The newest thing in agriculture was the tractor, and the International Harvester Company of America was advertising the machines as “a real help to American farmers, fast taking over all the heavy farm power work.”

An ad in the March 9, 1918 Kansas Farmer promoted kerosene as the best — and cheapest — tractor fuel. The ad read: “We pay particular attention on these three essential features: That our tractors shall operate on the cheapest fuel farmers can buy; that they shall be so simple that any farmer can learn to handle them; and that they shall do enough good work in the field and at the belt to more than pay for themselves.”

70 years ago
The homemaker’s life was challenging back in 1948, when “spring cleaning” was just one of many labor-intensive chores. The March 6 edition of Kansas Farmer 70 years ago offered a homemade recipe for a product to clean wallpaper.

The ingredients included 1 ½ cups of water, 2 tablespoons of alum, 1 tablespoon of kerosene, ½ cup of salt and 2 ½ to 3 cups of flour.

The directions called for bringing the water and salt almost to a boil, then removing from the heat and stirring in alum and kerosene before quickly stirring in the flour to make a smooth paste. Next came kneading the paste into a smooth, non-sticky dough. The dough was then formed into balls, which could be worked downward to clean the paper. Each ball was discarded when it became visibly soiled, and a new one was used to continue the process.

50 years ago
Fertilizer sales were reaching record highs in Kansas, as reported in the March 1968 issue of Kansas Farmer. The sales for the last half of 1967 totaled 414,311 tons, an increase of 2,126 tons over the corresponding period of 1966, which was also a record.

Liquid nitrogen solutions experienced the largest increase among fertilizer materials with 41,264 tons used, an increase of 13,555 tons.

20 years ago
White wheat was making news in Kansas in 1998 as farmers were being encouraged to take advantage of world demand for white wheats. Rollie Sears at Kansas State University in Manhattan and Joe Martin at the K-State Agricultural Research Center at Hays were both wheat breeders who were working to develop white wheat lines.

Goerzen is Executive Director at Old Cowtown Museum in Wichita.