Bonanza farms
Encyclopedia
Bonanza farms were very large farms in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 performing large-scale operations, mostly growing and harvesting wheat
Wheat
Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

. Bonanza farms were made possible by a number of factors including: the efficient new farming machinery of the 1870s
1870s
The 1870s continued the trends of the previous decade, as new empires, imperialism and militarism rose in Europe and Asia. America was recovering from the Civil War. Germany declared independence in 1871 and began its Second Reich. Labor unions and strikes occurred worldwide in the later part of...

, the cheap abundant land available during that time period, the growth of eastern markets in the U.S., and the completion of most major railroads.

Most bonanza farms were owned by companies and run like factories, with professional managers. The first bonanza farms were established in the Red River Valley
Red River Valley
The Red River Valley is a region in central North America that is drained by the Red River of the North. It is significant in the geography of North Dakota, Minnesota, and Manitoba for its relatively fertile lands and the population centers of Fargo, Moorhead, Grand Forks, and Winnipeg...

 in Dakota Territory
Dakota Territory
The Territory of Dakota was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from March 2, 1861, until November 2, 1889, when the final extent of the reduced territory was split and admitted to the Union as the states of North and South Dakota.The Dakota Territory consisted of...

, and Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...

 in the mid-1870s. They were located close to the Northern Pacific Railroad which transported their wheat to market. Investors also organized bonanza farms farther west.

There were many Bonanza Farms in North Dakota
North Dakota
North Dakota is a state located in the Midwestern region of the United States of America, along the Canadian border. The state is bordered by Canada to the north, Minnesota to the east, South Dakota to the south and Montana to the west. North Dakota is the 19th-largest state by area in the U.S....

; a number of them are still preserved.

Role of farm technology

Bonanza farmers pioneered the development of farm technology and economics. Steam engines were used for motive power in plowing as much as 41 years before the modern farm tractor
Tractor
A tractor is a vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or construction...

 made its first appearance. Plows and combine harvester
Combine harvester
The combine harvester, or simply combine, is a machine that harvests grain crops. The name derives from the fact that it combines three separate operations, reaping, threshing, and winnowing, into a single process. Among the crops harvested with a combine are wheat, oats, rye, barley, corn ,...

s drawn by steam tractors prowled the landscape in the 1880s and 1890s, well before mechanization
Mechanization
Mechanization or mechanisation is providing human operators with machinery that assists them with the muscular requirements of work or displaces muscular work. In some fields, mechanization includes the use of hand tools...

 of the smaller midwestern farms. The division of labor was applied in bonanza farms generations before family farms adapted to these modern ways. Farm boys from the midwest, working on bonanza farms in the early 1900s, transplanted these ideas to Corn Belt
Corn Belt
The Corn Belt is a region of the Midwestern United States where corn has, since the 1850s, been the predominant crop, replacing the native tall grasses. By 1950, 99% of the corn was grown from hybrids. Most corn is fed to livestock, especially hogs and poultry. In recent decades soybeans have...

 homesteads and built larger farms as the century progressed. (An example is Fred Geier, of Lynn Township
Lynn Township, Minnesota
Lynn Township is a township in McLeod County, Minnesota, United States. The population was 604 at the 2000 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the township has a total area of 33.1 square miles , of which, 31.8 square miles of it is land and 1.4 square...

, McLeod County, Minnesota
McLeod County, Minnesota
As of the census of 2000, there were 34,898 people, 13,449 households, and 9,427 families residing in the county. The population density was 71 people per square mile . There were 14,087 housing units at an average density of 29 per square mile...

 and Boon Lake Township, Renville County, Minnesota, who travelled to the Dakotas in the early 1900s and became a progressive farmer and custom thresher
Threshing machine
The thrashing machine, or, in modern spelling, threshing machine , was a machine first invented by Scottish mechanical engineer Andrew Meikle for use in agriculture. It was invented for the separation of grain from stalks and husks. For thousands of years, grain was separated by hand with flails,...

 and miller
Miller
A miller usually refers to a person who operates a mill, a machine to grind a cereal crop to make flour. Milling is among the oldest of human occupations. "Miller", "Milne" and other variants are common surnames, as are their equivalents in other languages around the world...

 at a time when others in the townships were still farming with horses on a very small scale. Other than his role as an inventor of the Geier Hitch, this may well have been his most significant contribution to society
Society
A society, or a human society, is a group of people related to each other through persistent relations, or a large social grouping sharing the same geographical or virtual territory, subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations...

). They were also used to grow one type of crop for profit on a large estate.

Dependence on migrant labor and demise of bonanza farms

Migrant labor was a necessary part of bonanza farming. At planting and harvesting times foremen often supervised some 500 to 1000 extra workers on a bonanza farm. When weather and market conditions were good, bonanza farms made large profits; buying seed
Seed
A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food. It is the product of the ripened ovule of gymnosperm and angiosperm plants which occurs after fertilization and some growth within the mother plant...

s, and equipment in bulk meant lower production costs. But in times of drought
Drought
A drought is an extended period of months or years when a region notes a deficiency in its water supply. Generally, this occurs when a region receives consistently below average precipitation. It can have a substantial impact on the ecosystem and agriculture of the affected region...

 or low wheat prices, their profits fell. As the Red River Valley
Red River Valley
The Red River Valley is a region in central North America that is drained by the Red River of the North. It is significant in the geography of North Dakota, Minnesota, and Manitoba for its relatively fertile lands and the population centers of Fargo, Moorhead, Grand Forks, and Winnipeg...

 developed, the necessity to use Mexican migrant labor or bracero labor distinguished the former area of the Bonanza farms from their local competitors, family farmers. Family farmers, with fewer workers to pay and less money invested in equipment, could better handle boom-and-bust cycles. Thus by the 1890s most bonanza farms had broken up into smaller farms.

Bagg farm

The Frederick A. and Sophia Bagg Bonanza Farm
Frederick A. and Sophia Bagg Bonanza Farm
Frederick A. and Sophia Bagg Bonanza Farm, also known as Bagg Bonanza Farm or F. A. Bagg Farm, is a bonanza farm in Richland County, North Dakota.It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2005....

 is a preserved example of a bonanza farm, located in southeastern corner of North Dakota. The Bagg Bonanza Farm was designated a National Historic Landmark
National Historic Landmark
A National Historic Landmark is a building, site, structure, object, or district, that is officially recognized by the United States government for its historical significance...

in 2005.

External links

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