Ohio Agriculture Today
By L. L. RUMMELL*
Ohio, the Gateway State--where the
industrial East meets the
agricultural West--is still a giant
among the farm states. Although
only thirty-fifth in size, still it
ranks usually about eighth or ninth
in income from the sale of the products
of its farms. Add to the
farm income the non-farm income of those
who farm part time,
and the total income of Ohio farmers
would be even higher, surely
above that of those states which do not
have the combination of
agriculture and industry found in the
Buckeye State.
This is a highly diversified state in
its sources of farm income.
Not a great wheat state like Kansas, yet
Ohio ends the year with
more than forty million bushels and has
only six other states ahead
of her. Likewise, we cannot boast of the
tall corn of Iowa, but still
in the last two years Ohio has surpassed
the great corn state in acre
yields (sixty-two and sixty bushels,
respectively), and one can name
but four other states that grow more
corn and raise more hogs.
Weather was unusually favorable in 1954
and again in 1955 in
Ohio, with the result that adequate
rainfall, combined with our
modern intelligence in cultivation and
the use of hybrids, fertilizers,
crop rotations, and the like, brought
the highest yield of corn per
acre in the United States.
Wisconsin boasts of her Holsteins and
other dairy cows, and
rightly so. Yet one can name but four
other states--New York,
California, Pennsylvania, and
Minnesota--with greater dairy income
than Ohio has. This dairy business means
twenty-two percent of the
* This article, like the one preceding
it, "Ohio Agriculture in History," was read
at a session on "Agriculture in
Ohio" during the seventy-first annual meeting of the
Ohio Historical Society on April 28, 1956.
L. L. Rummell is dean of the college of
agriculture at Ohio State University and
director of the Ohio Agricultural
Experiment Station at Wooster.
260
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
billion-dollar annual Buckeye income
from farm products. Hogs
bring in about twenty-one percent, and
poultry about eleven percent.
We admit that Ohio does not take a top
position among the
states in the production of any one
major farm product. We do
have more greenhouses, and some years we
rate at the top in some
minor products like clover seed or
honey. Yet run the gamut of the
principal farm crops--corn, wheat,
soybeans, hay--the dairy bus-
iness, meat animals, poultry and eggs,
and add the specialized
crops--tobacco, canning crops, sugar
beets, fruits, vegetables, green-
house vegetables and flowers, nursery
stock--and you bring forth
a billion-dollar business, still the
greatest single business in Ohio.
Fully half of Ohio's agriculturists are
part-time operators, that
is, thirty-seven percent work a hundred
days or more off the farm
in some nearby industry, and fifty-two
percent do some off-farm
work. This is true particularly in
counties where large manufactur-
ing plants are located in urban centers,
but each year more farmers
in strictly rural counties find winter
employment in cities, often
twenty-five to fifty miles away. It
rounds out their year's work by
filling in the slack period on the farm;
and it materially boosts the
family exchequer. The family is raised
in a rural environment; the
land makes a material contribution to
the family living, with foods
like fruits, vegetables, milk, eggs, and
meat; and the double source
of income pays off more quickly the
mortgages on farm and chat-
tels. Yet these farms contribute
relatively little to the total farm
production. About one half of the farms
of Ohio, including the
commercial plants, produce eighty percent
of the products, and
fifty-nine percent raise ninety-five
percent of the products.
Of the state's population of about nine
million people, only ten
percent live on farms. By 1965 there
will be more than ten million,
and likely not more than nine percent
will be on farms. The land
area in farms constantly gets less, and
farms get a little larger;
the proportion of farm workers in the
total labor force diminishes,
and the proportion of farm income to the
total income declines.
This is the situation of agriculture in
the rapidly expanding urban-
industrial economy of Ohio of today and
of the foreseeable future.
Ohio is in the center of the
geographical area with the largest
population of any area of America,
namely, the region from
OHIO AGRICULTURE TODAY 261
western New York, Pennsylvania, and West
Virginia on the east
to the Mississippi River on the west,
and from the Ohio River on
the south to the Canadian border on the
north. The census figures
of recent decades, with a projection
into the next twenty years,
indicate that the greatest, though not
the fastest, population growth
is and will be about the Great Lakes.
