One of my earliest memories of helping my father on the farm was driving the little grey Ford tractor raking hay and putting on fertilizer. My father was a big believer in fertilizer. He used it in Holland.
When we immigrated in 1953, father bought a little farm near Eganville. Back in those years the Dutch government would not let people who wanted to immigrate take money out of the country. They could only take a few hundred dollars. Holland was poor after the war.
So father bought Dutch made things (furniture) in Holland that he knew we could use in Canada and had them shipped over in a wooden container. He also bought a new car and had it shipped over. That was a waste of money. The first winter in Canada the car had to be fitted with snow tires and a block heater.
A few years later the Dutch government lifted the restrictions and people wanting to immigrate could take money with them and many bought good farms in Canada and elsewhere.
So father had no choice if he wanted to farm in Canada. He would have to start the hard way — put a small down payment down on a little farm and work out. That’s what he did. He milked cows in an old barn and worked off the farm in the summer after the hay was off. We had a good bush and winters were spent cutting cedar posts and pulpwood.
It wasn’t long before father had more cattle than the farm could feed. Putting fertilizer on the hayfields in the spring gave him extra feed for the milk cows.
But this was the 1950’s. Many of the old-time farmers on our road had never used the stuff. They didn’t believe in fertilizer or artificial insemination. Even though I was only a youngster at the time, I can remember neighbours scoffing at “the Hollander” for throwing money away on fertilizer.
A few years later, one, and then another neighbor, bought a few bags of fertilizer and tried it on their hayfields. Obviously, they liked what they saw in our fields.
Father liked to get fertilizer on the field before a rain and preferably in the evening when there was no wind. We didn’t use a mechanical fertilizer spreader. We used a trailer — the one we used in the bush for hauling out pulpwood. Ten or 15 bags of 10-10-10 fertilizer would be put on the front of the trailer. A smooth surface small wash tub that held a few bags was put on the back and away we went to spread fertilizer.
Father would put a big red hanky over his nose and mouth and he’d sit on his knees on the back of the trailer. My job as a nine or 10-year-old was to drive the little Ford slowly in a straight line up and down the field while he hand spread the fertilizer in long sweeping motions.
When it was time to replenish the tub, he’d yell at me to stop. If there was a little wind I’d have to watch how I was driving so father didn’t get white dust blowing back in his face. He’d shout to let me know he was going to turn around and spread the other way. That meant I had to drive closer to where I had just driven. It’s a good thing the fields were small and I could drive in a fairly straight line.
