Peter Huber, the jolly farmer of Jamesville, thrashed 287 bushels of No. 1 hard, from ten acres this week. And yet there are some foolish people around Fargo who are willing to swear that wheat cannot be successfully cultivated in south Dakota.
Peter and his brother, Frank, were among the first farmers in the Dakota Territory. When The Turner Herald published this observation in 1886, statehood was still 3 years away. This is why the “south” is lower case – it referred to the southern part of the Territory.
Like every farmer, Peter faced hardships. The year 1876 brought locusts, as described in the 1880 Report of the US Entomological Commission:
Three miles north of Yankton on the farm of Mr. Cribbs, the damage was not so great, while on the farm of Mr. Peter Huber, 15 miles north, the damage was very extensive. Mr. Huber said he had sown 200 bushels of wheat, and expected to harvest about 50 bushels.
Ten years later, his fortunes had changed, just weeks before his 1886 trip to Germany, on January 28, The Press and Daily Dakotaian reported:
The Huber brothers, Frank and Peter sold seventy hogs to Frank Hefner, weighing altogether 30,190 lbs., for which they received in hard cash $1,014.65. ($25,000 today) These two gentlemen are both practical Dakota farmers and this sale of pork is one of their annual sales.
A year later, the paper reported on Peter’s latest success:
The packing company received today a car load of hogs from Lesterville which is worthy of mention individually and collectively. The car load numbered forty-six and weighed 20,000 pounds, an average of 435 pounds each. They were raised in Yankton county by Peter Huber and are Poland China and Berkshire mixed. The usual car load of hogs numbers from sixty to seventy and weighs out at 18,000 pounds. This comparison gives in idea of the size and quality of the Huber lot.
