Bill Ganzel. Fritz Frederick in the same field. Grant County, North Dakota, July 1977

Harvest of this wheat has been delayed by early summer rains.

"This picture here was taken in 1936 and this was practically the only field of wheat that I know of that was harvested. I just picked it up, and I used that for just chicken feed. I picked up two loads out’a about twenty acres.

"We had just shifted in the thirties from horses to tractors. That was a big shift. Those that had horses went down to practically nothing. That was hard done. And then the dust storms come along. The ground got real fine and it would not stop flowing. Some of it drifted up the field where there was some sand drifted so deep that you couldn’t even drive over it with a tractor. After a while we started the strip cropping, and this here would disappear. It didn’t blow.

"That combine in the old picture, it was around $1,785. That was the whole thing. The one now, oh, I think they’re around from $12,000 to $25,000 for these combines. The prices are not in line, that’s all I can see."

—FRITZ FREDERICK