Photo courtesy of Library of Congress
Though some view government data gathering as an intrusion, it certainly serves those seeking an historical perspective, providing factual information that, despite being subject to error, has far more truthful clout than the typical coffee shop banter that begins "seems like" or "used to be." The agricultural census has been collecting Idaho farm information for 130 years now, giving us an idea of just who a farmer was, how much they farmed, what they grew, earned and spent, and other data that illuminates just how different (or similar) agricultural life was in the past.
For instance, the number of mortgaged farms increased dramatically between 1910 and 1920 in Idaho. More than half of Idaho farms were free of mortgage in 1910 but only a third were a decade later. Tenant rates nearly doubled from ten percent to seventeen in the same period, two thirds of the leasors farming on shares and the rest with a cash agreement. Already farms were growing in size, with over 600 farms in Idaho of more than a thousand acres, that number nearly doubling in the decade. Not all of that acreage was tilled, however.
The census was still categorizing farmers by race at that time, 129 Idaho farmers being nonwhite—mostly Japanese but Indians and Negroes, too, as well as a few Chinese (Mexican farmers were classified as white)—in 1920 and just 36 in 1910. Much of that increase came from Japanese involvement in the sugar industry, where they grew a substantial amount of eastern Idaho beets. By 1930, Japanese farmers numbered nearly ten percent of Bingham County's agriculturists, with 218 farming over 15,000 acres. Italian and Russian farmers jumped in numbers, too, while the number of English and Irish immigrant farmers took a nosedive.
There were nearly 293,000 horses on Idaho farms in 1920, the numbers so considerable due to them serving as both transportation and tractor for almost all farms. 714,000 cattle and 2.3 million sheep lived on Idaho farms and ranges, along with almost a quarter million pigs and 1.7 million fowl, mostly chickens. Dairy farms were becoming more important, with ilk sales tripling in just a decade.
Nearly a third of Bingham County farms in 1920 were worked by either foreigners or "non-white" individuals—primarily Japanese. That rate was double the state's. More than half the county farms were from 20-100 acres in size, but fourteen were over one thousand acres. Bingham County farmers possessed 14,000 horses, 29,000 cattle, 97,000 sheep and over 16,000 swine. 76,000 chickens roosted in the area. Farms produced two million gallons of milk, only 49 thousand of which were sold, much of the rest made into 270,000 pounds of butter—it takes nearly three gallons of milk to make a pound of butter. The county's chickens laid 407,000 dozen eggs, 189,000 of them sold and the rest used on-farm.
County farmers harvested 416,000 bushels of wheat in 1920 from 28,000 acres, 25,000 bushels of barley from just over 1000 acres. The yields, then, were roughly fourteen bushels an acre for wheat and twenty-five for barley, a trifling amount by today's standards.
Other crop yields also paled in comparison to today's. 112,000 tons of different hay crops (including wild hay) came off 44,000 acres—less than three tons per acre, half of today's yield on an irrigated farm. 7400 acres of potatoes yielded 684,000 hundredweight—less than a third of a modest harvest now. 87,000 fruit trees yielded 41,000 bushels of apples, peaches, pears, plums and cherries. There were even 10 grapevines declared in 1920, the yield 80 pounds.
1200 of the county farms had mortgage debt, and 485 were mortgage-free. The debt totaled four and a quarter million dollars against 13 million worth of value—a 30% ratio.
There were a (very) few vegetable farmers in Bingham County in 1930, utilizing 119 acres of land to grow over 17,000 dollars worth of produce (about a third of a million dollars in today's money). Truck farmers grew 16 acres of green beans, 13 acres of cabbage, 1 acre of carrots, 1 acre of celery, 6 acres of lettuce, an acre of tomatoes, an acre of rhubarb, 20 acres of onions and 49 acres of mixed vegetables. Ten acres of popcorn were also grown. Honey became an important product, with 114 farms having 3179 bee hives producing 168,000 pounds of honey. That amount, per hive, was nearly double today's production.
In 1930 over sixty percent of the farms were still mortgaged, but with a considerable increase of debt to value: 42%. Farming was becoming less and less lucrative despite a doubling of wheat yield—24000 acres of wheat yielded 788,000 bushels, over thirty bushel an acre. 52,000 acres of hay yielded 136,000 ton—still less than half today's typical production per acre. Chickens were an important farm animal, 91,000 laying 784,000 dozens of eggs—better than a hundred eggs per chicken.
Farm size increased. Bingham County had two farms over 5,000 acres in 1925, 24 over a thousand in 1930. Tenant farming increased, with full owners harvesting 53,000 acres and tenants harvesting 38,000.
1940 saw nonwhite ownership increase to 566 of 43,663 total farmers in Idaho. Bingham County numbers dropped: just 133 of 2084 were nonwhite, a third less than ten years earlier. They farmed just ten thousand acres of the County's 400,000. Tenant percentage was up to thirty percent. 36 farms were over 1000 acres. 30-100 acres were the generally held acreage amounts.
Horse numbers dropped dramatically to ten thousand. They would continue to do so as tractor ownership took hold. There were 31,000 cattle. Six milliion gallons of milk were produced, five of them sold due to a more mature distribution network. 14,000 hogs were being raised along with 170,000 sheep abd 103,000 chickens. 21,000 bushels of winter wheat on 834 acres and 12,500 acres of spring wheat yielding 470,000 bushels meant an increase of ten bushels an acre in yield average.
