Nichols, Iowa Centennial Book
Stories of Early Nichols
AGRICULTURE IN PIKE TOWNSHIP
Nichols, Iowa Centennial Book 1884-1984, pages 176-179
By Steve SaleminkLake Calvin, its shoreline dry for many years, produced some of the richest yet somewhat unusual farm ground in Pike Township. The blackest and heaviest soil of the lake bed, called gumbo, has the potential to produce record yielding crops, if the weather cooperates. In the early spring when the rivers are high or when heavy rains come, the black ground reforms back to its original state of holding water. When the gumbo dries out, cracks form big enough that small tools have been known to be lost in it.
South and more east of Nichols the gumbo gives way to sand that blows with the wind yet can raise a very good crop if the rains come when needed.
To the west and north of Nichols the old shoreline can be seen. This shoreline is made up of hills and small valleys that carry on beyond the shoreline. The top of these hills have a few inches of black topsoil while the slopes are made up of clay, yellow in color and sometimes very trying to farm.
All of these types of soil have produced many bushels of feed grains that have been fed to livestock raised by farmers in the area or sold to elevators in Nichols.
When the railroads came to Nichols, this gave area farmers the opportunity to ship to different markets. Before the railroads came, all livestock and other produce had to be driven on the hoof or hauled with team and wagon to market, usually to Muscatine. When the railroads stopped serving Nichols, area farmers have had to haul their produce by truck to markets in nearby towns.
The grains not fed to livestock have been sold to the local elevators. This has been the tradition for a long time but now a few farmers are selling and hauling their own crops directly to the river terminals in Muscatine.
The following excerpts have been taken from The Muscatine Journal, Muscatine County Farm Bureau and Extension Service records. Also, a copy of an 1897 Sears & Roebuck Catalogue and private records were used. The reason for these quotations are to give a better understanding of farming the past one hundred years and how things have changed or stayed very much the same.
4 April 1879 – The farmers of this neighborhood are all busy sowing their wheat and oats.
We hope these items show how farming the old lake bed of Lake Calvin, also known as Elephant Swamp, has been the main source of business in Nichols. Ownership on parcels of land has changed, businesses have moved in, moved out, started or died, but farming still thrives. It is the main supporter either directly or indirectly for the majority of the people in this town and township. As the business people in Nichols past and present can attest to when the markets are good and the farmer has money, he will spend it. Farming and Nichols go hand in hand as they have in the past, present and the future.
23 May 1879 – The weather is very favorable to farming this spring, farmers are generally through planting.
23 December 1881 – It rains and the mud deepens. Farmers are not all through husking corn yet.
27 January 1882 – People are hauling wood as if they never expected another July. Wood is $4 per cord.
23 March 1882 – The frost is out of the ground and it is not unusual to see a wagon stuck in the mud so deep it requires an extra team, and an unusual amount of profanity to extricate it. Although the mud is deep there are quite a number of hogs coming in for shipment. Spring work has commenced. Some find it pretty cool riding on a sulky plow.
21 April 1882 – This vicinity was visited with the heaviest rainfall that we have had in a long time. West of town it was quite heavy, washing out small bridges in many places.
26 May 1882 - The snow and rain is giving farmers a rest. The heavy frosts damaged the vegetables and fruits.
30 June 1882 – If the hot weather continues the corn crop will be cut short. Some damage reported by the chinch bug to oats.
14 July 1882 – Gilbert & Kirchner shipped a car load of hogs, paying as high as $7.40 per hundred. Corn is 70 cents, oats 50 cents and scarce.
4 August 1882 – The farmers are busy with their hay and quite a number have threshed their rye. Market for rye is 50 cents per bushel.
29 September 1882 – Considerable old corn is being shipped from this point, 58 cents is being paid.
16 February 1883 – In the past few days J. J. Boston has shipped four carloads of corn, one of oats, and one of rye. Conrad Brown hauled three loads of barley to Muscatine and sold it for 50 cents per bushel.
23 March 1883 – Seed corn is scarce; quite a number of farmers of this section have sent to Nebraska for a supply.
18 May 1883 —Nichols and Hooley received two car-loads of stock cattle this week from Center Point, Iowa.
25 May 1883 – Farmers are planting corn, although the cool weather is discouraging.
24 August 1883 – On last Saturday afternoon, it is said that Silas Ames with his steam thresher shelled out thirteen hundred bushels of oats.
