ONE OF THE COMBINES 

 "Machinery do«t mosf of the 



nesses in the farming operations as 

 well as the profitable practices. 



The Shaws look at farming as a busi- 

 ness. To them the farm is a manufac- 

 turing plant turning out so many 

 pounds of pork, so many bushels of 

 corn and soybeans, so many bushels of 

 oats and barley, and so many tons of 

 hay. This manufacturing plant re- 

 quires man power and horse and tractor 

 power to run it. It requires some cash 

 outlay and E. R. and Irving scan with 

 a cool, calculating eye the figures that 

 tell the story of profits and losses. 



"Nothing pays better than keeping 

 records," Irving says. "We have been 

 in the Farm Bureau-Farm Management 

 service since 1929. It's worth all it 

 costs and more. We pay about $25 

 a year and we get a lot for our money." 



Irving started farming on his own 

 in 1927 — the year after he married. 

 As a student in Knox College, he 

 leaned toward mathematics, science and 

 chemistry. So it was easy for him to 

 apply has mathematics to farm record 

 keeping and figure out the knotty prob- 

 lems that constantly face the alert man 

 who is trying to do a "bang-up" job 

 of running a farm enterprise. 



Until — and after — the U. S. lost 

 its foreign markets and hog prices went 

 to smash — Irvine; had been raising 

 200 shoats a year. He co-operated in 

 the corn-hog program in 1933-34, cut- 

 ting his marketings 25 per cent and 

 finally dropping to around 110 market 

 hogs a year. This year he hopes to 

 come back strong again with 200 head 

 raised on clean worm-free ground with 

 the use of portable hog houses, the 

 swine sanitation way. 



"We were satisfied with the AAA 

 program," Irving said. "It worked out 

 just right on our farm. It's more con- 

 fusing now with the soil conservation 

 program because we are primarily grain 

 rather than livestock farmers and we 



rk." 



haven't the cattle or sheep to utilize 

 the meadow and pasture required in 

 the new plan. I guess we'll have to 

 come to growing more legumes, 

 though. We have been cropping pret- 

 ty heavy because our soil is naturally 

 fertile." 



The soil in the Shaw farms is a rich, 

 deep, brown silt loam. The land is 

 gently rolling and every foot is suitable 

 for cultivation. There's always the 

 danger of cropping that kind of land 

 too heavy. 



E. R. proudly displayed a carefully 

 prepared map showing the location and 

 direction of an extensive network of 

 21 miles of tile under the farms Irving 

 is operating. The first string of tile 

 was laid in 1878. And here's an inter- 

 esting thing. The Shaw farms lie in 

 Sparta township near Wataga on the 

 ridge that divides the Illinois and Mis- 

 sissippi watersheds. Part of the land 

 drains into one river, part into the other. 

 E. R. informed us that he was born on 



E. R. SHAW 



"Travelled 16,000 Miles by Trailer in Two 

 Yean." 



PORTABLE "A" HOUSES FOR HOGS 



"200 pigs a year." 



land that his parents purchased from 

 Knox College acquired in 1837. 



Last year Irving operated 570 acres. 

 This year he is adaing another 160 

 owned by his uncle to make 730. The 

 land is farmed on shares with a 50-50 

 division of the crops. This year he will 

 have about 300 acres or more of corn, 

 100 acres of oats, part of which will 

 be seeded to sweet clover and alfalfa, 

 and a large acreage of soybeans. 



"The chinch bugs drove us into soy- 

 beans," Irving said. "We used to grow 

 quite a lot of barley but that's out. 

 "The bugs like it too well." The Shaws 

 sold 7,000 bushels of soybeans last year. 

 The beans averaged more than 30 bu. 

 per acre. 



The entire farm — up to this year 

 — has been limed with two to three 

 tons to the acre. Part of the land has 

 had rock phosphate. The rotation has 

 been corn — corn — soybeans — oats 

 or barley — sweet clover or alfalfa 

 pasture for hogs. There are only four 

 to five cows on the place. Corn, soy- 

 beans and hogs are the main cash crops. 



Irving operates the farm with a min- 

 imum of labor. Two men in addition 

 to himself do the work. They operate 

 three late model, row-crop tractors and 

 there are two combine harvesters be- 

 sides the other usual power equipment. 

 In sowing alfalfa, Irving drops the 

 seed on top of the ground in front of 

 the drill. The drill kicks the dirt 

 around it. Then the corrugated roller 

 is used to make a firm seed bed. He 

 believes in inoculating one bushel of 

 seed at a time using the jelly method 

 of inoculation and pouring seed from 

 one basket to another. "It's the surest 

 method of getting a thorough inocula- 

 tion," he said. 



Irving Shaw is a 100 per cent co- 

 operator. He trucks his hogs to Chi- 

 (Continued on page 16) 



"Th. 

 there 

 fat 

 steers. 



14 



I. A. A. RECORD 



