Symbols of hard work and the American dream

BANKSTON — From this Dubuque County hamlet, you can see almost as many well-preserved barns as you could on a lengthy drive across Interstate 80.

At least in part that's because the diversified farmers in this scenic pocket of northeast Iowa continue to use their barns as their ancestors intended — to store hay and shelter livestock, said Tim Daly, whose two historic barns are integral parts of his daily operations.

It's also because, as historic barn owner Jack Smith said, 'A lot of these farms have been in the same family for generations, and no one wants to be the guy who tore down the barn that great-granddad built.'

Motorists in the valleys of Hewitt and Hickory creeks could be excused for thinking they'd time-traveled to the 1950s, before the evolution of Iowa agriculture from family farm to corporate enterprise, before barns, corncribs, chicken coups and hog houses gave way to expansive machine sheds, mammoth grain storage bins and livestock confinement buildings.

Mechanization, specialization, consolidation and technological advances have driven the transformation, according to Neil Harl, who has witnessed those changes both as a farmer and as an economist at Iowa State University.

The transition from horsepower to tractors enabled farmers to increase their acreage, and seed genetics breakthroughs enabled them to increase their productivity, said Harl, who owns the Appanoose County farm he grew up on.

In 1940, when Iowa had 213,318 farms averaging 160 acres, Harl was there, a seven-year-old farm boy cultivating corn one row at a time with a horse-drawn plow.

In 2012, when the number of Iowa farms had shrunk to 88,367, with an average size of 345 acres, Harl was still there, admiring his dad's first tractor, a B model John Deere purchased in 1946 that now looks like a toy next to the gigantic equipment in his machine shed.

'We had sheep, dairy, beef and hogs. Everyone was diversified then, and their farmsteads reflected that diversity,' said Harl, whose farm ranks among the 8,242 Iowa farms of at least 1,000 acres — a more-than-20-fold increase from the 402 such farms in 1940.

'Today everyone specializes. If you raise hogs at all, you raise a lot of hogs. If you milk cows, you milk a lot of cows,' he said.

The de-diversification of Iowa farms is evident in a comparison of statistics from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's 1940 and 2012 censuses.

In 1940, when Iowa had 213,318 farms, almost 199,000 of them raised cattle with more than 192,000 of them milking some cows. About 198,000 of them raised chickens, more than 181,000 raised pigs and nearly 185,000 of them kept horses.

By 2012, when Iowa had just 88,367 farms, the comparable numbers were:

• 26,287 farms with cattle, of which 1,810 milked cows

• 6,616 farms raising pigs

• A combined 4,551 raising either laying hens or broiler chickens.

By 2012, the USDA had long since quit tracking horses on Iowa farms.

'Increased efficiency'

Buchanan County farmer Charles Short, who died in 1966, would hardly recognize the farmstead he left behind for his sons Phil and Paul.

The white barn, the heart of his cattle feeding operation, burned down decades ago, and the cribs that held most of his corn production have long since disappeared.

In their place stand six shiny grain bins capable of holding a combined 170,000 bushels and two massive sheds capable of sheltering the tractors, combines, planters and tillage equipment it takes to fill them.

With its expanded cattle feedlot, the farmstead itself is twice as big as it was in Charlie Short's day and requires more and better snow removal equipment than that of the nearby town of Quasqueton.

Over it all towers a wind turbine that generates most of the electricity used by the Short brothers' farm.

Other than the house, only two building from the Charlie Short era remain — a granary that has been converted into a control room for the dryer system and a Quonset machine shed that is dwarfed by its modern counterparts.

Most of the farmstead changes have been driven by technological advances in the past 20 years, Phil Short said.

'You do it for increased efficiency and productivity,' he said.

The modern combine, which shelled corn in the field and eliminated the need for slatted cribs to store ear corn, was a big instrument of change, according to Paul, who recalls the neighbors rallying to harvest the Shorts' corn crop after their dad died in 1966.

'There were 22 tractor-mounted ear corn pickers and two combines,' said Paul, noting that most of those mounted pickers would soon be gathering rust.

Corncribs, a staple on nearly every mid-20th century Iowa farmstead, rapidly fell into disuse and disrepair and now are mostly gone, along with the hog and poultry houses that fell victim to specialization.

'Closer to the old people'

Barns, once the hub of farmstead activity, also became marginalized after they had outlived their usefulness for storing hay, straw and grain and sheltering horses and other livestock.

Maintaining little-used buildings costs money that could be more profitably invested in useful structures, said Daly, who finds it much easier to justify maintaining buildings used every day.

His farmstead, a heritage farm in his family for 150 years, features one barn built in 1885 and another in 1906, both used regularly to shelter cattle and store hay. The farmstead also has a concrete granary built in 1957, originally designed to store both small grains and ear corn but since refurbished to hold shelled corn in the original cribs.

Neighbor Jack Smith, whose heritage farm was established by his great-great-grandfather in 1853, also regularly shelters cattle in his two historic barns — a towering red landmark built in 1917 and a former dairy barn built in 1950 that is among the last barns built in the area.

The 1917 barn — constructed of timbers sawed by his grandfather Joe Smith from oak trees growing on the farm — measures 44 by 76 feet with a 40-foot peak, and its cavernous mow can hold 15,000 small square bales.

Noting that the labor to build the barn cost $500, Smith said the crew camped on the lawn during its construction.

The barn and his childhood memories of working in it have helped cement his connections with his ancestors.

'You kind of felt closer to the old people knowing you're working in the same haymow on a hot summer day,' he said.

Smith's 1917 barn will be included in a tour this summer sponsored by the Iowa Barn Foundation, a not-for-profit organization that helps and encourages Iowans to preserve and restore their barns.

'Times have changed, and we are losing our heritage,' said Jacqueline Schmeal, the foundation's president.

'Barns should be saved as folk art for everyone to enjoy. They should be saved as reminders of what they have come to symbolize — hard work and the American dream,' said Schmeal, who grew up in Ames but lives in Texas.

Besides their value as symbols, barns were well designed and built, perfect examples of form fitting function in architecture and, as such, have pleasing aesthetic qualities, she said.