For some Ozarks farmers, staying on the land is a question that must be decided based on economics, family dynamics and other factors. For Matt Young, the seventh generation on his family’s land, it is not a question of staying, it is simply a question of how. Matt, his wife, Winter and their children, Madison age 11, Hanleigh, 7 and Landon, 4, hold the original Homestead Act paperwork on their farm that was signed by President Ulysses S. Grant.
“My folks, Milton and Mary Young, and my grandparents had beef cattle, horses and hay for a cash crop. We had the M & M Arena out here for years and we raised bucking stock back then. These days I do row crops, about 150 acres in corn, soybeans and milo. We own about 240 acres and I lease another 100. The big thing for the last nine years has been the hunting,” Matt explained recently as he relaxed in the Club House of his High Prairie Hunting Preserve, in rural Laclede County.
“I started High Prairie in 2000 with a partner, but he got out after the first two years. We do upland bird hunts, trap and skeet and sporting clays. We have a rifle and pistol range, and now an indoor archery range.
“We offer half day hunts, pheasants, quail and chuckars. We can guide you with our bird dogs or you can bring your own. In the spring we also do turkey hunts and in the fall, it’s deer and dove. We also do field trials for bird dogs and competitions. This year we’re hosting the Show-Me Gun Dog Championships which includes gun clubs from Missouri, Oklahoma and Kansas. I’m also training six gun dogs at the moment. My favorites are English pointers but we train all kinds of dogs, whatever people bring us. We just have all kinds of hunting going on.”
Matt Young has found a real market in local hunting interests. “We had 700 guys and gals go through here last year on package hunts. Some of those were repeat customers, but it’s still a significant number. We went through 6,000 quail, 1,000 pheasants and 1,000 chukars in a year’s time. I used to raise the birds too, but I can’t keep up with that and all the rest so now I buy them from others.”
In addition to all his many activities, Matt Young and High Prairie sponsor various youth shooting events through the National Wild Turkey Federation, Quail Forever, and 4-H, as well as numerous one day fundraisers for charitable causes, including Children’s Miracle Network and Relay for Life.
Despite all his hunting interests, a stroll out to the cornfield with Matt Young and 4-year-old Landon provided an instant reminder that he is still a farmer at heart who cares for the land in multiple ways. “I call it double-dipping,” he laughed as he explained how and why he intersperses Milo with his corn. “We combine the corn and leave the Milo as cover for the birds for our fall hunts. We cash crop the corn at the local MFA and ship the soybeans to market.”
His newest project is the construction of a wood pellet mill to help meet the increased demand for fuel for the wood pellet stoves that have become popular in recent years as a supplemental heat source.
“It’s a green project,” he explained with increasing enthusiasm. “We’re taking scrap, a waste product – sawdust, a renewable resource and we’re making it into a something people can use to heat their homes. It’s all about supply and demand. Nobody can make these pellets fast enough right now. One of the local sales outlets told me they bought pellets from six different pellet mills last year and they still can’t keep them in stock.
“We’re buying machinery from Oklahoma that was designed to pelletize chicken feed and we’re going to use it to make wood pellets. The Federal government is giving big rebates to folks who are buying these stoves so it’s a winning situation for everyone right now.”