Remind yourself of metropol-
itan Pittsburgh, Akron, Youngstown,
Cleveland, Toledo, Detroit,
and Chicago in this area, with their
tremendous industries, and you
realize why this area has grown so in
population. There have been
at hand or easily available for
industrial development needed
natural resources: water from lakes and
rivers, iron ore from the
Lake Superior region and now from
Labrador, coal and limestone,
and other minerals. The steel business,
the key industry in the Ohio
River-Great Lakes region, is insured for
the foreseeable future in
this "Ruhr" of the U.S.A.
In Ohio, in addition to the steel and
allied industries along Lake
Erie and in northeastern Ohio, we have
the rubber industry at
Akron, the great manufacturing center of
the Miami Valley from
Dayton to Cincinnati, the new industrial
plants about Columbus,
the atomic installation in Pike County,
the recent and rising factories
along the Ohio River, and others. It is
a throbbing, romantic story,
this story of the growth in industry of
recent years here in Ohio.
Ohio today is the second state in
manufacturing and could well
climb to top rating.
Looking ahead, there is the St. Lawrence
Seaway coming, to add
the shore lines of Lake Erie to those of
the Atlantic Coast. Seagoing
vessels will bring the ports of the
world directly to Cleveland,
Lorain, Toledo, and Ashtabula. Many of
the nation's major rail-
roads, airlines, and highways traverse
Ohio, linking the state with
North, East, South, and West. The
northern Ohio Turnpike is an
important link in transportation from
New York to Chicago.
Another turnpike or limited-access
highway, running southwest
from Conneaut, will some day likely open
new traffic to Cincinnati
and all of Dixie. Other four-lane
highways are on the drafting
boards or are under construction. The
National Road is one of
these, now almost completed across the
state.
What relation does the urban-industrial
development have to
262
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
agriculture? Let me point out at least
three highly important and
competitive relationships. First,
growing cities and industries and
the accompanying construction of
highways and other facilities
take farm land out of production. For
example, the new turnpike,
by a conservative estimate, took at
least 25,000 acres, which poten-
tially was about 2,500,000 bushels of
corn a year, and some of it was
among the best farm lands in the state.
Industries sprawl out into
the country, and with each new
manufacturing plant must come new
housing developments. May we use
Columbus as an illustration?
In recent years we have seen General
Motors, Westinghouse, and
North American plants come in. To take
care of the larger popu-
lation and the increase in business and
industrial activity, the air-
port was expanded, another water supply
dam had to be built with
a reservoir covering many acres of farm
lands, and suburban villages
mushroomed till now the metropolitan
area nearly corresponds to
the county lines. Cuyahoga, Lucas, and
Hamilton counties have
expanded and expanded till there is
scarcely a commercial farm
left. Because of the expansion of cities
and the growth of industry
and for other causes, Ohio has lost some
22,285 farms (or eleven
percent) since 1950, and over 1,000,000
acres of farm land. Between
1935 and 1954 the acreage in Ohio farms
dropped 3,000,000 acres,
or thirteen percent.
The second important relationship
between industry and agricul-
ture is derived from the competition for
labor. The demand for
labor in Ohio's gargantuan industries
contributes to higher labor
costs for the farmer. The farm worker
commands more for his
hire, or he leaves to engage in a trade
in a nearby industrial plant.
The farmer must depend more on
efficiency in his business to keep
costs per unit of production down. He
must make more effective use
of machinery, motor power, electricity,
and tractors--in other words,
there must be more
"automation" on the farm. Since Pearl Harbor
the increase in production per farm
worker has jumped about
seventy-five percent, largely due of
course to this increased use of
machinery. Today nearly one hundred
percent of our Ohio farms
are electrified, and there is constantly
greater dependence on electric
power about the barns and the home.
Horses are a rarity, with
many farms today depending solely on
tractors, automobiles and
OHIO AGRICULTURE TODAY 263
trucks, and electric or gasoline
motors. Only the pleasure horse
retains respectability today, and he is
to be seen generally on a
relatively few farms devoted to
breeding.