9 November 1883 – There have been 154 car loads of grain, 30 cars of hogs, 18 cars of potatoes and 2 cars of onions shipped from here during the past year; $55,000 worth of goods have been sold to citizens of this vicinity, and $30,000 in “liquid groceries.” But the customers for the latter class of goods come from other sections, which makes Nichols a harder name than the place deserves.
25 July 1884 – The corn is laid by and stands generally about waist high.
26 December 1884 – William Smith has lost his fine black stallion valued at six hundred dollars.
6 August 1886 – The rain in this vicinity the 31st was unequally distributed. A mile west of here it was only a sprinkle, and the same distance south, none; here a light shower but not a heavy rain.
13 August 1886 – The oats are making from 55 bushels down, and of good quality. Wheat is going from 15 to 20 bushels and is magnificent berry.
17 September 1886 – Markets are as follows: Wheat 63c, rye 40c, oats 25c, hogs $4.15, butter 15c, eggs 10c, sweet potatoes are retailing at $2 per bushel.
26 November 1886 – Some corn is coming in and sells at 30c per bushel.
8 April 1887 – Nichols markets: corn at 38c, oats 26c, hogs $5, butter 15c, eggs 9c, potatoes 70c.
13 May 1887 – Corn planting is about done in this locality. Spring wheat and oats look well.
8 July 1887 – The agricultural implement dealers have sold twenty-one reapers and binders besides other implements too numerous to mention.
26 August 1887 – There was a light frost this morning but not enough to injure vegetation.
16 December 1887 – Corn is a little dull at 40c per bushel; hogs are going for $5 per hundred.
30 December 1887 – Another snow storm, followed by a gentle blizzard.
20 January 1888 – A. T. Elder & Sons have delivered in the past few days 1,800 bushels of corn, for which they got 40 cents per bushel.
1 June 1888 – Corn planting is mostly done. Some who planted early have to replant.
13 July 1888 – Last Saturday was the hottest day of the season – 103 degrees at the post office. Harvey Metcalf states that what was known as the goose pond (north of town) where seven years ago boats were used in duck hunting is being farmed by him and is in corn and that the prospect is good for from eighty to one hundred bushels per acre.
16 November 1888 – David Kirkpatrick has one hundred fifty head of three-year-old steers for sale that will weigh from ten to eleven hundred and fifty pounds; two hundred two-year-old and three hundred one-year-old, all good steers.
3 January 1890 – T. B. Holcomb reports an increased business in 1889 in all lines, and shipped 140 cars of watermelons last year.
The Sears and Roebuck catalogue was a popular item to order supplies, tools, clothes, farm machinery and other needed objects from. Some of the items that could be ordered from the 197 edition were: 10 gallon milk can, $1.62 ($18.47 a dozen); 12’ windmill for $28; top buggy for $ 28.95; Acme lawn mower, 12, 14 or 16 inch cut for $3.50. Some farm machinery; Genuine Monarch Corn and Cob Mill - $18.75; two hole corn sheller - $10.80; dump hay rake - $11.55; hay mower, four foot cut - $36.00; five-hoe one box grain drill - $14.00; 2 – 14 inch gang plow - $46.00; disc harrow, 16-20 inch blades, 8 ½ ft cut - $29.00; three tine hay fork – 29c.
1 November 1915 – T. B. Nichols sold cattle at Chicago for 10c per pound.
July 1919 – There was hog cholera trouble at the Elder farm. Roy Braun had a corn yield check of 54 bushels per acre. A Titan tractor was used by William Wieskamp for farm work on his farm.
1920 Muscatine County Farm Bureau had 16 members from Pike Township. In November, Harry Brauns’ check acre had 74 bushels of corn and Rummells’ acre had 68 bushels.
In 1925 farmers in this area sent for disease free corn from Funk Brothers Farms at Bloomington, Illinois. In spite of the special seed and a favorable long growing season there was much chaffy corn present in the Reids Yellow Dent strain. Also dipolodia and basiosporum mold infected ears were found in individual ear tests. Ben Nichols corn check showed the diseased corn at 103.1 bushels per acre and the seed at 91.0 bushels. The healthy seed did not help here.
