- Ralph B. Bilson, Sr. Interview,
Highlights of the interview of Ralph B. Bilson, Sr. by Tom Isern on Oct. 28, 1981.
“I was born near Eureka in 1904. I have a twin sister Ruth and a sister Jessie. I attended country schools and then graduated from high school in 1922. I went to Kansas State College, 1922-25. I married Ella May Green in 1926. I have farmed and ranched ever since. My parents were W.J. and Della Bilson. They were farmers and I am a farmer and rancher. I was born northeast of Eureka and still own the home place. Growing up, we worked entirely with horses and one-row farm equipment, hand tools and hard work. We were in the cattle business and raised feed for the cattle. In 1916 we built our first silo. We had 320 acres and farmed about 100 acres. The rest was in pastureland and we did not lease any land at that time. We had 35 to 40 head of cows at that time. Now, we have 300 cows and calves and the yearlings go with it for about 400 head at the present time. Back then we had about 50 acres of corn and 25 acres or sorghum and alfalfa. We used a disc harrow to get the ground ready for the corn and planted it with a one-row lister. We would cultivate it all summer and then bind it with a one-row binder in the fall. Then we would shuck it out of the stock and put some of it in the silo. We would cultivate the corn two or three times. There would be about 30 bundles to a shock. The binder had a bundle carrier and it would hold about five bundles and then it would be dropped off. Then you would do that again and we would come behind and put them in shocks. We would take a box wagon out to the field and shuck the corn into the wagon.
“One or two people would go out to shuck the corn. Later, we would bring out a wagon for the fodder after the corn was gone to feed to the cattle. We would shuck the corn, as we needed it, so some of the corn would stay in the field most of the winter. We had a corn sheller. The grinder was horse-driven and we ground most of it. The horse would go around and around and the ground feed was for the cattle. This grinder was a horse-powered sweep and the grinding mill was in the center of that sweep. We would shell it before grinding it. This was a hand sheller, so we only did our own. It was hard work and kept the boys busy. We did not turn the cattle out into the cornfield in those days, but we did later on.
“We would buy some calves in the fall and feed them out along with our calves and sell them in the spring. We had about 50 head total. With the kafir corn or sorghum, we would head it, then grind it in the same mill. We planted it the same way as corn. We did not bind it, just headed it. We had a header on the side of the wagon about midway where there was a knife that cut the head and it would go into the wagon, which was about 14 feet long by seven feet wide and it had a tight floor. We would get a wagon full then go stack it and then get a threshing machine. We would bind it and shock it, then head it. We would feed the stock to the cows after heading it. The Denner boys had a thresher and they lived east of us. In the winter, they would bring their old thresher over and it would burn coal; it had a steam engine. They did custom threshing. They would bring a crew of about three or four and some of our family to do the kafir. Some years we would have some wheat and we would bind it and they would come back and thresh it. We did not have much wheat and we did have some oats that we would thresh out of the bundle. We had alfalfa and we cut that with a mowing machine and would stack it, we had a hay stacker. We would take it out of the stacks and into a wagon in the winter for the cattle. Just our family would do the haying. We had two mowing machines and we had to wait to let it cure before raking it. We had a dump rake. We had a godevil (hay stacker) with a team of mules on it. We had a Jayhawk hay stacker that was made out here in Salina. This stacker had three wheels. Two in the front wide apart and one in the back. Horses pulled it. You would get the hay and take it over to the stack and dump it in the stack. There would be one person on top of the stack. I was pretty small at that time, so I did not get on the stack much. When we moved down here, we went to baling the hay. You had to keep the stack high in the middle to keep it balanced and to keep the water running off. We had about 25 acres of alfalfa and 25 of prairie hay. Three cuttings of alfalfa usually. Alfalfa was for the cattle and prairie hay for both horses and cattle. We had one barn and kept it full of prairie hay.
“Dad had four or five sows, so it was a small hog operation. We put a silo up in 1916 and it was a Dickey tile silo and we have used it every year since. It is full of silage right now. My dad and I and a bunch of neighbors put it in. We put up a lot of corn for silage and later sorghum. We would go into the field and get the stocks in a wagon and bring them into the silo and put them in a silage cutter and it blew the cuttings up into the silo. We had one man in the silo. We had a twin city tractor that had about 30-horsepower on the belt. When we went out to get the bundles, we went out with four or five wagons each, driven by a man and each man would fill his own wagon. The team would go down the row for you and you walked and told the horses when to stop and go. We had about 10 men all together to cut and fill the silo. We would get what neighbors we could and then we would hire some boys to help out. Bill Miller had the cutter and he would fill silos all fall.”
