs, Peter Mouw always thought big

Almost every day a promotional catalog, flyer or post card arrives in our mailbox. They actually outnumber the garden catalogs we have received this year. Their frequency doesn’t quite match the political season mail; but at least the advertisements on these bulls are the real thing. And I don’t mind getting these bull sale notices.

Cattle farmers are doing a fantastic job of letting us know what they have for sale. It’s interesting to read about their farms and families; and to learn about what they are doing to improve distinctive characteristics of their chosen breed of cattle.

Several years ago, at an antique store, my farmer and I unexpectedly found a livestock production sale catalog for a man who worked at bringing size into animals. The date for his sale was Wednesday, June 23, 1920 at his farm near Orange City, Iowa. The farm is one we pass by often on our way to town.

Peter Arien Mouw was one of the first settlers in Sioux County, Iowa. He was born on March 17, 1852 at Epe, in the province of Gelderland of the Netherlands. He was 20 years old when he and his parents came to the new settlement of Orange City.

From My Farmhouse Kitchen

By Renae B. Vander Schaaf

thought he was crazy when he purchased a Hereford bull and three cows for $1,000. He bought them because they were the largest he could find. He not only wanted size and scale, but demanded quality in the livestock he raised. He called his cattle Big Type Herefords.

In December of 1903, Peter Mouw exhibited a bull, Harvey IV, at the Chicago fourth annual International Display of Live Stock Exposition. Harvey IV was an eight-year-old Hereford bull. The bull weighed 2,865 pounds and was quite the talk of the exposition as it was the largest bull there.

Another Hereford bull Mouw raised was Taft Giant. (I suspect in honor of our 27th president, William Howard Taft, who happened to also be a large man weighing in at 350 pounds.) Taft Giant was born Dec. 1, 1913 — the year President Taft left office. The bull weighed over 2,800 pounds but is described as an animal with smoothness and quality despite its immense size.

the bleachers were not in use, they could be pulled up towards the ceiling.

On the south side of the building was a place for visitors to get food. A food counter was exposed when a half door was opened up. This building is now gone.

A large barn built in 1914 still stands on the farm. Mouw hired Harm Kiel of Sioux Center to build the 56-by-80-foot barn with a 48-foot high peak. There were stanchions for 22 cows, stalls for 18 horses and box stalls for smaller animals. The barn was built for just under $4,000.

He made his home on 80 acres just north of the town. I wonder if it was he who planted the cottonwood trees on the south edge of the property. Only a few still remain today. They were always a landmark for me when as a young girl, I rode along with my father to haul cattle to the Sioux City stockyards. It was almost a half-way mark.

This Iowa farmer was a man not satisfied with the status quo of livestock. He wanted his livestock to excel. He worked to improve his purebred Hereford cattle. He took his father’s advice seriously, “As long as you sell in pounds, deal with pounds.” The locals

Taft Giant was listed in the Peter Mouw & Co Big Type Herefords catalog. The herd bull was Anxiety Wilton. The name definitely references the quality in Mouw’s Herefords, as the bull Anxiety 4th 9904 is known as “The Father of American Herefords.” Anxiety Wilton was born March 2, 1919. His grandiose ancestor Anxiety 4th came to America from England in 1881. To the Mouw purebred operation, the bull was useful in enhancing the hindquarter muscle thickness, which was just one of his good qualities. Interestingly enough, this Anxiety 4th bloodline is still highly valued in the Hereford breed.

The sales book not only contains information about the farm, the animals for sale, but also a map to help you reach Orange City. He also conveniently gave a train schedule to aid anyone who didn’t care to make the distance with a horse and wagon or walk — like I would have been able to.

On the farm, Mouw had one building where the sale was held. Bleachers were on the east and west side with an open alley between to show the animals as they were auctioned off. When

His interest in pigs apparently began when a visitor to his farm made fun of his grade hogs. He had good cattle, yes, but his pigs? Well, they certainly were a disgrace according to Mr. Ross from Marcus, who offered him a way to improve his swine operation by trading four of Mouw’s pigs for two of his Poland China bred gilts.

As those Poland China offspring out-performed his own stock, he sold most of what he had at the Chicago stockyards and returned home with a few Poland China sows. He began to envision a new type of hog. A few years later, in 1889, he became serious about the Poland China breed. He purchased three animals as his foundation stock, Orange King, Illinois Maid and Illinois Maid 2nd. He saw in these animals the qualities that he wanted in his livestock: a propensity to grow and to finish into a large animal at an early age.

Large is hardly the correct adjective to use. His swine were the first to attain a world’s record of having a boar weigh 1,000s (yes, you read that correctly). One thousand pounds, definitely fitting well into Peter Mouw’s