Iowa Visitors Reap a Rich Harvest of Western Generosity
Offers of food, lodging, money and equipment continued to pour in Wednesday for a group of Iowa farmers who have come to Idaho to cut free hay for their drought-starved livestock.
Organizers of the hay harvest had worried there wouldn’t be enough machinery to keep the Iowans busy, but offers of equipment began pouring into the Farm Bureau office here Tuesday after a Farm Bureau official appealed on television for donations.
Mike Tracy, director of information for the Idaho Farm Bureau, said the 64 Iowans would begin cutting hay today.
The tired contingent of Iowans arrived late Tuesday in two Greyhound buses donated by the transportation company for the 1,600-mile trip west. The men, women and teen-agers stayed overnight in rooms donated by three motels while Farm Bureau and National Farmers Organization officials scouted about 4,500 acres of hay on pasture land placed in the government’s Conservation Reserve Program.
“They really like what they’re seeing,” Tracy said. “They’re real pleased with the quality.”
The hay is to be shipped back to Iowa on rail cars donated by the Burlington Northern Railroad.
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