Small farms are dying
A prophetic gravestone sits on a flat part of the acre. The dates of death have not yet been filled in. The gravestone is waiting.
Across the gravel road is a small farm, and the name on the gravestone faces it. Strangely, the family name is Damm, as if the farm across the road is damned.
Small family farms are consolidating into a larger mass. Dan Pherigo, county agricultural agent, said 621 farms died in Douglas County between 1949 and 1964.
Small farms in Douglas County are meeting a slow death, and the cause is not unlike the disease plaguing the rest of the nation.
Although investment by the acre and farm size have doubled, market value of produce has remained the same.
"In 1940 an average investment for 307 farm acres was $135,000. In 1965 it took $132,823 to manage 703 acres,"
Pherigo said. "That more than doubles the amount of money it takes to run a farm."
Part of the reason for increase in farm operating costs is the expense of large machinery.
"A farmer manages 12 or 15 pieces of major farm equipment, such as combines and tractors, but usually few are paid for. Farmers are borrowing larger amounts of money each year, and at the same time buying the new and necessary mechanized equipment," Pherigo said.
Many farmers, he said, hire neighbors to bring in the harvest machinery, thereby avoiding part of the high price of mechanized farming. But even if the farmer can avoid that bind, there are always rising taxes.
"They used to say it would take seven years to go broke if you had a cow and a sow, and a team and a plow. Now it can happen with one crop failure," Pherigo said.
And now farmers are moving
Photo by Randy Leffingwell
Leaning Into The Wind
The tumbling remnants of farmsteads once well-kept are scattered across the Kansas prairies. Farms are sold or deserted as young sons move to the cities.
small farm and a place to fish," Pherigo said.
to the towns in Douglas County. As they leave, their small plots of acreage are blended into bigger farms, almost doubling the average farm size from 1940 to 1965.
But one factor makes Douglas County slightly different from the national migration into the cities.
a husband or wife working 40 hours a week off the farm in town," he said.
"Fifty per cent of the rural families in Douglas County have
"These are the farmers who no longer find farming profitable, but still prefer to live in the country, or the struggling farmers whose wives work in town to meet the need for money. In a few cases it's just that a family would rather live in the country, have a garden on a
But even with this kind of farm, Pherigo predicts the end, with farming becoming an industry, and the small, independent farmer merely a ghost in the shadows of silently tumbling farmhouses, while up the gravel road a tombstone waits.
Self-proclaimed witches reside at KU says local white wizard
Occult interest and legend are obscure within the ivy walls of the University of Kansas.
But proof of belief in the mystic can be found in last November's axeman scare which shook the foundations of women's living groups.
The scare generated from a rumored Jeane Dixon prophecy which claimed 20 coeds would be murdered by ax at a Midwestern university.
Hoaxes, pranks and girls locked in their rooms with stolen kitchen knives were numerous at the beginning of the week. But fear was allayed when one KU coed called Miss Dixon who denied the rumored prophecy.
Jacque Whitney, Minneapolis, Kans., sophomore, said she heard the legend of a man with a hook for a hand, who haunts the area near the cemetery across from Daisy Hill resident halls.
Less speculative than a hookman, it is said the residing of self-proclaimed witches at KU is factual.
One KU wizard, who preferred to remain unnamed, said he practices white magic only. This, he said, is practiced to help the sick and needy. When asked about witchcraft, he said it was similar to any religion.
"People have the tendency to overlook white witches when they hear of witchcraft. They
only think of Satan and devil-worshippers."
When asked if he would care to make a prediction which might make him famous, the KU wizard replied, "It will rain tomorrow."
The wizard estimated there were 20 to 30 persons at KU who practiced either black or white magic. He frowned at the mention of the KU coven of witches which recently attempted to levitate Strong Hall.
Apr. 16
1969 KANSAN 21