The Round Barn, a Biography of an American Farm, Volume Four : Corn Marketing, the American Breeders Service, State, Nation, and the World

Rounding out the story of the Dougan farm’s influence on the world and the world’s influence on the farm is volume four. Grampa Dougan is honored as a Master Farmer, gives radio talks heard throughout the Midwest, and travels Wisconsin with a university professor, encouraging farm record-keeping. Grampa and Grama Dougan are the first couple with portraits in the University of Wisconsin Agricultural Hall of Fame.

Ron Dougan develops new corn breeds and markets Dougan Hybrids in Wisconsin and neighboring states. On the livestock side, he joins the board of the Wisconsin Scientific Breeders Institute, which evolves to American Breeders Service (ABS), the largest artificial insemination company in the world. And in 1961 the farm hosts Wisconsin Farm Progress Days, where Jackie eats with the governor. For twenty-five years after World War II the family welcomes two Scandinavians a year in a farm exchange program, and continues close ties with Beloit College and the University of Wisconsin. Eventually Interstate 90 slices through the property, presaging the death of the farm.

Readers will be entertained as well as educated by the lively, involved, inventive Dougan community, which always remembers Grampa’s motto painted on the farm’s silo: “Life as well as a living.”