Farmer Joseph Wall, 34, stepped into the office of the Farm Security Administration at Guthrie Center, Iowa and—37 years before it was due—blandly paid the last installment on his $8,257 FSA loan. Last week the well tilled 80-acre farm and well tended stock, which Farmer Wall cautiously estimates are worth $20,000 at 1944 values, were free & clear of debt.
High Hopes and a Pair of Mules. Slim, ruddy Farmer Wall had come a long way since 1935. That year he rebelled at working any longer as a hired hand for $20 a month. He married trim, freckled Carolyne Schaulk, a hired girl on a nearby farm, and started farming on his own. The Walls rented 80 acres north of Panora (pop. 1,169). With their $300 savings they bought a pair of flap-eared mules, a cookstove, a cream separator and a linoleum square. With $300 more borrowed from the Farmers State Bank they bought two brood sows for $20, and an assortment of antique farm equipment (including a harrow picked up for $1).
The Walls' first crop came in 1936, a year of drought and despair. Iowa was seared by sun and heat. The rivers dried up, the corn wilted, the oats burned into worthlessness. Wall sold the two brood sows for $30 to pay Doc Brinker's bill for delivering Joan, their first baby. Then he went on WPA to earn money for food and interest on the bank loan.
The Walls tried again the following year. They rented a 90-acre farm at Yale. The weather was better and crops were fair. Farm prices edged up a bit and Wall managed to clear enough to keep off WPA, and to reduce the bank loan by $100. The next three years were crowded with long hours of work and dulled by skimping and saying. But the irksome bank loan was paid off, and the inventory value of equipment and stock was up to $1,800. Then Wall heard that FSA would lend money on easy terms to tenant farmers who wanted to own their land. Through FSA the Walls bought 80 acres of rich, loamy land.
War and Weather. From the time the Walls got their FSA loan they have been making money. Their gross income in 1941 was $2,500. Living expenses for the year were held to $500. The rest of the income went back into the farm, and $359 was paid to FSA. War and the weather swelled the Walls' income. Good weather lifted the corn yield in 1942 to an average of 90 bu. an acre (during the drought year the yield was twelve bu. — which is no crop at all). The war demand for food pushed up prices for hogs, eggs and milk. In 1942 their gross income soared to $4,200. Despite these comparative riches, the Walls resolutely held their living expenses at the $500 level—and they made two payments to FSA totaling $2,300. Then 1943 was even better. They had bumper crops. Their gross was up another 20%, and Joe Wall made four trips to FSA, paid off $3,500. Doggedly they kept expenses down, made old machinery do, and resisted the temptation to buy more land.