"Everything You've Got Is Gone"

As a biting Texas panhandle wind flung dirt into their weather-creased faces, some 50 solemn cotton farmers met near the town of Tulia (pop. 5,033) last week for a ritual as sorrowful as a wake. They were there to cast reluctant bids on the well-worn tools and machinery with which Dan Altman, 65, and his son Danny, 34, had scratched out an increasingly difficult living in a way they loved: farming 1,440 acres of irrigated land. The buyers were ambivalent. They were seeking bargains, but they hated to see the Altmansget hurt. And each feared that his own auction might be held all too soon.

Dan, a white-haired man who has farmed all of his adult life, tried to retain his jolly disposition. His son, who is tall, thin and bright, hovered in the background, staring glassy-eyed at what was happening. He watched a rotary hoe go for $950 (it would cost $3,500 new) and two irrigation motors for $155 (they would cost $1,000 if new); a small cultivator, bought ten years ago for $500, went for $2. Danny's wife Frieda, 33, stayed away from the auction. "She cried," Danny admitted. "She cried a lot."

Dan and his wife Billy Louise rented 320 acres in Tulia at the end of World War II and raised their three children quite comfortably. When Danny got out of the Army in 1969, father and son leased another 1,120 acres. For a few years they managed to build up some savings. But their expenses began to rise steeply in 1972, while the price they got for their cotton fell. Still, they hung on. Then, in 1980, came a disastrous drought. Dan Sr., who was back farming his original 320 acres, was able to break even. Danny, working the other 1,120 acres, lost $50,000.

Last year cotton, which had brought 800 per Ib. in the panhandle in 1980, dropped to less than 400. Danny grossed $60,000--but he had borrowed $86,000 from the Farmers Home Administration for planting, irrigation, fertilizer and insecticides. Danny let the hired hand go, and Frieda went into the fields with her husband, helping with irrigation, cultivation and planting. Nevertheless, they lost $40,000 in 1981.

"I went up and talked to the FHA," Danny recalled. "They'd been real good. They had gone with me, but they couldn't guarantee they could go with me next year. They didn't force me out, but why farm another year and drop another $40,000?" He reluctantly broke the news to his wife that they would have to sell out. "You work for 13 years," Danny said, "and everything you've got is gone."

Danny was concerned that the auction would not go well. "There are too many farm sales and money is tight," he said. "I hate this, but I think I'll be happier not worrying about it." Looking back, he regrets putting so much of his life into the farm, forgoing any vacations. "I've never taken Frieda any place for over a day," he says. "Now we can't buy a car and our 1974 Ford is worn out."

Richard Tye, a farmer from Kress, Texas, bought Danny's one-year-old John Deere tractor, but the bargain brought him little joy. "It scares me to death buying this," he said. "I have just enough money to try farming one more year, but probably not enough to get through it. No one can come out ahead farming around here unless something changes."

Just after the bidding on the tractor ended at $23,000, Danny slipped away.

As he had feared, the auction had gone poorly. The Altmans collected $70,000. Danny's share of that will go toward the debt of $180,000 that he owes the FHA. Each year from now on, someone from that office will look Danny up to see if he can make more payments. He is not sure how he will earn a living now. For the time being, he plans to weld fences for a nearby rancher.

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