Brown County Agriculture

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BROWN COUNTY AGS)CULTillll
Nhile Bl'own County has always been and still is an agricul tural re gion
the crops produced ancl the methods persued in f arming h ave lmdergone !!lany
changes. 'Jh8n the homesteaders arr ived the virgi n sad was brolren or plowed
and in some cases grain crops were sO"'l ed on the newly brolcen soel. Some of
the l~omes!;eaders t howvver~ after allowing 'the sad to rot for one s eason
WOLl.ld r e - plow or Itback-set" before a crop VJa s produced@ After the s econd
plowing t he more careful of t!1e f armers woul d employ a s pr±ngt oo t h hax' rQ',f
v{hi';;:·:h Y/ould t ear ancl pulverize the sad to be tter advantage ' than auy other
:i c1plement t hen ava il able.. Ordinary h ar1'o''''3 were then used :in some castfs~
70.8 earliest seeding was done w:i th the so -cal l ed broad cast seeders
nanG o f wnich ar e noW jon exist311ce . 'rhe i m)lement cOYlslnted of a 10118 box
in the bo ttom of which were a series of short roller s vIi th large shallow
corrugations t hat fed the grain slov;ly to spreaders which spread it over
the ground. It Was thorn covered over 'pya series of shovels not 1L"11ilce the
shovels of a corn plo,,>' only smaller<>
of a s eeder was fOLmd to be unsat isfac t ory sInce some of th,e
crain :73 3 covered. too deeply and other parts of which would l ie on topo
Th" improV8r:lSnt '. of this seeder '.'Jas the s o-called drill wh:1.ch de~)osi ts the
seed s'b a ll..'tlifoTI'.l depth.
During the first ten year's of the CO:IDty history small gr.fdn via s vir-t
ually the onJ.y crop pro d:lCed. I t ~'J3 s thought t hat corn '-'iQuld no t mature
~md 1i t tl~ or no hogs or cat tIe wer·3 produced, a:(cept for home c on s umption"
l~ei ther VIas poul try and eggs cons i dered 8 source of inco:me ..
So far as t:2e first decade \'J3S c oncerned. prairie gr ass ;'ias she only