Labor wages on the farm have advanced
about three hundred
percent since 1940; fertilizer prices
have risen only about fifty
percent; and machinery has advanced
less than the average for all
commodities farmers buy. Hence,
fertilizer, the tractor and machine,
and electric power have in large degree
replaced the hired man.
Greater output per man through
mechanization and improvement of
the soil is the answer to skyrocketing
labor costs.
Mechanization on the farm has amounted
to a revolution in the
means of production. As a boy I loaded
hay with a pitchfork, fed
sheaves of grain into a threshing
machine, cleaned out dairy gutters,
milked cows, cut corn with a long
knife, and husked it with a peg.
I can still recall those blisters of
early spring and the chapped
hands of the cold fall days in the corn
field. Who would do that
in this age? Who could afford it?
The dairy farm today has a field baler,
a chopper in the field
drawn by tractor, a built-on combine or
husking machine, a silo
unloader, a milking machine, a bulk
tank and milking parlor, an
electric gutter cleaner, and even
electric "trainers" for the cows.
Many a farm has automatic feeding of
silage and grain to cattle
merely at the push of a button.
A "young farmer of the year"
told me recently he would produce
120,000 broilers by himself in a year,
with a little time left over
for community activities. He handles
30,000 birds at a time, four
crops a year, with everything in
feeding and watering automatic.
He is an expert in engineering,
nutrition, pathology--or better we
might say, he has been intelligent to a
high degree in putting into
practice the latest inventions and
scientific improvements as de-
veloped by the agricultural experiment
stations. At the same time
he has had to develop his own local
market. His competition is
so keen that he feels fortunate if he
makes fifteen cents a bird above
his costs. This is only one example of
modern mechanized farming,
and of a combination of good production
and marketing procedures,
an example of scientific feeding,
power, and mechanization re-
placing hand labor.
264 THE OHIO HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
Once land was the principal cost to a
young farmer starting in
business. Today machinery represents
another heavy investment,
and it is gaining in importance each
decade. An average farm may
well spend at least $10,000 in
machinery, and twice that figure is no
unusual investment. This is a factor
that holds back many farm
boys, including our agricultural college
graduates, from starting in
farming. Fewer than ten percent of the
graduates of Ohio State
University's college of agriculture may
be going back directly to the
farm, and they are undoubtedly sons or
other relatives of operators
already farming. Some land grant
colleges report that fewer than
five percent of the agricultural
graduates return to farming in the
first year out of college.
This is one reason for many part-time
farmers. Some would-be
farmers try to get money faster by both
farming and working in
industry, so they can pay for the heavy
machinery investment.
The third significant relationship
between industry and agriculture
is the very struggle for survival on the
part of agriculture in the
rapidly growing industrial economy of
our state. It is conceivable
that industry might expand so greatly
and become so profitable in
Ohio, with its advantages for industry,
that agriculture might no
longer be a profitable venture. Only by
increased efficiency in farm-
ing operations can our farmers hope to
derive sufficient profit to
pay them to continue in business. Only by
using highly improved
methods can the farmer continue to
compete for a position as a
producer in such an economy. This means
that the farm operator
must constantly become a more educated
individual. And he is. He
reads several farm papers, listens to
radio and TV, visits the agri-
cultural experiment station and gets its
bulletins, knows his county
agent intimately, takes refresher
courses at the university, attends
the annual Farm and Home Week, belongs
to several farm organ-
izations, studies market outlets,
markets through a cooperative or
other effective marketing agencies,
likely has a soil conservation
plan for his farm, belongs to an
artificial breeding association, and
visits and observes other farmers that
he sees prospering. Never in
any generation before has the Ohio
farmer had so many problems
and hurdles, but never before has he
been so well equipped
mentally to cope with them. This simply
boils down to the fact that
OHIO AGRICULTURE TODAY 265
agriculture is a science today, and
that trained, intelligent men can
farm successfully despite the dominant
position of industry in our
economy.
On the other hand, it is in large part
because of our urban-
industrial development that agriculture
in Ohio is a big business.
Geography and the growth of cities and
industries have combined
to give Ohio farmers a significant
advantage in marketing their
products.