Potatoes were starting to become a major product. 1500 farms in the county produced "Irish" potatoes on 19,000 acres, 4.4 million bushels the result—2.64 million cwt, roughly 130 sacks to the acre.
Mortgages continued to run high, the average age of a mortgage-less operator, interestingly enough, was 52, while ones with mortgages averaged 47. Mortgagees paid an average 5.1% interest.
Accenting the agricultural financial difficulties of the time, the census showed that 33% of farmers worked off-farm for an average of 100 days. Nonwhites worked even more off farm than whites, 120 days. Nonwhite operators averaged 51 years of age, their nonwhite counterparts 44. Farmers paid three quarters of a million dollars in labor, $134,000 for oil products like gas and kerosene. The gas engine was starting to be common, with two thousand automobiles on Bingham County farms, their average age five years, along with 450 trucks. Farmers also owned 558 tractors. Other technology was increasing, too: 527 farms had a phone, around three quarters had electricity. But only 290 of over 2000 farms adjoined a hard-surfaced road.
County truck farmers were still in business, growing 60,000 pounds of raspberries and nearly 14,000 bushels of apples, along with 24,000 pounds of strawberries, and 17,000 pounds of plums and prunes.
By 1945, post-World War, total nonwhite operators had shrunk to 104 compared to 2019 white. Wheat harvests reached 45 bushels an acre. Only 8200 horses were reported. 80 farms reported making more than $20,000—equivalent to $340,000 today. Most clustered around $2500 to $10,000, though, and 530 made ten to twenty thousand.
1950 saw the full decline of the horse and the tractor's ascent. County horses numbered just over 5,000, down from 8,000 five years prior. If you combine the numbers, there were about as many cars (1800), trucks (1167) and tractors (2200) as horses. A thousand farms reported raising fifty thousand cattle. Nearly five million gallons of milk were sold. There were only 270 farms left that only worked horses, nearly eleven hundred hundred that used both horses and tractors, and almost six hundred had made the turn to tractors only. Nearly six hundred farms bordered oiled roads, over eleven hundred had gravel roads along their farmstead, and just 300 were serviced by dirt roads.
Farmers spent half a million dollars on custom machine hire work then, three hundred thousand on tractor repairs. An additional four hundred thousand dollars was spent on other machinery repair. Hay growers had adopted a new technology, purchasing 54 pick-up hay balers. Other farmers owned 215 grain combines and five upright silos. In the home, there were 1900 electric washing machines, 1100 hot water heaters, and a whopping 300 home freezers.
574 chicken farms sold 440,000 dozen eggs for 180,000 dollars in 1950. 463,000 pounds of honey came from Bingham County hives, yielding 46,000 dollars. 1600 farms reported 30,000 acres of potatoes, the yield 4.3 million hundredweight, up to nearly 150 sacks to the acre. 13 truck farms of 43 acres sold $4500 worth of produce. 27 farms had 15 acres of strawberries that produced 46,000 quarts at 21,000 dollars. Raspberries from six acres produced a tenth of that, both in berries and money. Apple tree numbers shrank to just over ten thousand yielding just a little more than a bushel a tree. There must have been a side hustle for a while, as 17 farms sold 1400 fenceposts. The first inkling of the future made its appearance with one farm under sprinkler irrigation on ten acres.
At that time, 519 county farms had sales over ten thousand dollars ($110,000 adjusted to today's value) in products, 1350 sold between $1500 and ten thousand.
Fast forward to 2022, when just 75 potato farmers grew their crop on 55,000 acres, a doubling of acreage but a 93% shrink in farmer numbers. The county wheat yields had risen to 80 bushels an acre. 137 farms sold over a half million dollars in product—408 million as a group. 553 farms sold over ten thousand dollars, 620 "farms" sold less than that (they may have "identified" as farmers, we may not recognize them as such).
451 farms sold 476 million dollars worth of crops, including 230 million dollars of potatoes, 99 million dollars worth of cattle, and 111 million dollars worth of wheat. 33 poultry farms sold $77,000 worth of eggs and chickens—that industry had atrophied by 95% from seventy years prior. The census listed only six dairies in the county, though that figure seems inaccurate.
Farm expenditures ran thusly in 2022: $489,000,000 total for 1081 farms, an average near $450,000 per farm. 74 million went to fertilizer, 40.5 million to chemicals, 39 million to seeds and plants, 26 million to gas and oil products, 42 million to repairs, 56 million to hired labor, 18 million was paid in interest, 3 million dollars went for veterinarian and related medical expenses. While there are no longer that many farmers compared to many decades past, the support networks required to operate their farms had expanded immensely.
The average county farm with profits (428 reporting) netted $106,000 in 2022, while 653 reported net losses averaging $36,000. 1200 farms reported other occupations as the primary income, 841 of them working off-farm 200 or more days. Only 35 of two thousand were nonwhite. 1950 never served in the military—compare that to the nine percent of Idahoans who have.
Next time grandpa relates something about the "way it was," understand he might be either misremembering, fabricating an elaborate lie, or be mired in wishful thinking and/or prejudice. Do a little fact-checking by googling census data, you may find out he's right or you may discover he's a victim of his own imagination.
Ralph Thurston is the author of the recent local history The Great Pasture: Bingham County's Shifting Dreams. Grab your copy inside the door at Kesler's Market or online.
You can still get a copy of The Shanghi Plain at Kesler's, too, and soon to come is We, The People: Two Canals' Battle for Territory, the inside story of the Peoples Canal and its multi-year court battle with the opposing interest, The American Falls Canal. It's available online now and soon at Kesler's Market. Order here
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