T-R PHOTO BY DORIE TAMMEN - Iowa author Darcy Maulsby presented a program titled “Iowa Agriculture: A Culture of Farming, Food and Family” at the Marshalltown Public Library on Saturday afternoon.

On Saturday, the Marshalltown Public Library sponsored a truly fascinating program entitled “Iowa Agriculture: A Culture of Farming, Food, and Family.” The speaker was Darcy Maulsby, a 5th generation Iowa farmer from Calhoun County, and an author known as “Iowa’s Storyteller.” She calls Iowa’s agriculture history as “the greatest story never told.”

Iowa’s ag history can be broken down into three eras: 1.) “Subsistence Ag to Innovation” in the 1800s; 2.) “Surviving Hard Times” in the 20th century; and 3.) “Advanced Ag” from the 1990s to today.

Iowa agriculture begins with the soil. Shallow seas once covered much of Iowa millions of years ago, followed by glaciers thousands of years later, and even later by prairies. The seas covering Iowa at one time are evidenced by the amazing 6-foot-long fossilized sea scorpion discovered near Decorah in northeast Iowa. The State Capitol Building in Des Moines was built on a mound of soil left by the glaciers.

All this history created at least 11,000 different soil types, some of the richest soils in the world, and excellent for agriculture. Native American’s recognized this and began farming in Iowa centuries ago. Corn was first grown here 1000 years ago.

Settlers poured into Iowa after statehood was achieved in 1846. They needed timber for their log cabins, rail fences, and fuel for cooking and warmth. Breaking the prairie for fields was hard, slow work. Prairie grasses had deep roots that defied conventional plows. This led to revolutionary innovations in plowing equipment, such as a self-scouring plow where soil would slide off easily, saving the farmer time and effort. This innovation was initiated primarily by blacksmith John Deere of Illinois. The company that grew from his work continues to manufacture advanced farming equipment.

Early farmers grew much of their own food, and before railroads linked Iowa with eastern markets, wheat was a primary crop due to the need for flour. Iowa wheat production reached its peak in 1875, but grasshopper plagues decimated wheat crops in the late 1860s to the early 1870s. So, farmers shifted from growing wheat to corn and never looked back.

Corn also provided feed for Iowa’s growing livestock industry. William Louden and his Louden Machinery Company of Fairfield, Iowa, patented a revolutionary manure carrier that made barn work easier and quicker. Later, his material-carrying equipment went on to be adapted in Boeing B-29 airplane plants to help the U.S. win World War II and to contribute to NASA’s Apollo space program in the 1960s with cranes to move rockets.

Starting in the 1870s, the Iowa Immigration Board promoted Iowa’s agricultural excellence to recruit immigrants from European countries. British land speculators formed the Iowa Land Company in LeMars, Iowa, and began promoting land sales in Illinois and Iowa, and rich and poor immigrants came to Iowa, a land of opportunity.

Magnificent “Corn Palaces” that looked like cathedrals and palaces became a bit of a craze. Sioux City had 6 of them beginning in 1887. They were seen as a form of economic development, and 130,000 tourists, and President Grover Cleveland, came to see them.

From 1897 to 1918, Iowa moved from subsistence farming to modern business venture, and new inventions ushered in a new era. Inventor John Froelich of Clayton County, Iowa, was the first to believe that replacing horses with mechanical power would change the future of agriculture, and the first tractors were developed from there.

Around 1910, the golden age of ag drainage began, and most of Iowa’s public drainage systems were built. By 1912, Iowa farmers had spent more money on drainage than the U.S. had spent building the Panama Canal. Drainage tiling had become big business.

Jessie Field Shambaugh, born on a farm in Shanendoah in 1881, was one of the first female ag teachers in the country. She was named Page County Superintendent of Schools at the ripe old age of 24 and then guided the formation of the 4-H program.

In the 1870s, huge “Bonanza Farms” were formed in Sac County. One of these, Brookmont Farm, consisted of 12 square miles (7,680 acres), roads lined with 60,000 trees, multiple homes, a carriage house, a water tower, massive farm buildings, and more. It also had the largest cattle barn in the nation, with stalls for 700 head of cattle. A German delegation even visited and marveled over never-before-seen popcorn!

The Bonanza Farms could afford the most modern machinery, and adopted the latest in modern ag technology, making them more efficient. Eventually, they led to crop rotation and other modern farming practices.

During WWI, the government encouraged farming advances to help win the war with food, and Iowa’s farmers rose to the challenge. After the war ended, though, the Great Depression began, and ag economy crashed long before Wall Street did in 1929. Land values plunged $35 million between 1920 and 1930, and foreclosure hit one of every nice Iowa farms.

Also, young men who had seen some of the world during the war were less interested in the hard farming life, and began moving to cities for the comforts that farming didn’t provide. Rural Electrification was needed to improve farm life. Farmers began protesting and forming alliances to improve their lot. As a result, the Agriculture Adjustment Act was signed in 1933, the first major government move to resolve farmer’s problems.

WWII brought labor shortages, and farmers were asked to produce more food with fewer workers. Mechanization increased to meet the demands, and a new crop was developed for wartime needs. After the war, a new era of increased use of farm chemicals developed.

Also, in the early 1900s, George Washington Carver, the first black student at Iowa State University to earn a master’s degree, and Henry A. Wallace (of “Wallace Farmer” magazine fame) began the hybrid corn revolution. As a result, corn yields skyrocketed. In 1900, corn yields averaged about 39 bushels per acre. Today, that average is 192 bushels.

Roswell Garst of Coon Rapids, Iowa, began selling hybrid corn in 1930, for $8 per bag. He did very well, and in 1959, he invited the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to tour his Iowa farm, a visit that transfixed the world.

Also in 1959, Japan suffered two typhoons in less than a month, devastating much of the country’s agricultural region. Iowa farmers donated 36 hogs and thousands of bushels of corn for feed and had them flown to Japan. All but one of the hogs survived the 3-day flight, and 9 years later, there were 500,000 hogs whose lineage could be traced to the Iowa Hog Lift.

Norman Borlaug was an Iowa farm boy from Cresco, who gained fame and a Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 for developing wheat that saved millions of people from starving.

The 1980s brought the Farm Crisis, spurred by high levels of debt, soaring interest rates (20% and more) and cost for machinery and fertilizer, falling land values, and an embargo against the Soviet Union by President Jimmy Carter. A quarter of Iowa’s farms would disappear over the following decade.

The 1990s brought biotech innovations to agriculture, such as genetically modified corn with insecticidal properties. This has reduced pesticide use by 1 billion pounds since 1996. This is estimated to be the environmental equivalent to taking 11.8 million cars off the roads for a year.

Today, one U.S. farmer feeds 155 people here and abroad. Iowa leads the nation in corn, hogs, eggs, and ethanol production. More than 15,000 families have been honored with Century Farm awards since 1976.