The populations of the cities,
including the great industrial labor
force, must have the food and other
products from the farms. In
Ohio, on the one hand, farmers have
their markets in nearby cities
where the factories cast shadows
figuratively across the farms, and
on the other hand, the millions of
laborers and city folk have much
of their food virtually within sight.
By overnight truck any farmer
in Ohio can dispose of his
products--his load of livestock, fruits,
or vegetables. Roads past his door
bring daily pick-up of his milk
and eggs. Elevators which take his
grain dot the landscape. Yet he
cannot supply all the food demands of
his city cousins, and carloads
and truck-loads of food must come from
other states, much of it
from a great distance and on which the
producer must pay freight
costs the Ohio farmer is not acquainted
with. Because of the prox-
imity of Ohio farms and their markets
Ohio farmers derive a higher
net income from their products than do
farmers in Texas, for
example, or in Iowa or in Minnesota, for
Ohio farmers don't have
to pay high transportation bills to
move their produce.
Yet this is not a one-way street, that
is, we must not look upon
this nearness of markets in Ohio as an
advantage which the farmer
alone enjoys. His city brethren find in
him a good market. The
Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland in a
recent survey found that in
ordinary times the farmer will spend
about twelve percent of his
income for capital improvements on his
farm, and in more pros-
perous times, say between 1942 and
1950, he will spend nearer
twenty percent of his income for
capital expenditures on buildings,
machinery, implements, electrical
equipment, trucks, and the like.
He also buys electric appliances, such
as radios and TV's, and other
household conveniences, furniture, and
clothing just like his urban
266
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
brother; and in addition he is
constantly buying or replacing his
automobile. He is one of the best
customers of the city merchant.
Another factor in the mutual
relationship of city and farm
residents is a closer study on the part
of farmers of their local
markets. With the help of the extension
service, through the co-
operatives, and by dealing directly with
retailers themselves, farmers
have been making greater efforts to
supply what local consumers
want and to deliver their produce in the
most acceptable manner.
We might cite fruits and vegetables as
an illustration. Growers today
choose varieties that are most
acceptable to the buyers; fertilize and
cultivate to improve quality; package, often
in consumer units, at
the farm; and otherwise improve their
product so that it will be
desirable to the city homemaker when she
patronizes the super-
market.
In recent years the law has required
that twenty percent of all
federal grants for research at
agricultural experiment stations must
be used to study marketing. Results of
these studies are now ap-
parent in metropolitan food markets in
the quality of food, in
packaging, and in display. Economy of
distribution and retailing
has also been an object of study.
This picture of agriculture in the
urban-industrial economy in
Ohio has brought out some of the
relationships between the farms
and industry and the farmer and the city
dweller, and has suggested,
at least by implication, the need for
cooperation and understanding
by each group. It has emphasized also
the essential need for highly
trained, well educated farm families.
The college of agriculture
of Ohio State University is second
largest in enrollment (next to
that of Iowa) in both boys in
agriculture and girls in home eco-
nomics, among all the land grant
colleges. Of these agricultural
students we now find that fifty-four
percent are coming from city
homes, and half of these never worked on
a farm. To our surprise
Cuyahoga County in the last two years
sent more boys to the college
of agriculture than did any other
county, with Franklin County
second. Why do these city boys want
agriculture? Not because it is
a "snap" course, for it is
not--its requirements are high among our
undergraduate colleges.
Why do they want agriculture when they
know how much it costs
to get started in farming? The truth is
they never expect to go
OHIO AGRICULTURE TODAY 267
into farming, but rather to go into
some related activity. They
may go into agricultural education
work, such as extension service,
vocational teaching, soil conservation,
or regulatory work. Many
will go into selling products for use
on the farm, such as machinery,
feed, fertilizers, and other supplies.
The demand for employees is
strong in food processing and
distribution, in dairy products for
example. Agricultural college graduates
are wanted in food retailing,
particularly by the larger chains which
regularly interview our
graduates. An agricultural education
opens many avenues for em-
ployment immediately upon graduation,
more jobs than we can fill.
