York County farm preservation has less money to spend, but a new idea might net more land

(YDR) York, PA - Sally Barnes and her husband, Casey, don't ever want their land turned into a development, with dozens of houses replacing pasture, hay and woodland.
Both of them have full-time jobs, but they wake up early to care for the horses they breed and raise on the land. Some of the land they rent to a farmer who makes hay. They live there, too.
"I think it's a very unspoiled little secret of York County," said Sally, 34.
Their 35 acres in York Township sit a little more than three miles from a Giant supermarket in Windsor Township, and closer than that to a high school. Continued

Ollie the Flying Cow

(Wikipedia) Elm Farm Ollie (known as "Nellie Jay" and post-flight as "Sky Queen") was the first cow to fly in an airplane, doing so on 18 February 1930, as part of the International Air Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. On the same trip, which covered 72 miles from Bismarck, Missouri, to St. Louis, she also became the first cow milked in flight. This was done ostensibly to allow scientists to observe midair effects on animals, as well as for publicity purposes. A St. Louis newspaper trumpeted her mission as being "to blaze a trail for the transportation of livestock by air." Continued 

 

The Dust Bowl: Tonight on PBS

Watch The Dust Bowl Intro on PBS. See more from The Dust Bowl.

Lewis Hine

(Wikipedia) Lewis Wickes Hine (September 26, 1874 – November 3, 1940) was an American sociologist and photographer. Hine used his camera as a tool for social reform. His photographs were instrumental in changing the child labor laws in the United States. Continued

Image: "Marie and Albert Kawalski. 615 S. Band [Bond?] St., Baltimore, Md. Albert is 10 and Marie 11 years old. They worked, with mother, last winter, shucking oysters for Varn & Beard Packing Co., Young Island, S.C. (near Charleston). Mrs. Kawalski did not have things represented to her correctly and she found that all the children that had fare paid were compelled to work for the company. Other smaller children worked some and went to school some. Maire and Albert have worked several summers in the berry, beans and tomato fields packing houses near Baltimore." (Lewis Hine/Library of Congress) 

What did your parents do for a living, when they were children?

My parents' families can be very tightlipped on certain subjects. For example: They still haven't told me my father was married & divorced, previous to marrying my mother. I'm 45 years old - I think I can handle it. They are all ancient now, I guess they'll never tell me.
So I wasn't surprised at Christmas dinner, a few years back, when my uncle mentioned that he and my father, and the rest of the family, spent every summer working as migrant laborers, picking crops all over the region. "When was this?" I asked. "Oh, our whole lives growing up," he said. This was in the 20's and 30's. They picked fruits and vegetables on the Delmarva peninsula, and in York County too. I asked him if he liked the work? "Nah." "How about my dad?" "He hated it." (Interestingly, both men had huge gardens as adults.) "Did the girls work?" "Everybody worked."
The other day, I came across the pictures below, made by Lewis Hine, in the employ of the Maryland Child Labor Committee. They show Baltimoreans, mostly Polish families from Fells Point, working in the fields in 1909. This was a few years before my father's generation, so I guess the Child Labor Committee didn't get very far with its crusade. The photographs below are from the Library of Congress. You can see more of them by clicking here and putting in the key words "Hine" & "Maryland." Any captions below are from the original pictures.

Off to the berry farms of Maryland. Taken on Fells Point, Baltimore, Md.
A street full of Baltimore immigrants lined up and ready to start for the country to the berry farms. Wolfe Street, near Canton Avenue, Baltimore, Maryland.
Typical cooking and eating quarters of berry pickers. Anne Arundel Co., Maryland.
Annie Bissie, a little picker in the fields near Baltimore.
John Slebzak
Three families live in this shack: one room above and one below. Bottomley's farm near Baltimore, Md.
Interior of a shack occupied by berry pickers. Anne Arundel County., Maryland.
Interior of one family room in upper floor of one of the berry-pickers shacks, Bottomley's farm, near Baltimore.
Groups showing a few of the workers stringing beans in the J. S. Farrand Packing Co., Baltimore, Md.

A canning machine and some of the boy[s] Small boys work at and around these machines some of which[?][ are dangerous. J. S. Farrand Packing Co., Baltimore, Md. Witness--J. W. Magruder. July 7, 1909.

A strawberry field on Rock Creek, near Baltimore. Whites and negroes, old and young, work here from 4:30 A.M. until sunset some days. A long hot day.

These children are representatives of the two families that occupy this one room in a shack on Bottomley's farm, Baltimore, Md.

