Farming in Oregon in the 1850s

I wrote in February of this year that I didn’t know which issues in Oregon’s history in 1850-1852 might impact my current work-in-progress. I’m slowly answering my own question as I move through the first draft. The land laws are a major factor. The discovery of gold in the Rogue River is so far only a minor factor, though it might develop into something more.

But one thing I am coming to realize is that I will have to research more deeply the farming practices of the 1850s. My male protagonist is a farmer, and I need to know how he fills his days each week of the year.

I researched 19th-century farming in Oregon to some extent to write Now I’m Found. For that novel, I learned which crops were most frequently planted around Oregon City, when they were sowed and when they were harvested. But I need to do a deeper dive for this novel.

Prior to 1850, emigrants to Oregon could claim 640 acres of land and receive title if they improved it for four years. The maximum size of the land claims was reduced to 320 acres after passage of the Donation Land Act in 1850. These land claims were often drawn to include forest as well as farmland, because timber was a valuable commodity on the frontier.

But I don’t know how many acres of farmland a man could actively farm. Did it matter when the law was changed to reduce claims to 320 acres (other than because more of a resource is always better)? What did emigrants do with these huge land parcels, if they couldn’t improve it all in four years?

In 1850, the average size American farm was just about 200 acres, so it’s very unlikely that a farmer could handle 320 acres, let alone 640. Most American farms in 1850 were around 160 acres in size, with farmers actively cultivating anywhere from 25 to 40 acres. I read that in Iowa in 1850, farmers typically farmed 40 acres. Even that sounds like a lot when I think about farming without modern machinery, when a man had only a plow, a wagon, and a pair of mules to supplement hand tools such as hoes and scythes.

But how could I quantify what a man could farm of his Oregon land claim?

Research told me that in 1830, it took about 250-300 man-hours to produce 100 bushels of wheat in a five-acre field. A man could produce that amount of wheat on five acres of farmland, using hand-farming techniques—plowing behind horses, sowing seed by hand, covering the seed with a brush harrow, harvesting with a sickle, and threshing with a flail.

I couldn’t find figures for wheat production in 1850, but in 1890 that same 100 bushels of wheat could be produced in 40-50 man-hours, so productivity increased significantly during the 19th century. But by 1890, more mechanized equipment was available, such as gang plows, binders, and threshers.

I’m betting that in Oregon in 1850, productivity was more similar to that of 1830 than in 1890. I’ll stick with the maximum wheat production of five acres per man per year. Keep in mind, Oregon farmers had to clear the land before they could plant anything.

My research also showed that in 1850 it took about 75-90 man-hours to produce 100 bushels of corn on 2-1/2 acres, again sowing by hand. (The 1850 technology described for farming corn confirms that hand farming was most likely used for wheat as well.)

Let’s assume that a farmer has 2000 man-hours available in a year to farm. Many farmers worked more hours than this, but not all their time could be spent in the fields, because they also had to hunt meat, tend their livestock, care for their equipment, and perform other tasks.

If he could farm five acres of wheat in 250 hours, then he could farm forty acres in 2000 hours. (Of course, another assumption is that he could do each seasonal task—plowing, planting, harvesting, etc.—in the few weeks available each year for that task.)

Or if he planted corn, multiplying the 75 man-hours it takes to farm 2-1/2 acres of corn, he could spend his 2000 hours/year farming about 66 acres of corn.

But unless he had farm hands to increase the labor supply, he couldn’t farm both the forty acres of wheat AND 66 acres of corn. He only had 2000 hours of time in a year to devote to farming.

And given the need to diversify crops for many reasons—to spread out the planting and harvesting seasons, to provide for crop rotation, and to mitigate against weather and other disasters—he probably didn’t put all his land into corn. In fact, my research also showed that Oregon farmers in 1850 produced more wheat than corn, but they also planted barley and hay. Many also grew fruit trees, though those took several years to mature into productive crops.

So my bet is that most Oregon farmers in 1850 planted forty acres or less total in all their crops. Again, unless they had many farm hands. My protagonist has two teenage brothers, so he has some help, but—like teenagers today—those boys aren’t always occupied in productive tasks.

Has this research and calculating helped me with my plotting? I think so. Though it means I’ll have to write some new scenes into my story. I’ll have to explain why keeping his 640 acres is so important to him. Because my plot depends on it.

What questions do you have about pioneer life?