- Agriculture - Janesville Sesquicentennial
- Cows did more than just graze during
the last quarter of the 1800s as dairying revolutionized farming
in the state.
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- Early farming was no easy chore
- In a great wave of immigration, they pulled up generations
of roots
- to till the promise of a new land.
- Early in the 19th century, they came to the United States
from
- Germany, Sweden, Norway, England, Wales, Ireland and Scotland.
- Farmers.
- Thousands of them found their way to Wisconsin where hard
- work, pride in the soil and ingenuity were keystones to survival.
- While Janesville is known as the "Bower City,"
the men and
- women who set down a plow here in 1835 had more trouble breaking
sod than they did cutting trees.
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- In Southern Wisconsin, farmers squatted on prairies with
groves of oak trees. The Rock Prairie
- in Rock County was one of the largest and most beautiful
of prairies in the state and one of the richest carved into farm
fields.
- But even though there were few trees to be felled, the hazards
of breaking soil were not to be
- underestimated. In an 1851 account of plowing sod, J. Milton
MAY of Janesville described the painful toil.
- "In the early settlements of the prairie country the
obstacles in the way of rapidly and easily
- breaking prairie were numerous and formidable... First, the
tenacity and strength of the prairie sward, arising from the
ten thousand wire-like fibrous roots, interlaced and interwoven
in every conceivable manner.
- "Second, the red root, so called. This is a large bulbous
mass of wood or root, gnarled and hard,
- very much resembling cherry timber in color and density."
- In Robert and Maryo GARD's book, "My Land, My
Home, My Wisconsin," the Janesville
- farmer is further quoted as saying that to make any progress
in the work of "breaking," four or six yoke of oxen
and two men were necessary. The months of May and June were best
for this work, and often a crop of corn was raised in the sod
by "chopping in" the seed with a sharp hoe or axe.
Anywhere from 10 to 20 bushels could be expected per acre.
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- Wheat was popular crop
- One of the first things settlers did after plowing ground
was plant a little wheat, and as early as the
- 1830s it was a popular crop.
- Because the Rock River provided endless water power, Janesville
became the hub of many
- milling interests, and, by the 1850s, the community's mills
- fed by farmers bringing in bountiful harvests of not only wheat,
but also buckwheat and rye - were feeding the nation.
- Levi ST. JOHN - the largest farmer in Janesville in
1856 - harvested 1,000 bushels of wheat,
- 1,200 bushels of corn, 1,700 bushels of oats, 500 bushels
of potatoes and five tons of tobacco on 200 acres.
- In the city, W. HUGHES, Prosper A. PIERCE and
Jesse MILES all farmed about 100 acres
- each, while Andrew PALMER, David NOGGLE, A.
C. BAILEY, John P. DICKINSON and George HIELD
raised crops on farms ranging from 50 to 70 acres. In all, Janesville
boasted 18 farms in 1856. In addition to grain crops, they raised
cattle, sheep, swine and horses.
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- Low prices
- Up until about 1848 in Rock County, the wheat crop was very
profitable, but a short crop or
- two added to low prices. Statewide, until 1860 - the year
28 million bushels of wheat were produced in Wisconsin - it was
the staple on which many farmers relied. Each spring, all the
land was plowed up and religiously planted to wheat and corn.
- In the late 1840s, wheat sold for 20 cents a bushel in Janesville
and was carted to Milwaukee
- where it brought 37.5 cents. The price of corn was 12 to
15 cents, while oats at eight hardly paid for the cost of threshing.
- But the soil's precious fertility was not boundless and soon
the boom turned bust. Spring rains
- washed away loose dirt and low prices threatened the farm
economy. Many had come west to grow wheat with little attention
to other products. They borrowed money to improve their farms,
believing in the golden harvest. But with troubled times, bankers
who thought farming was about to fail wouldn't make loans - not
even to farmers who were willing to pay exorbitant interest rates.
- Janesville farmer James M. BURGESS, critical of his
fellow wheat growers, called them
- "slovenly." In no country but Wisconsin would their
practices be considered approximating to the science of farming.
- "The causes are obvious, the excuse reasonable,"
he said. "First, farmers have attempted to
- cultivate to much land, with very limited means. Next, they
have been deluded with the notion that wheat can be grown successfully,
for an indefinite period of time; that manuring, rotating crops,
seeding down with timothy, clover and other grasses; and growing
stock, flax and hem was altogether unnecessary.
- "To surround a quarter section of land with a sod fence,
break and sow it to wheat, harvest the
- crop and stack it; plow the stubble once and sow again with
wheat; thresh the previous crop and haul it to the 'Lake' was
considered good farming in Rock County," BURGESS
said. "Hundreds expected to win by farming in this blind
manner." He added that "it will cost years of exertion
to regain what's been lost by mismanagement."
- As the soil wore out and disease destroyed wheat's bounty,
the nation's breadbasket moved
- west. What emerged in Rock County and Wisconsin were the
beginnings of America's Dairyland. A beast once considered useful
for only a little milk now and then gained heightened status
and became the new savior of a wornout land.
- Up until this time, cows were milked in summer and then went
dry. Winter dairying didn't exist.
- Farmers figured that the longer rest a cow had between her
lactation periods, the better cow she would be when she freshened.
- But William Dempster HOARD, through his Jefferson
County Union, and later the HOARD's
- Dairyman, taught Rock County as well as Wisconsin farmers
how to become dairymen and to restore fertility to the soil by
planting and rotating nitrogen-fixing cover crops.
-
- Dairying was big step
- Dairying in the last quarter of the 19th century completely
revolutionized Wisconsin farming. By
- 1879, the quality of the state's dairy products was excellent,
with Wisconsin cheese receiving 20 awards - a larger number than
any other state but New York - for cheese at the State Centennial
Exhibition.
- The numbers show that after the turn of the century most
farmers looked to dairying for a large
- part of their income. In 1880, 18,637 acres of wheat were
planted in Rock County. Ten years later that dropped to 8,433,
and, by 1907, only 687 acres were sown. The same year, 27,764
milk cows produced more than a million pounds of butter.
- The Rock County Sugar Company, the largest business ever
in La Prairie Township - with the
- exception of farming - began a booming business in 1904.
Farmers raised up to a peak in 1938 of 63,000 tons of sugar beets.
In turn, the beets were processed into 15 million pounds of sugar.
In its heyday, the factory employed two 12-hour shifts working
around the clock.
- In post-Civil War Wisconsin, farmers also discovered they
could market their corn in the form of
- pork, and hog production increased with a general emphasis
on improving the breeds. Farmers also learned the importance
of oats and hay - vital crops as the dairy industry matured.
- New scientific ideas regarding dairying, fertilization, plowing
and crop rotation helped get agricul-
- ture over its early growing pains. But also important was
the revolution brought about by the self rake reaper, harrow,
corn cultivator, modern windmill and steel plow. Early farm implements
were crude, but new machinery increased the farmer's efficiency
and ability to produce.
- Those first few who staked out the home place, broke the
land, seeded the fields and built the
- mills lay the groundwork for the industry so vital to Rock
County today - modern agriculture. But, even now, 150 years later,
some things haven't changed. Farming is again struggling to overcome
growing pains as it heads down the path to the 21st century.
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