On the Moraine, Part V

By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist

So now my family has a farm, on which my parents had a large mortgage. They bought these 164 acres for $15,000. Keep in mind this was 1957 when a foreman in a factory, like my dad, likely made about $5,000 a year.  

Running the price through an inflation calculator from 1957 to 2025, says that farm would be worth about $170,000 today. I think it is likely worth more than that. As they always say, they never make any more land.

For tools and implements, we had the car (Mother and Dad had traded the 1950 Chevy for a ’56), a garden tractor, a trailer to pull behind the car, and various garden tools. That’s it. We had no farm-scale implements of any kind.

We had acquired a dog – a mix breed Cocker Spaniel and Terrier which I named Buttons. He came along just about the time I got out of the first grade in the spring of 1957. He would be an active part of our family until 1964.

I don’t remember the exact sequence in which we purchased equipment, so my comments going forward will be a bit approximate.   

I do know in the fall of 1957 we got our first tractor. It was a Farmall “Regular,” which had a new paint job and decals indicating it was an “F-20,” which it was not. I do remember my dad paid $100 for it. If you go to an antique tractor show (besides the one at Rocky Fork Lake in June, I recommend the one at Portland, Ind., which takes place every August and will take you three days to walk), you will find authentic Farmall Regulars painted gray. The F series (F-12, F-20) was when International Harvester started using red. 

Dad bought this tractor somewhere around Troy and he and a friend with a big (to me) trailer took it to the farm. Dad bought a lot of old implements around Troy and we hauled them to Highland County. A lot of these implements were converted horse-drawn implements, and we used them for many years.

We needed to cut firewood to heat the house. Most of this was cut with a crosscut saw (which came from my grandfather), a bow saw, and an axe. I remember one tree Dad wanted to take down, and he convinced mother to handle one end of the crosscut saw. I think it took them close to half of one Saturday to fell it.

There was an old orchard not far from the house and Dad started working on rejuvenating it. We always had books around to help us understand what to do, and “Five Acres and Independence” by M.G. Kains was one I would read. It has a great section on orchards. I still have a copy, and I bought my daughter, the gardener, a reprint. It is still available and if you have a small farm I highly recommend it, even though it is close to 100 years old. Very practical guidance.

During the McNary farm days, we did not have any livestock, because we would have had no way to take care of them during the week. We made up for that with bees. I will get into our adventures with bees a little later.  

By the fall of 1957, we are starting to acquire a few implements and other items we needed to farm. Dad hired a neighbor to plant wheat in the field where the tenant house was across the road, so we went into the winter of 1958 with a 25-acre field of winter wheat as our only crop for we had not been ready for the spring planting season.

Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press. He can be reached at jthompson@taii.com.