Marie and Albert Kawalski. 615 S. Band [Bond?] St., Baltimore, Md. Albert is 10 and Marie 11 years old. They worked, with mother, last winter, shucking oysters for Varn & Beard Packing Co., Young Island, S.C. (near Charleston). Mrs. Kawalski did not have things represented to her correctly and she found that all the children that had fare paid were compelled to work for the company. Other smaller children worked some and went to school some. Maire and Albert have worked several summers in the berry, beans and tomato fields packing houses near Baltimore.

Laura Petty, a 6 year old berry picker on Jenkins farm, Rock Creek near Baltimore, Md. "I'm just beginnin'. Picked two boxes yesterday. (2 cents a box). 

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

(LoC) On July 16, 1936, photographer Walker Evans (1903-75) took a leave of absence from the Farm Security Administration (FSA) to accept a summer assignment with Fortune magazine. Evans, who had begun working as a photographer in 1928, had developed a modest reputation by the time that he was hired in October 1935 by Roy Stryker, then leader of the FSA photographic section. Stryker agreed to grant him leave for the magazine assignment on the condition that his photographs remained government property.
Evans and the writer James Agee spent several weeks among sharecropper families in Hale County, Alabama. The article they produced documented in words and images the lives of poor Southern farmers afflicted by the Great Depression; their work, however, did not meet Fortune's expectations and was rejected for publication.
Evans' desire to produce photographs that were "pure record not propaganda" did not harmonize with Stryker's emphasis on the use of the image to promote social activism. Soon after the Alabama series was completed, Evans returned to New York. There Evans and Agee reworked their material and searched for another publisher. In 1941, the expanded version of their story was published in book form as Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, now recognized as a masterpiece of the art of photojournalism. Continued 

Southern Maryland tobacco barns, farming featured in new book

(Frederick News-Post) ... "My objective from the start was barns and how quickly they are disappearing," Sharp said. He focused on tobacco barns (there are no dairy barns in the book) and the difficulties of tobacco farming.
"Tobacco barns are quite specific in design than any other barn," he said. "They are built to permit air to flow through openings between the wall boards. They also have tiers of poles and posts used to support the tobacco's hanging weight" and that takes up most of the interior space. ... "The Barns of Southern Maryland" ($24.95, self-published) is available from CreateSpace Publishing at www.createspace.com/3538476 Continued

Give Thanks? Science Supersized Your Turkey Dinner

(Wired) - Your corn is sweeter, your potatoes are starchier and your turkey is much, much bigger than the foods that sat on your grandparents' Thanksgiving dinner table.
Most everything on your plate has undergone tremendous genetic change under the intense selective pressures of industrial farming. Pilgrims and American Indians ate foods called corn and turkey, but the actual organisms they consumed didn't look or taste much at all like our modern variants do. Continued

Dembytown

"In 1917 Harford's decades of sunny, prosperous, and seemingly unending tranquility were abruptly interrupted by America's entry into World War I. Many Countians volunteered for and saw service in Europe during the conflict, it seems arguable that the greatest affect the Great War had on Harford came in October 1917, when the federal government condemned the entire Gunpowder and Bush river necks -35,211 acres of land and 34,000 acres covered by water or about 60 square miles in all. Heretofore, as historian Keir Stirling has written, these stretches of southern Harford County "were locally known as the 'Garden of Eden,' where an excellent grade of shoe peg corn had been grown for many years. Many area farmers were able to produce 125 bushels of corn to the acre. The Baker family and others engaged in the profitable canning industry were producing about 300,000 cases of shoe peg corn and tomatoes worth approximately $1.5 million annually by 1917 .... The famous Poole's Island peaches were ... were canned locally and considered to be of high quality. Local fishing was another industry worth $700,000 a year."
Overnight all this changed as everyone living on those bay-front lands had to move to make way for the poison-gas testing facilities Washington felt the war demanded. The former landowners - the Cadwaladers, Bakers, Mitchells, and others - received some payment from the government for their lost acres and many of them then purchased other farms and resumed their lives. The workers, generally black tenant farmers, received nothing and were forced to move from the source of their livelihoods. Many such displaced families, including the Dembys and Gilberts, settled in a stretch of land near Magnolia; the houses, church, and school they built created the community now called Dembytown (HA-1603, HA-1604)." From the 1998 Historical Preservation Element.

Nine farms added to Harford County's agricultural preservation progam

(Aegis) Nine properties totaling 1,200 acres, including the prominent Grimmell Farm in Jarrettsville, officially entered Harford County's agricultural preservation program.
... The county would purchase 270 acres of Grimmell Farm in Jarrettsville for $1.5 million; 285 acres of the Vaughan property in White Hall for $2 million; 140 acres of Norfolk Farm in White Hall for $790,727; 30 acres of the Ludwig property in Churchville for $70,000; 65 acres of the Onufrak property in Darlington for $286,014; 115 acres of the Troyer property in White Hall for $574,149; 170 acres of the Rickey property in Whiteford for $1.2 million; 100 acres of the Wiley property in Pylesville for $535,372; and 150 acres of the Gambill property in Bel Air for $867,493.
Councilman Chad Shrodes said the new easements have been a long time coming. Continued

Photo: Using a harrow on a Maryland farm, 1936 (Library of Congress).