In 1926, the Muscatine County Baby Beef Club sold calves for an average price of $11.85 per hundred. Howard Dean, a member from Pike, sold his calf for $11.75 a hundred weight. The calf cost $45.00, feed expense was $43.49, and with the calf weighing 1080 pounds, left him with a profit of $28.30. Francis Dean, another Pike member, sold his calf for $12.50 a hundred weight. The calf weighed 1000 pounds, cost $45.00 and ate $44.59 worth of feed. His profit was $26.66.
Also in 1926, a test for tuberculosis in cattle was run. In Muscatine County, 22,238 cattle were tested, 772 of these were infected. In Pike Township, 38 herds out of 139 herds tested had infected cattle in them.
From 1923 to 1928 fifteen farmers in Pike Township used 1095 tons of limestone, ordered through the County Farm Bureau.
In 1927 J. C. Hammer and Ben Nichols planted 16 acres of hybrid seed that came from H. A. Wallace of Des Moines and his partner J. J. Newlin. Ben Nichols yield; hybrid seed 58.3 bushels and home seed 57.2 bushels.
In 1928 A Pulverator on a tractor plow was demonstrated on the H. J. Heinz farm at Muscatine and the Hummell farm at Nichols. It prepared a good seedbed on the gumbo at Nichols, the report stated.
In 1929 440 tons of lime was used by Pike farmers. Sodium chlorate was sprayed in October on R. M. Buckley’s farm for Canada thistle with good results.
Early Records Established for Corn Shipments
Nichols, Iowa Centennial Book 1884-1984, page 134The John Foley grain elevator at Nichols was humming with activity as large loads of corn were being loaded for shipment. “Old Dobbin” was sharing the job of hauling the bumper crop with the more modern means of hauling, by tractor and truck.
New corn shipments from the community are setting an unusual record this year, Mr. Foley reports. It is the first time in the 30 years that Mr. Foley has been in the grain business that new corn has been shipped out in the month of September. Before, the earliest shipment date was unusually heavy, aggregating over 17,000 bushels in a four day period.
During the busy season Mr. Foley personally takes charge of the moisture testing which is done on a Brown-Duval machine. [1938]
Young Nichols Farmer Wins In Fine Exhibition
Nichols, Iowa Centennial Book 1884-1984, page 1798 October 1940 - The title of Muscatine County corn husking champion today rested upon the brow of Walter Reynolds, young Nichols farmer, who decisively won the crown with a fine exhibition of picking at the annual county contest held Friday at the A. C. Hunter farm, near Cranston.
Reynolds husked a gross load of 2,380 pounds from which deductions of 60 pounds were made, for a net yield of 2,320 pounds – more than 200 pounds ahead of his nearest competitor.
As he warmed to his work, the Nichols farmer stepped up his pace of 53 and then to 55 a minute, and by the time the 80 minute husking period came to an end, it was estimated that he was hitting almost 58 to the minute.
Reynolds broke out in front of the remainder of the contestants at the starting gun, and was never headed. In addition to turning in the largest gross load, he also had the least deductions, being penalized only 36 pounds for gleanings and 24 pounds for husks.
How One Iowan Battles a Wandering River
Nichols, Iowa Centennial Book 1884-1984, page 149 – dated 25 April 1954Ben Holcomb built his own dam across “shoot” of the Cedar River, which cuts across his farm near Nichols. He wants to use his island, formed by the main channel and the shoot as a cattle pasture, but he also figures the dam will help to protect his “mainland” farm. A neighbor’s complaint may force the Iowa Natural Resources Council to request that the dam be removed. The main channel used to run between Holcomb’s island and Krueger’s island; now it cuts through Krueger’s farm, making an island.
‘Grand Canyon’ at Nichols
Nichols, Iowa Centennial Book 1884-1984, page 137
From Muscatine, Iowa, Journal – Tuesday, 28 August 1973Workers for Iowa Road Builders install eight inch sewer line at the bottom of a 21 foot trench in Nichols. This point, north of the business area, is the highest point in town and requires the deep line for proper drainage to the system, which is about 25 percent complete. Workmen indicated that a lot of water had to be pumped from temporary wells before the water table could be lowered enough for the job. The shovel is the largest owned by the company and has a four-yard capacity.
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Page created February 3, 2011 by Lynn McCleary