Rural H Historic c Struct tural S Survey - Will County Land Use

Wiss, Janney, Elstner Associates, Inc.
The coming of the Great Depression deepened the crisis further. Agricultural production in Illinois
collapsed from almost $6.25 billion in 1929 to $2.5 billion in 1933. As unemployment in industrial
centers soared, some people fled to rural communities, putting additional pressure on rural areas as most
did not have access to welfare relief. 51 Within days of the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt, legislation
was formulated that Congress would later pass as the Agricultural Adjustment Act. The numerous
adjustment programs initiated under the New Deal led to limitations in agricultural production in order to
raise crop prices to acceptable levels. These included twenty percent of the land or 1,218,062 acres used
in corn production being retired; over 1,000,000 acres of land in wheat production were also retired. 52 In
1934, 15,734,600 acres of land were in production, for a total crop value of $218,569,000 nationally; this
grew to 17,692,100 acres and a crop value of $273,931,000 the following year. 53
Soybeans were first planted in the late 1930s as a forage crop mainly to be fed to dairy cows and cattle.
Although some soybeans were processed through a threshing machine and sold on the market it was not a
popular grain product. Ten or fifteen years later, however, soybeans became a valuable food and
commercial product as new uses were developed with the assistance of state and federal agricultural
programs.
During World War II, farmers were encouraged by the federal government to increase their production by
the use of power machinery and the latest scientific processes. When a decline in demand arose, the
farmer was forced to continue his heavy production rate. Cash crop income in 1950 was $2.038 billion
nationally. Of this livestock and livestock products accounted for $1.26 billion; crops, $763 million; and
government pay for adaptation of production program, with $10.6 million paid to the farmers in Illinois.
Principal crops were corn, soybeans, wheat, oats, hay, fruit, and greenhouse products. The average value
of a farm in Illinois in 1950 was $28,400. 54 The farm population in Illinois declined from 1,341,104 in
1900 to 772,521 in 1950. 55
The abandoning of farms and the consolidation of small farms into large ones resulted in many buildings
being razed or abandoned. Moreover, changes in farming meant that many old farm buildings were too
small, or unsuitable for other reasons, and were replaced by larger, more suitable and flexible structures.
By the twentieth century many barns were constructed by professional builders following plans
influenced by farm journals and using mass-produced lumber from a nearby yard or sawmill. In 1987,
there were 1,239 farms in Will County covering 328,729 acres. Ten years later, the continued decline in
agricultural production in northeastern Illinois was apparent, as farmland was lost to suburban
development. By 1997, there were only 910 farms in Will County, and though the average farm was
larger, the total acreage devoted to agriculture had declined by more than 10 percent to 293,526 acres.
After dipping to only 830 farms in the county in 2002, the number of farms in the county increased
slightly by 2007 to 877. The total acreage in the county continued to decline steadily, however, and by
2007 only 220,851 acres remained in agricultural use, representing less than half the total area of the
county and a loss of more than 100,000 acres in the twenty years since 1987. In recent years almost half
the farm acreage in the county remained planted in corn, with soybeans covering another quarter of the
acreage. Raising beef cattle, dairy, and hogs also remained significant cash products in the county. The
average farm sold crops worth more than $145,000 in 2007. Between 2002 and 2007, the value of
products sold directly to individual consumers by Will County farms more than doubled to $1.3 million,
reflecting the increasing popularity of farmer’s markets and vegetable crops in the county. 56
51
Morrison, Prairie State, A History, 108.
52
United States Department of Agriculture, Yearbook of Agriculture (1936), 1155–1156.
53
Ibid., 1146.
54
Morrison, Prairie State, A History, 116.
55 Salamon, 35.
56 Ibid.; Census of Agriculture.
Will County Rural Historic Structural Survey
Page 20 Florence Township