Bio: Hardrath, Glen & Hope
Contact: Crystal Wendt
Email: crystal@wiclarkcountyhistory.org

----Sources: Scrap book one: by Elsa Lange Hardrath & Dorthaleen Edwards Hardrath

Contributed by Halbert "Bud" Hardrath

AFTER 110 YEARS IS THIS THE BEGINNING OF THE END?

6 June 1992, Hope and Glen Hardrath hosted on their farm a "Dairy Breakfast" sponsored by the Local FFA and the Loyal Chamber of Commerce. Coincidentally on that day and month 100 years earlier, their ancestor, Louis Molle, acquired ownership of what would become, after being in the family for 100 years, a Century Farm. The land was initially cultivated to raise and sell hay and horses. The advent of the automobile caused a transition from hay and horses to that of being a dairy farm. For the first 48 year machinery was pulled and powered by horses. In 1940 the change to tractor powered machinery began when Herman purchased a Model H John Deer row type tractor and a 2 bottom plow.

The genetics of the cows on the farm begin in 1920 when Glen’s grandfather, Herman Hardrath, Sr. and brother Henry Hardrath purchased the farm from their uncle Louis Molle, who had moved to Canada. The original herd consisted of a mixture of blue and white, red and white and black and white cattle. In 1913 Herman married and bought his brother Henry’s half interest in the farm. Black and white Holstein appeared to be the preference of Herman and building from the existing herd and the purchased of bulls from neighboring farms the roan and blue characteristics were lost and a Holstein herd developed. In 1942 Herman expanded by buying the Vandehey farm and the acquisition of about a dozen cows from other farms thus injecting some new genes.

In 1938 son Bud, when a freshman in the AG program at Colby, Wis. High School, began testing the herd for butter fat content. About 1949 son Harold purchased the farm and continued with the butterfat testing program and began using artificial insemination in the breeding program for the herd. Harold attended school for 4 years under the GI Bill and brought to the farm new methods and practices in management and production.

Glen succeeded his father Harold on the farm and through the continued use of selective breeding (artificial insemination with proven bulls) and the use of a feeding program called "Total-mixed Ration" grew the cows to be a herd of high grade Holstein cattle and as suggested in the auction bill, with a record production for Clark County.

In 2000 Glen and Hope added 200 acres to the farm with the purchase of the Price farm.