One farmer’s viewpoint from 1982
Editor’s note: The Southern Aroostook Soil and Water Conservation District staff will be writing a monthly column that will focus on conservation in our area: what it means to different people; on-the-ground practices that are being implemented; and discussion of seasonal environmental issues. This week’s column was written in 1982 by former SASWCD supervisor Don Harmon,
With great interest, I have been reading the diary of a Southern Aroostook hill farmer. It was written in the early 1900s and, although rather sketchy, gives a picture of what must have been a successful farmer (a good manager). A Civil War veteran, he settled his lot as a young man. It can be seen from this that the area was not settled until the middle 1800s. My grandfather was the first child born to this settlement which emphasizes the comparatively recent homesteading.
One cannot help but be impressed by the self-sufficiency of these pioneers. This gentleman developed a truly diversified farm and wrested, for those days anyhow, a good life. Is there a lesson in his way of farming that was rather quickly ignored in favor of “one crop agriculture”? The handwriting was on the wall, but an easier life was beckoning. His farm had the animals to help maintain its fertility – horses, dairy and beef cattle, pigs, sheep and poultry. The manure was supplemented with phosphate, shipped in and hauled home by the barrel. They cultivated a wide diversity of crops: hay, oats, wheat, corn, potatoes. Their vegetable garden was equally important. A few years ago I thought I was quite innovative in this area for raising celery in the family garden, only to find these notes at different seasons in the diary, “transplanted the celery”, and “boarded up the celery”
The farmer set out and maintained an orchard from which barrels of apples including Dutchess, Wealthy, Arctics, North Starts, Fameuse and Alexanders were picked. Many were dried and some made into cider. They were sold locally as well as shipped in barrels by rail, along with potatoes. They also marketed meat, including lamb, and raised corn that matured and, after husking, provided corn meal.
Notes concerning the weather bear out the fact that it averages to be similar over a span of years. We are told of the harsh winters of yesteryear, and they certainly had them. They also had “open” winters with considerable rain and poor sledding. On the 26th of last April my wife remarked “the swallows are back and they’re looking over your ‘would-be’ bluebird house.” Diary entry for April 26, 1905 included “swallows are back”.
Naturally, acreage that they could till was small compared to today’s standards. They practiced a communal lifestyle, sharing the work and equipment of numerous farms. They certainly were not secluded, but on the contrary, were quite the gad-abouts within a radius of 30 miles. Their Grange meant much to them and the writer was constantly referring to Grange activities. Although it is often evident that excuses for missing Sunday Meeting were easy to come by, it was a blizzard that “blowed a hundred” that could keep them from Grange meeting or supper.
Eighty years later we look back, and in some cases turn back to consider their wise farming practices. It has been many years since that lot was farmed. Never could it be considered prime farmland. Yet we know, from further accounts, that it was not altogether a matter of economics that forced a change; circumstances caused the dream to fade.
From “Maine’s Long Range Soil and Water Conservation Plan” we find that a study completed in 1979 revealed that acres in farmland decreased from just over four million to about one and a half million during the past 30 years. There’s a feeling of optimism as this Plan states “in recent years, the rate of farmland loss due to abandonment appears to have slowed substantially.” Hopefully, a certain “quality of life” can be recaptured or sustained. If this is to be the case, soil and water conservation must be high on the list of priorities that include equitable taxation, improved marketing and staying abreast of modern agricultural technology.
