Chief Illiniwek - 2/19/2026 12:07

Another thread down the page had me thinking and wanting to say something to the young guys who are nearing marriage/starting families. Just some food for thought for those guys.

If you expect to own a significant amount of acres in a farm someday, you’ve got a sacrifice to make and you need to make the decision now, and there’s no getting out of sacrificing something. You can

1: sacrifice the viability of your family farm by having lots of kids and splitting the acreage between them at your death

2: potentially sacrifice a living, cohesive family by splitting your estate in less than an exactly equal way

3: sacrifice the joy of having multiple kids, but this allows you to give the whole farm to one child and keep the family farm whole


There’s no perfect solution, but I thought spelling it out to young guys now at least gets them thinking about what choices may need to be made later.