My grandfather Bilbrey was a farmer.  He had a farm on Home Creek in Coleman County, Texas and later a farm on Lost Creek also in Coleman County, Texas.  I spent quite a bit of time on the farm especially during the summer and school vacations, although I lived in town.  I was born on the farm.  Many were not born in hospitals then.

The little background may be helpful.  The first cast iron plow was not patented until 1797.  Before that plows were made of wood.  You can imagine how prone they were to breaking.

By the 1930’s plows made of iron were common and although tractors had been invented in about 1910, still most farmers used plows pulled by mules or horses.  A harness was put on the horses.  There were leather reins to control the horses.  Each horse had two reins.  To start the horses you would say “giddaup” and snap the reins.  To stop you would pull on both reins at once and say “whoa.”  To go right you would say “gee” and pull on the right reins.  To go left you would say “haw” and pull on the left reins.  Of course, the horses had gone down the same rows so many times thet usually would turn on their own when they got to the end of a row.  These horses were bred for work horses, unlike other types such as quarter horses, thoroughbreds or show horses, such as palominos.  Once in a great while my grandfather would let me ride one of the horses.  The horse did not like that.  No saddle was used – just bare back.

The horses had shoes made of iron.  Periodically the shoes had to be replaced.  Sometimes the farmer himself would shoe the horses, while at other times a man called a farrier would do it.  A blacksmith would make the shoes.  A blacksmith also would repair plows and other farm equipment.  Later welders would do some repairs.  Some farmers made their own ... horseshoes and some repairs.  To make a shoe you needed a furnace heated by coke or coal.  The fire that resulted would have to be fanned with a bellows.  Some bellows were hand operated and some with a foot pedal.  After the iron was red hot it would be removed from the furnace with tongs and placed on an anvil and hammered until it was the shape wanted and then ducked in water to increase its tensile strength or ripen it.  Sometimes the piece of iron had to be reheated and hammered more than once to get the proper shape.  I remember, as a kid, operating the bellows.

These same horses were used to take the family to town, usually on Saturday after the cows were milked.  My town had a courthouse square.  On Saturday you would see many farm wagons with horses at the courthouse square.  Farmers came to town to bring in crops or get supplies.

Some plows had no seats, so you walk by the plow while other plows had a metal seat and as manufactured had no cushions.  They could plow one or two rows at a time.  Today, in 2001, tractors can pull plows doing eight or more rows at once.  Today they are called cultivators.

Once the ground was plowed sometimes you would harrow the ground.  This smoothed out the plowed earth.  As a little kid we would sometimes sit on the harrow as it was pulled by the horses or mules.

After the ground was plowed and harrowed you would then plant.  Again, a planter could do perhaps two rows at a time but mostly a single row.  The seeds for planting would usually come from seed saved from what had been grown the year before.

Most farmers did not have electricity in the 1930's.  Kerosene (we called it coal oil) lamps were common.  They had a glass bottom into which the kerosene was poured, a wick and a glass chimney.  If the wick was turned too high the chimney would be blacken with smoke.  The wick was cotton web and had to be trimmed once in a while.  For outside, a lantern was used.  A lantern had a metal case but operated on the same principle.  It was not usually to see a can in the kitchen or back porch filled with kerosene.  The can had a spout to pour the kerosene into lamps and lanterns.  The spout had a screwed on cap. Inevitable the cap would become lost and a potato was used instead of the cap.  Really prosperous farmers would have an Aladdin lamp.  This was just a regular lamp but much larger and instead of a cotton web wick would have a cone.

Because there was no electricity and because of the inefficiency of lamps and the hard work of farming, most farmers would go to bed early and get up early.

Before the late 1930's almost no farm had electricity.  In 1936 the U. S. Congress passed the Rural Electrification Act (REA).  It was not economically feasible for private utility companies to construct power lines to farms.  The REA permitted farmers to form cooperatives and these could obtain federally financed loans to construct power lines in rural areas.  Starting in about 1937, many such cooperatives were formed.  The cooperative would then buy power from a private company and resale it to farmers.  The proceeds were used to pay back the loans.  These cooperatives ran electrical lines down the road.   If the farmer wanted electricity he joined the cooperative.  He was responsible for running the power line from the road to his farm. He also wired his house and/or barn.  At first, most farmers would have only a single bulb in the kitchen or living room.

