The big news of 60 years ago, April of 1957, was a growing adoption of irrigation on Kansas farms. Most of the early irrigation was flood, much of it from ditches. Dr. Glenn Beck, director of the Kansas Experiment Station in Manhattan, predicted that 10% of Kansas farmland would be under irrigation in the coming decade.

65 years ago
Planting intentions for the spring of 1952 showed that Kansas farmers planned to plant 23.6 million acres of crops, 2.8 million more than in 1951.

Acreages indicated large increases for winter wheat, corn and soybeans, according to the Kansas State Board of Agriculture. Rather sharp decreases were reported for oats, barley and sorghums. The 1952 acreage indicated for feed grains, including corn, oats and barley but excluding grain sorghums, totaled 4.02 million, down 7% from the 4.3 million acres in 1951.

50 years ago
Kansas was celebrating the 50th anniversary of the birth of the Federal Land Bank system. The first farmer to receive a loan was A.L. Stockwell of Larned. Stockwell got his loan on April 10, 1917, just 41 days after the birth of the Wichita Land Bank and just two weeks after the creation of the association at Larned, the office where the Stockwell loan was made.

Stockwell paid his loan off on schedule. He received another loan later and retired it, also. He died in 1944, and his heirs sold the farm a few months later.

30 years ago
Perennial flowers were gaining popularity in farm landscapes across Kansas back in 1987, and the advice for perennial success hasn't changed much in the 30 years since.

Topping the list is making a choice of perennials that offer a variety of bloom times and colors, and spacing them in the garden so that you have a combination of green and colors during the growing season. For Kansas, bleeding heart and columbine are good spring plants. In early summer, delphium, glorisa daiser and summer phlox are showing. Asters and hardy mums are great fall bloomers.

Plant the lower growers in front and taller plants in the back of the garden, so that every plant can be seen.

Don't be afraid to experiment. If you try a plant in one spot and don't like how it looks, it can easily be transplanted to another location in the garden. Over time, you’ll discover which plants do best where.

Remember to clip off blooms as they begin to fade. That will encourage the plant to bloom again. If you let it set seed, it won't bloom again for another season.

Goerzen writes from Wichita.