Farmers of the Hawkeye State!

[J. Donaldson]

For those of you interested in agriculture as your first person background, I found a small article of interest to pass along. The following article appeared in the Macomb Journal on August 23, 1861.

"The Iowa Crops. -- The wheat crop of Iowa is abundant this season, though scarcely so heavy as last year's. It is estimated that the people of Iowa will have a surplus of twenty millions of bushels this season. A gentleman who has traveled some 400 miles through Southern Iowa, describes the crop of wheat as very good, and corn as never having looked better."

Since many of the counties of the 15th came from south-central and south-eastern Iowa, it's good to know that your last crops before joining the army looked as impressive as any your farm has ever produced.

[NoahBriggs]

Re: Farmers of the Hawkeye State!

I guess that means Iowa recovered very well from the Flood of 1851:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flood_of_1851

[J. Donaldson]

Re: Farmers of the Hawkeye State!

For those interested in portraying farmers-turned-soldiers for your first person, or if you are perhaps interested in having some background knowledge of period farming in Iowa, I have prepared the following attachment. This is meant as an introductory document only, and I would encourage further discussion and research beyond what I have prepared. I intend to follow this document with a breakdown of the Schedule IV (agricultural data) from the 1860 census, in order to give you a better view of per-county farming in the counties the 15th Iowa drew men from.

The best secondary document that I can recommend for further reading is From Prairie to Corn Belt by Allan G. Bogue.

[Alexander Vasquez]

Re: Farmers of the Hawkeye State!

Thank you! That is a very well-written and informative piece! I was struck by the "bushel of corn=pound of hog" quote--did it mean literal exchange worth, or that it took a bushel of corn to produce one pound of weight on the hog? Elwynn Taylor tweeted USDA corn report in Nov and indications are about 146 bushels/acre average was produced this year; an interesting contrast to the 1861 yields.

When I was looking through the Keokuk [I]Daily Gate[I] I noticed loads of advertisements for farm implements as well as for commodities; later today after I do my curriculum work I'll try to post anything relevant. Well done Bob!

Alexander Vasquez
Co C, 15 IA

[J. Donaldson]

Re: Farmers of the Hawkeye State!

The expression has it's roots in the production of swine flesh. Hogs were/are incredibly efficient in translating feed into flesh, and so finishing hogs on corn was the easiest way to pack on pounds in the months prior to slaughter. Conversely, pork was also the easiest way to market corn in the 19th century; driving corn-fed hogs to market was far easier than attempting to transport hundreds of bushels of shelled or on-the-cob corn to market. The modern concept of the corn-hog economy was just beginning in the 1860s; Mildred Throne, the editor of Cyrus Boyd's diary, published an article on the growth of that agricultural economy beginning in the era, but I can't find the citation right now.

(The only easier way was in liquid form, but that industry never took as much importance as it did in other regions of the country.)