Almont North Dakota
1906 Centennial 2006
Farm Life Then and Now
by Ange Kary
One Winter
evening as my father and I were sitting in the living room I asked, “Dad,
do you remember when people used oxen to farm?”
“Yes, one man I remember used oxen to
haul his grain but most of the people used horses when I was young.”
“Tenius Ramsland visited class one day,” I
told him, “and spoke to us about early Life around Almont. He came
to Almont in 1881. He and his family came by train as far as the Missouri
River where they had to get off and walk across the ice on the river because
there were no tracks across the river. They came to Sims by train from Mandan.
They were the first to settle in the area around the Ramsland hills.”
“Yes,” Dad said, “that is
the reason those hills are still known as the Ramsland hills.”
“They built their house out of sod blocks
which were from 18 to 24 inches thick. They just used wood for the window
and door frames. Also some to hold the sod and straw that they used to make
the roof.”
“When I as a boy many people lived in
houses which were made from stone. These houses were very cold but if they
couldn’t afford lumber they had to use stone.”
“I’m surely happy we have homes
made of lumber and brick now days. The women have life quite easy now with
all the electrical appliances, running water, good heating systems, and
other conveniences that we have.”
“Yes, my mother never had any thing
like that to use.”
“Your mother must have had to work very hard
carrying water and wood for the old range. Washing clothes in a tub with
a rubbing board must have been hard too. But no doubt this was even better
than having to live in sod houses with straw roofs and no stoves or such.”
` “I’ll say, you can be thankful for that and
also for the easy means of transportation. We used to travel with horses
and a wagon in the summer. In the winter we used a sleigh. We would
have to use a lot of robes and blankets to keep warm if we were going
to travel any distance at all.”
“I surely would hate to have to walk
everywhere I went like they did a long time ago. I prefer driving an automobile
to walking any day.”
“I can remember the first car we had,” Dad
remarked, “it was a Flanders with curtains at the sides for windows.
You wouldn’t travel very fast with this but it still was faster than
traveling with horses.”
“Mr. Ramsland also told us about how
they used Oxen to plow the land and then they would plant the seed by hand.
When the grain was ripe the men would cut it with a scythe and the women
and children would gather it into bunches and tie it with straws of the
grain. They would have to carry it home and then they would thrash it with
a flail.”
“We had it easier than that;” Dad
replied, “we used horses to plow and we seeded the grain with a horse
drill. When the grain was ripe it was cut with a horse binder. The grain
wouldn’t be tied: it would just fall in bunches and these would then
be tied . We would then haul the grain home on wagons and thresh it with
a machine powered by horses.”
“Dad, I realize now how easy it really
is to harvest a crop. Using tractors to plow goes much faster than using
horses or oxen. There are also many other things like a disk or duckfoot
that can be used in breaking up the soil. Drills now are larger than they
were then. Very few people bind their grain now even if they can use machines
that can be used with tractors. Most people prefer to combine their grain
but I can see why. It really does two jobs in one. It was a lucky day for
the farmers when the combine was put into operation.”
“Planting a corn crop is quite a simple
job now,” Dad stated, “but I believe it was even more simple
when I was young because then you would just follow behind a breaker plow
and drop the seed into the row. You would not have to cultivate it because
it would be planted on quite new soil and it would’t be necessary
to cultivate it.”
“Now you spend many days in just preparing
the soil for planting the crop, don’t you?” I asked. “You
also spend a lot of time keeping the corn clean.”
“The harvesting of corn is easier now
though,” Dad added. “The corn picker works very efficiently
and swiftly when it is compared with hand picking.”
“Mr. Ramsland said that putting up hay was a hard job in his day.
They would have to cut the hay with a scythe and gather it into bunches.
About the only places they could cut hay so it would be worthwhile was in
the coulees and along creeks. Because of this their hay would be scattered
over quite a large territory. To get the hay home they would have to carry
it in packs on their backs. This was a long and tiresome job. If they wanted
to rest for a while they would sit on a rock or cutbank so they could get
the load off their backs for a while.”
“We used to travel long distances also
to put up hay,” Dad declared, “but we used horse mowers and
rakes to cut and gather the hay. We also used racks to haul the hay home
in.”
“Cutting hay with a power mower is much
faster, I think, and baling hay makes it a lot easier to haul because you
can get about three times as much on a hay rack when the hay is baled as
you can when the hay is just loose. Baled hay makes it more convenient for
feeding the hay to the cattle in winter. Especially here where we live because
it is usually so windy.”
“I think I have a better and greater
appreciation for the good things I have after hearing how the early settlers
in this community lived. Even your parents and you in your younger days
had a much harder life than we have today. If all people knew what their
forefathers went through, I am sure they would be very well satisfied with
what they have.”