Elmer was used to horses and resistant
to machinery. "His brother always used to say, `Elmer, why
don't you get a tractor?'" says Mary. "And Elmer would
say, `One of those gas-eating things?! I like my team. If a team
of horses get stuck in the mud, you can always scare them out".
Early tractors were always being pulled out of muckholes by teams
of horses so Elmer had good reason to be suspicious.
Trying to develop a ranch with
only horsepower was a slow process. A large animal like a cow
eats about one ton of hay over a
winter and if a rancher wants to maintain livestock, he has to
have a good hay supply. Before irrigation made it possible to
grow hay on land that was otherwise too dry, ranchers relied on
cutting the tall slough grass that grew on low wet land. There
was a limited supply of sloughgrass though, and if one wanted
more in order to feed more livestock, one had to find more hay.
Clearing and irrigating more land was the answer but that cost
money and took time. Growing more hay also required the purchase
of more farm equipment.
Elmer and Mary and the
new tractor |
By the 1950s machinery
was becoming more reliable and Elmer could no longer
resist. He bought a brand new Fargo truck in 1950 for
$1865.00 from George Hadad, a Cranbrook dealer. |
He must have been pleased
with it, for he took the next step and bought a tractor with plow
and disk in 1952, another good deal at $1800. "I found out,"
says Elmer, "you could do more with a tractor after supper
than you could with a team of horses all day."
Another huge change that came in the 50s was the clearing and
increased utilization of the ranchland. A provincial agricultural
incentive, the Agricultural Land Development Act, provided low
interest loans to people to pay for land clearing, drainage and
irrigation. The Matsons, like many of their neighbours, took advantage.
|
Years before, Elmer had
developed a simple wooden flume system from the creek
to irrigate his new hayfields. Water flowed from the flumes
into the fields along ditches. In 1956 he cut hay during
the day and worked the night shift at the Galloway sawmill
so he could buy and install a modern irrigation system. |
The new baler made a big
difference in production.
|
With a partner, Elmer borrowed
$200 and bought a baler which simplified haying. Then he bought
an adjacent 40 acres with a spring on it.
|
His brother used to say, "Elmer,
why don't you get a tractor?"
Advertising made mechanization
look pretty attractive in the 1950s
Mechanization began in the 1950s
on the X-L
The new irrigation system
|
