For Iowa farmers, World War I meant good prices and high production. Corn was bringing up to $2 to $3 a bushel, wheat from $2.20 to $3.60 a bushel, the hog market averaged $16.50 a hundredweight, and cattle were around $12.00 a hundredweight. Land was selling from $800 to $1,000 an acre.

Even before the war ended, prices plummeted over 50 percent. Hogs, cattle, corn and land prices were hit the hardest, while the price of chickens, eggs, cream and potatoes remained fairly constant.

Manning fared better than many communities due to the production and processing of the four marketable commodities.

Many people moved to Manning during the winter months to work at firms such as the Priebe processing plant, where they picked and packed chickens and broke eggs to be frozen, dried or powdered. Others worked at one of the many hatcheries, handled potatoes, or helped at the creamery or cream stations.

These people set up "light housekeeping" during their stay in town. They would rent rooms above stores or homes, and buy just the basic necessities: a Perfection oil stove, table, a couple of chairs, bedspring and mattress. Food needing refrigeration was left outside in a box by the window.

Farmers raising potatoes and saving their cream would be paid in the form of credit, which kept them supplied with groceries and clothing from harvest to harvest.

Farm prices in the 1930's continued to fall, with corn bringing only 7 to 10 cents a bushel, hogs $2.50 each, and wages were about $1 a day. Although it didn't appear that matters could get worse, they did, as a severe drought struck during the summer of 1936. What little crops survived, the grasshoppers ate. Although rent for farmland was only $5 to $8 per acre, many farmers couldn't pay that and had to quit.

World War II was a direct result of the Depression, and it was the war that brought farm prices up again. Grain and livestock prices have risen fairly constantly during the past 30 years, but land prices remained about $400 to $700 an acre until the early 1970's, and then skyrocketed to over $2,500 an acre.

The production of wheat is now nearly nonexistent in this area, while a new crop -- soybeans -- has become an important part of the farm economy. In the spring of 1980, market prices included corn, less than $2 a bushel, soybeans, $5.25 a bushel ($2 down from the previous year), hogs, about $28.00 a hundredweight, and cattle, about $65 a hundredweight. Ironically, farmers are receiving little more or less than they did 50 years ago, while seed, feed, fertilizer, and machinery has doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled!