the street.  Some people froze to death trying to get only a few blocks from home.  A rural schoolteacher saved her children by keeping them in the schoolhouse all night.  In January, 1912, temperatures hit a low of 36 degrees below zero.  In the 1930's, due to the drouth, dust storms were a bit too numerous.  Summer temperatures reached into the all but unbelievable 113 to 120 degrees a few times.  In June and July, 1958, a total of 34 days rainfall brought a record 13.48 inches of rain with much flooding in the area.  In January, 1960, we had 10 inches of snow, three snowstorms in four days with 30 mile winds drifting the roads shut as fast as they were opened.

          The winter of 1968-1969, started early and continued longer than usual.  The season's first big storm on November 10, 1968, brought a surprise 12-inch snowfall.  Much of this had melted when the next heavy snow came December 12, 1968.  This snow was covered later with a number of alternating layers of ice and snow and remained on the ground 96 days until March 18, 1969.  This has been labeled the hardest winter sine 1961-1962, when snow covered the ground a record 106 days, as well as the winter of 1911-1912, which claimed snow cover for 92 days.  Old timers were unable to recall a winter when ice remained so long without a warming trend form the severe cold temperatures. The month f January, 1969, made news because of the many cancellations of meetings and the necessary closing of schools due to the hazardous icy road conditions.  Salt and sand were used generously on the town streets.  In some places, stock cutters or farm discs were used in an effort to break up the ice cover.

          But in spite of the weather, much progress has been made in farming in the area.  As of 1969, the 15 cent husking peg of a bygone day has been replaced by first, single-row then tow-row mechanical corn pickers, and presently $15,000 combines which pick and shell in one operation.  Plows have made the transition from sulky to six-, eight- and ten-bottom plows.  Tractor power has long since replaced the horse.  Electricity provided many changes in hand-powered machinery of an earlier day.  Open-pollinated corn has been replaced by hybrids, and yields have increased to well over 100 bushels per acre.  Oats, which was once a popular grain crop has all but given way to soybeans.  Very little wheat is raised.  Less and less poultry is raised in the area.  Fewer farmers keep a family cow or a milking herd.  Cost of living rates are increasingly higher, as well as taxes, interest, and farm equipment.  Prices paid for farm products and livestock have dropped to unusual lows, making a marked imbalance and a hardship on farmers, especially those with family-size farms.  Too many have found it necessary to supplement the farm income through a second job off the farm in order to maintain the desired standard of living, and educate their families in these changing times.

          Modern methods, knowledge and techniques of farming, use of fertilizers and weed control have enabled farmers to overproduce the demand for food and fiber, thus dressing the markets.

          Land prices have reached unheard of highs of from $500 per acre upwards, a sharp contrast to the prices paid by our forefathers when farm land was purchased from the government.

          Markets in fall of 1968:  Corn per bu.,  93; Soybeans per bus., 2. 34; Oats per bu., .62; Hogs per cwt., 19.50; and Cattle per cwt., 30.00.

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