TenCentBarn

In 1910- it required 25 lbs. of beef to feed the threshers during harvest. This was bought at 8 and three-quarter cents a pound. The 10- 12 neighbors who helped with the threshing that year and ate the beef. The following year the Lundgren's bought a quarter of beef for five and a half cents a pound, a ton of coal for $6.75 a barrel of salt for $1.40.

2 3/4 Pounds Butter at 20cts Pound, for .25 cts had the Horses Shod, Bought 2 Packages Kow Kure for 90 cts, 1 Shade 5 cts, 1 pair Shoes, $1.50, 1 yd overall cloth 3cts, 6 yds Calico at 6 cts, 2 1/4 yds Gingham @ 7cts, 1 Pr. overalls 50 cts, 262 Pounds Barb Wire at 3 1/2 Cts, Wire Stretcher at 90 cts, 4 lbs Staples 11cts.

Paid the county farm taxes on 240 acres $29.73, $60.00 for a Devavel Cream Separator, Also at that time woolen work cost 25 cents a pair. A wool suit was only $15.85. Garters were 40 cents. Cigarettes were 10 cents a pack. Vacation: 12 day cruise $60, Whiskey $3.50/gallon, cider 1 cnt a gallon, Milk 32cnts/gallon. a delivery door-to-door milkman earned $1.20 @ day.

In 1910-This was the year. a when a man was married he paid $25 for his wedding suit. Between 1903 and 1913 one farmer picked up the mail in New Richmond and delivered it to his neighbors. Nicholas picked up the mail every Wednesday in town; his neighbors each had another day of the week. In 1913, the Daily Rural Mail Delivery started. Average office 60hr weekly salary $29.00 - That's at 50 cts hour. No overtime. 1-week vacation not paid by employer. Two young ladies saved up for 3 years jobs as telephone operators for a 1910 vacation trip, just 20 miles from home.

In 1910- Wages for a hired man were $225.00 a year (In 1906, Oscar Nelson reports wages $230, for 12 months) Average wages of $4-$5.00 dollars a day, for a full day's work. Average farm worker made $13.00 week for 60 hours. Average carpenter wage was 25c to 35c an hour that's $15 wk. Apprentice started @ $1.75 @ day -- expert @ $2.50 @ day.

In 1900- Nicholas moved to the Round Barn Farm, Each year after he seemed to enlarge or improve or build something all the time, 1913- Built new granary, and the New Round Barn in 1914.

Just before the era of the tractor and steam engine, one of the last buildings to fade of the "horse and buggy" era, was the "Ten-Cent Feed Barn." Boy, THAT was the place TO GO!

Where farmers coming to town, that were still using horses, brought their teams. Driving into long sheds, passing the old dog fast asleep just inside the big doors. Then in to a bay, along the side down a few feet from the door to the "office", that's where the horses were tied. For the fee of just ten cents, payable to the owner-manager, the horses could be fed hay. For another fee, maybe a little grain.

Such a service was just off Main Street of New Richmond, Wisconsin, just a few hundred feet from the local saloon. The barn was never heated, and the main door, when wide open and was just big enough for the wagons. But rarely the doors were closed, winter or summer, I never heard that a horse, stepped on that old dog.

The CLIP-CLOP, CLIP-CLOP sounds of those huge draft horses, and the barn. The barn chock-full of horsey and manurey smells.

In winter, one could sit in the heated "office," on old boxes of magazines, to meet other neighbor farmers. You could always find some one there. They'd be telling jokes, "pulling a fast one" on one another. If not, they would be complaining about the weather, crop prices, or discussing the latest local news n' gossip. There seemed to be always something! It was an interesting place. Its walls adorned with stuffed owls, a one eyed fox, a sheep with, even a two-headed calf, jars and jars of strange looking things.

YEP...It was a haven, a man's place, I could not wait to visit there. With the horses, nickering and snorting, the sweet, wispy aroma of silage, hay. I can remember all the sounds of the jingling halters and wagon riggings. The clinking and clanking noise of the old man Jones's hammer and anvil. He was the local "smithy", part-time blacksmith, sneaking a sip of "likker", (on the sly, of course) always fixing or shoeing someone's horse. He didn't talk much, either.

It had everything a young boy could ask for and hanging on the walls, mixed in with those stuffed animals, were THOSE daring pictures of bathing beauties.

Shhee-shhh, alluringly dressed, neck to knee, bending over, looking at you! In the thick cotton bathing suits of the 1890's and looking ever so archly (daringly) at the viewer. One hardly could take your eyes away, until dad caught your attention, with THAT! look and cleared his throat.

Boy, Howdy ... Many of my memories, sure do cluster around that feed barn.

Farming was "diversified," a little of everythingwell, not everything, but the central range of utility: corn, wheat, oats, hay, and row crops. Corn, to be sure, is planted in rows. Many the hours I spent helping with the cultivating of corn.

My memories are all tied to the summer or two when I rode the un-softened seat (no springs, no cushion) fastened to the "tongue" of the two wheel cultivator, from that vantage point to guide the team while brother George brought the two "Gangs" of cultivator shares into productive proximity to the corn hills.

Up and down the long rows we went, uprooting weeds, turning topsoil down and moist under soil up, breaking the crust that inhibits growth. With what relief I jumped from my irksome perch and stretched out on the warm soila relief permitted when a cultivator share struck a stone and the wooden peg holding it in place broke. The share was rendered "non-operative" until George our neighbor boy, could drive in a new peg.

It was in these tedious crossings of the field, was when George would fill my curiosity about the facts of life. He gave me an awareness of the larger world, the interests and activities of adults. He was a tenth-grader, the most highly educated of the family. (Except Mary, my sister who brought mid-morning lunch.)

About ten A.M., sure enough there would come Patty or Becky, my other little sisters. Trailed perhaps by a couple of the younger fry, with a fruit jar of cool skim milk and a Kellogg corn-flake-box of moist floppy home-made bread sandwiches, maybe even a cookie!

A short relief from work was automatically declared while lunch was eaten and enjoyed.

Another challenge of row-crop farming was the use of the single cultivator drawn by one horse. The game was to guide the horse in such a way as to keep his feet off the tender crop, whether it be beans, barley, potatoes, wheat, oats, hay, or corn.

To this end, little Albert was hoisted atop Old Tinker, with or without benefit of cushion (no saddle!) and instructed on gee and hew, (pull on the right rein for gee, etc. and see to it that you tend to your knittin! ). Jumping off wasn't so easy, the smell of horse sweat stronger because closer, the walking behind the horse was even more tedious.

The coming of mid-morning lunch was not the only refreshment, when we worked the field next to the neglected strip between the neighbors' "line fence." in that strip was survivors of primitive abundance that yielded their bounty of blackberries, raspberries, and of course wild flowers. Mother has written of how Dad would bring home a pailful (syrup pail, that is) of berries as he brought the horses' home at the end of the day. So too, we younguns; found the berries.

The lane for moving cows to and from pasture, used to run right down the middle of the farm. Was this a sheer waste of land? Nope, the cows used it for more grazing area. They wouldn't push so hard on the wire fence as to break it here and there in their search for grass.

Down in the lowest point a former owner had dug a well, a pit. Dad allowed it to go to ruin, but it went only slowly and was a hazard for us kids, or so we were warned. It was useful only when the farm cats produced too many kittens and we harder-hearted older boys were deputized to dispose them in a gunny sack and drown them. FIN-NEE-TAA.