This paper has emphasized the diversity
of farming in Ohio, the
relationship between urban and rural
areas, the highly competitive
business of growing food and other farm
products, the necessity
for trained, efficient farm operators,
and fundamentally more need
for research and education to keep
farmers in the forefront in this
age of automation, mechanization,
electronics, and atomic power.
There are 177,000 farms in Ohio with a
value of land and
buildings averaging $21,057 per farm.
The average size is 113
acres, an increase in size of twenty
percent since 1940. Of the total
land area of 26,240,000 acres, there
are 19,991,586 acres in farms,
of which 12,799,017 acres are in crop
land, or approximately one-
half the total area of the state.
Agriculture in Ohio today (1955)
derives twenty-two percent
of its annual income from dairying,
twenty-one percent from swine,
eleven percent from poultry, eight
percent from beef cattle, two
percent from sheep and lambs--a total
of sixty-four percent of the
total income from livestock and
livestock products. Fundamentally,
then, Ohio is a livestock state.
Its horticultural products--potatoes,
fruits, vegetables, nursery
and greenhouse products--account for
about ten percent of the
income. Field crops provide about
twenty-five percent of the farm
income, with about nine percent from
corn, eight percent from
wheat, and six percent from soybeans.
Now to look in more detail at the
agriculture of this state we
must take the map and divide it into
geological areas. Rock forma-
tions underlying the soils affect their
utilization. The glacier in pre-
historic times completely changed three
quarters of the state in
268
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
topography, rerouting the streams and
redistributing the topsoil.
Thousands of years before the white man
came to Ohio, Lake Erie
had a different boundary, its shore line
lying well south of its
present banks.
The western half of the state has
underlying limestone, and
today this is our "corn belt"
of Ohio, with a type of farming similar
to that in the states extending west to
Iowa. On the other hand, the
eastern half of Ohio has soils derived
from sandstone and shale in
large degree, and there lime-loving
plants like legumes do not
thrive. These soils lack the natural
high productivity that is
characteristic of those found in the
western limestone counties.
The east central and southeastern
portion of the state never had
the rasping, grinding action of the
glaciers to level off its hills, fill
the valleys, churn the soil, and change
the direction of streams.
Hence, today it has its original hilly
topography, and in agriculture
such land is best adapted to grazing,
forestation, and fruit culture.
There soil conservation measures, like
contour farming, stripping,
terracing, reforesting, and preparing
sod waterways, are imperative.
To this area in recent years has come
the strip coal miner, with his
yawning, bulky shovel biting out fifty
to eighty tons, uncovering
coal seams below, often to a depth of
eighty or ninety feet, and
leaving behind a desolate sawtooth-like
succession of ridges. Man
is driven off his acres by the lure of quick
money; his strip cropping
is replaced by strip mining. The state
is called upon for research
and regulation to heal the scars and
restore some worthwhile veg-
etation in trees or grasses. The
eyesores are evident in about twenty-
five counties, although if all
operations were in one spot they
would not encompass a township.
Northeastern Ohio benefits from a narrow
band of lake plain
along Lake Erie, on which besides
general farming, orchards, vine-
yards, and vegetable nurseries have
become profitable businesses.
Inland the rolling, acid lands support
hay and pasture and a thriving
dairy business, with some fruit and
vegetable cultivation near the
cities.
Northwestern Ohio has its old
"black swamp," which once lay
under Lake Erie, where about a dozen
counties have rich, level,
black lacustrine soils. Many years ago
this was a heavy grain-
OHIO AGRICULTURE TODAY 269
producing area, with elevators standing
like sentinels over the land-
scape. Today but a few counties, like
Paulding, depend on grain as
the principal farm income product.
Livestock feeding is prevalent,
with dairy cattle, beef cattle, and
poultry the chief products. Never-
theless, today grain sales will amount
to about twenty-three per
cent of the total farm income. Corn is
the main grain crop, and
alfalfa and soybeans flourish in the
virgin fertility of the soil.