Tractors did not come into wide use until the mid 1940's.  These tractors used gasoline to start them and then were switched to kerosene to run them.  They had a small gasoline tank and a much larger kerosene tank.  All the wheels on the early ones were steel.  They had two small wheels in front and two much, much larger wheels in the rear.  Later the wheels had rubber tires.  Sometimes instead of air the tires were filled with water.  This was because many farms had no electricity and electricity was needed to run an air compressor.  Farmers had to be skilled, as they repaired their own tractors and machinery.

In 1930 the average size of a farm was 157 acres.  Many farmers were sharecroppers.  This means someone else owned the land and put up the money for seed, etc.  The farmer worked the land and shared the profits with the landowner.  Some farmers rented the land.

Farm houses were usually made of wood.  The outside wall and the inside wall were the same.  The house was partitioned into a living room, kitchen and bedroom.  You ate in the kitchen.  As children were born  rooms were added from time to time.  Children shared the same bedroom.  Boys and girls had separate bedrooms.  Often the room was what we called tin, but was actually sheet metal.  The floors were rough lumber.  Knot holes in the floor would loosen and fall out.  Tin can lids were nailed over the holes.  In the winter, stepping on these cold floors barefoot would really wake you up.

There was no running water.  The house would often be built by a creek.  You would take a bucket and go to the creek, dip the bucket in the creek and take it back to the house.  Bathing was about once a week.  A #2 wash tub would be set on the kitchen floor.  Water would be heated on the stove and poured in the tub.  The whole family would use the same water.

In the fields a water barrel or bucket would be placed in the shade of a tree and  everyone would drink out of the same dipper which was often a hollow gourd.

Farmers would also dig wells by hand.  After the well was dug a frame would be built on the ground around the well hole with a frame at the top.  At the top of the frame would be set a pulley.  A rope would be run around the pulley and a bucket tied to one end.  The bucket would then drop into the well and pulled up by the rope.  Where two parts of the house roof came together there would be a gutter.  A barrel would be placed so as to catch rain run off from the roof.  Sometimes a cistern would be built and the run off from several points would be piped into the cistern, so that rain water would not be wasted.

Not only would water have to carried bucket by bucket into the house for cooking and washing and bathing, but also for the animals.  After a farmer became somewhat prosperous, he would have a windmill that would pump the water from the well into an above ground storage tank.  If he was really prosperous a single pipe would be run from the storage tank to a faucet in the kitchen and thus the first running water in the farmhouse.

Before electricity most farms had no means of communication other than through the post office.  A few farmers had radios powered by a car battery.  There was something called a windcharger.  This was a single device like a propeller.  The wind would turn it, it would create a small amount of electricity that would keep the car battery charged.

There are many chores that must be done each and every day on a farm.  The animals must be fed and given water and  the cows must be milked.  When crops are ready they must be harvested before the weather ruins them or they become too mature.

What happens when a farmer becomes ill?  All the neighbors pitch in to help an ill farmer.  After all they may be the ones to become ill sometime.  The same is true when a farmer needed to build a new barn, smoke house and hen house.  A day would be set for the building to be built.  On that day after morning milking and chores the farmers from all around would gather at the farm where the building was to be built and all would help.  The women would all gather in the farm house to help prepare the noon meal for all.

Farmers also had to be able to diagnose and tend to illnesses of people and animals.  Without telephones there was no way to call a veterinarian or physician.  Since travel was by wagon it took a long time to carry someone to a physician.  I vividly recall being given a spoon of sugar laced with kerosene for a cold.  Asafoetida was also used.  Poultices were used too.  If someone chewed tobacco, tobacco juice was used to treat stings from bees, wasps, hornets or scorpions.