GROWING POTATOES
For a number of years we grew lots of
potatoes and hauled them to Park City and sold them. Sometimes for as much as 35¢ a bushel. Sometimes someone else would underbid
us and we would have to lower the price or lose the sale. Each time we delivered potatoes
we would solicit orders for the next load. We often delivered two loads in one day. We had
a team each.
If we had to carry the potatoes on our
shoulders very far up the mountain side, a sack at a time, it was tiresome work. Sometimes
we did not get out of the city until dark and we would have a 20 mile drive home. A long
day after leaving home about 2:00 A.M. in the morning. Father always let us have a few
rows of potatoes of our own to sell. That is the way we obtained our spending money.
One day I offered father $4.00 for a heifer
calf. It seemed to please him. He sold me that calf then gave back to me part of the
money. Father advised us to buy more calves with the balance of our money but recommended
that $4.00 per head be our top price.
I spent considerable time before I could find
calves I could buy at that price. Bishop John Watkins offered me two calves. He wanted
more money than I offered. I told him of fathers instructions to me and so he let me
have the calves. I let Brother Will have one of the calves, inasmuch as he had been doing
the work at home while I was out buying the calves. I nearly bought a calf from William
Van Wagoner, but he argued he must have $5.00, enough to buy a suit of clothes. Surely he
was a trader, a hard boy to deal with, but I quite liked him. Before he had been a
stranger to me. I didnt know he had two sweet little sisters. If I had known that I
would have bought his calf.
Those two calves I had bought started me out
into the cattle business and I soon began to realize the fulfillment of my dreams. By the
time I was 21 years of age, I had more than 30 head of cattle. Brother Will and father
sent me out to buy more cattle for them. Brother Ralph was a shrewd buyer also. In all, we
had a nice herd of cattle, the largest herd in Charleston. It appeared that we could not
increase the herd very much and would be obligated to sell most of the increase. I thought
how nice it would be to have some cattle to sell and pay my expenses in the mission field.
We were not limited on the amount of cattle we wished to turn on the forest. The forest
service was not organized until the year 1905.