The greatest problem of this
northwestern area is drainage, a
problem that has our attention in
research on agricultural experiment
substations there. One may not think
soil erosion is a factor on those
level lands, yet one need only see the
waters of the Maumee flowing
out into Lake Erie to appreciate the
carloads of silt going into these
waters. So great is this silt factor
that fish life in the lake is affected
adversely, and commercial fishing in
Lake Erie has been seriously
hampered.
In this area are several counties where
sugar beets are an im-
portant crop, producing an income of
about $2,700,000 annually.
Also canning tomatoes are another
specialized crop of the area,
returning approximately $4,300,000
annually.
There are a few highly specialized
areas of the state where
particular crops are grown because of
unique soil and climate con-
ditions. We have already referred to
the sugar beets and tomatoes
raised in the lake plains. Along the
divide at various points there
are muck crop areas that grow abundant
crops of vegetables, particu-
larly celery, lettuce, radishes,
carrots, onions, and potatoes. Another
vegetable area is along the Ohio River,
centered about Marietta and
extending west into Meigs County. Here
cabbage, cucumbers,
tomatoes, sweet corn, and potatoes have
the advantage of an early
spring on quickly drained sandy soil
and therefore command higher
market prices. Further down the river,
from Gallia County to Cler-
mont County, is the area of burley
tobacco, a crop demanding the
alkaline soil conditions which prevail
there on small, irregular
tracts along streams or at the foot of
hills, where the soil is deeper
and richer.
The uncultivated farm land of Ohio
amounts to about thirty-six
percent of the total land in the farms.
Much of this is in woods,
found mainly on the hills of southern
and southeastern Ohio, but to
270
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
a certain extent in virtually all
counties. There is a sizeable income
from timber, possibly $3,600,000 in a
year, and in addition farmers
provide their own timber, posts, and
firewood from their woods.
Some of Ohio's trees provide another
source of income in maple
syrup. Ohio is the third state in the
production of maple syrup, a
business which is centered about Geauga
and neighboring counties.
In conclusion, we might devote our
attention to the effort through
education to maintain our resources in
the soil, because we are
always going to depend upon it for food.
There are those who decry
our wanton loss of soil by erosion. Our
soil losses in mining opera-
tions, however, and our losses by the
expansion of cities and the
construction of airports, highways, and
industries take more poten-
tial food-producing lands than we lose
by soil erosion.
Some would picture soil as a bank
account where checks are con-
stantly drawn without retribution or
restoration. One needs only
to take the agricultural statistics of
the past century to see that
we are doing a far better job of
protecting and of restoring our land
than our grandfathers did on the same
land. Otherwise how can
one account for the fact that whereas in
the decade at the beginning
of the century wheat averaged about
twelve bushels per acre in
Ohio, today it averages twenty-five to
twenty-seven bushels and
many farmers get above forty bushels? Or
that corn in Ohio in
1900-1910 averaged about thirty-five
bushels, and now the average
is closer to fifty-five bushels, with
two years recently above the
sixty-bushel mark?
A good farmer uses fertilizers and crop
rotation, not just to get
a good crop in the particular year he is
working, but to maintain
or increase the total productivity for
future years. So today thousands
of farmers are getting larger yields and
at the same time building
or restoring their soils. This is truly
a case of eating your cake and
having it too.
Next year we shall celebrate three
quarters of a century of
agricultural research in Ohio, mainly at
the Ohio Agricultural
Experiment Station at Wooster and the
ten outlying substations. For
forty-two years we have had the
agricultural extension service,
which makes adult education available to
every farm family and to
other citizens, carrying the lessons of
research and good farming to
OHIO AGRICULTURE TODAY 271
every corner of the state. Other media
of education have been used,
such as the printed bulletin, the farm
press and other newspapers,
radio and now TV, along with special
schools, demonstrations by
the extension service, the contributions
of technicians of the soil
conservation service, and the work of
other state and federal
agencies. For every dollar spent on
agricultural research by the state
of Ohio, we can prove the farmers got at
least a hundred dollars in
return. Hybrid corn alone, or our
improved wheat varieties, have
in a single year raised farm income to a
degree beyond the total
expenditures for research by the state
in the last seventy-five years.
Education is an intangible investment,
but it is essential to our
standard of living, to our prosperity,
and to our national security.