Johnny Appleseed

(LoC) Jonathan Chapman, born in Leominster, Massachusetts, on September 26, 1775, came to be known as "Johnny Appleseed." Chapman earned his nickname because he planted nurseries and individual apple trees across 100,000 square miles of midwestern wilderness and prairie—resulting in settlers' planting their own orchards.

The first record of Chapman's presence in the Midwest dates to 1801 when he was known to be on the Ohio River transporting bushels of apple seeds from western Pennsylvania for his nurseries. Chapman's first apple-tree nursery was along the Allegheny Valley in northwestern Pennsylvania; he then ventured into central and northwestern Ohio and to eastern Indiana. Chapman scouted routes that he thought pioneers would settle and planted his seedlings ahead of the new settlements.

Chapman lived in Mansfield, Ohio, for about twenty years. Years before the Homestead Act he acquired about 1,000 acres of farmland in Mansfield through a local homestead arrangement. Chapman used the land to develop apple-tree nurseries. His reputation as a conservationist, a brave frontiersman, and as an eccentric (in dress and well as mannerisms) grew, as did stories of his kindness to animals and his heroic exploits. Continued

Illustration: "Johnny Appleseed by William Gropper, lithograph, 1941 (Library of Congress)

Let's Go to the Fair!

(LoC) August 22 falls in the midst of the state and county fair season. State and county fairs are an American pastime in the late summer and early fall—a remnant of a cross-cultural tradition rooted in ancient times.
The earliest fairs, such as the great Aztec fair that Spanish conquistadors found on the present-day site of Mexico City, were created to solve problems of distribution. Located along major trade or pilgrimage routes, fairs and festivals provided opportunities for people to demonstrate their skills and crafts, exchange ideas, and barter for goods.
Today, fairs provide opportunities for travel, entertainment, commerce, and socializing, and also play an important role in the social and economic lives of rural Americans. For urban folk, they provide a means of learning about and appreciating rural and agricultural lifestyles. Continued

The Wheatland Hop Riot

(Wikipedia) The Wheatland Hop Riot, an important and highly-publicized event in California labor history, was the second major labor dispute in the United States supposedly initiated by the Industrial Workers of the World. A bloody clash occurred at the Durst Ranch in Wheatland, California on August 3, 1913, climaxing growing tensions brought about by the difficult conditions farm laborers at the ranch endured.
... Durst advertised for 3000 hop pickers and other seasonal agricultural workers, though he only needed half that number -- in order to drive wages down. Of a $1.50/ day wage, $0.78 - $1.00 was withheld from the workers' pay. If a worker didn't stay till the end of the season, Durst kept that withheld money. Durst then had the workers harassed, cheated, and abused to try to make them leave before the end of the season. Continued

Photo: Child farm worker, Maryland 1909 (more info here).

Farming a Rich Part of Essex-Middle River's Heritage

(Patch) As we drive around the Essex-Middle River community today we can see vast and large apartment, town home, and cookie cutter developments such as the Greens at Essex, Town & Country, Hawthorne, Waterview and many more.
This is an extremely far cry from the ways things were as European settlers arrived.
In colonial times and continuing up until the early 1900’s our area was filled with farms, both large and small. The first major crop for those farmers was tobacco. In the early 1600’s settlers discovered that tobacco would grow well in the Chesapeake region and would sell profitably in England. The potential cash value caused them to plant the product in every available space and clearing. Continued

Photos: Library of Congress

Let Us Now Praise Famous Men

(LoC) On July 16, 1936, photographer Walker Evans (1903-75) took a leave of absence from the Farm Security Administration (FSA) to accept a summer assignment with Fortune magazine. Evans, who had begun working as a photographer in 1928, had developed a modest reputation by the time that he was hired in October 1935 by Roy Stryker, then leader of the FSA photographic section. Stryker agreed to grant him leave for the magazine assignment on the condition that his photographs remained government property.
Evans and the writer James Agee spent several weeks among sharecropper families in Hale County, Alabama. The article they produced documented in words and images the lives of poor Southern farmers afflicted by the Great Depression; their work, however, did not meet Fortune's expectations and was rejected for publication.
Evans' desire to produce photographs that were "pure record not propaganda" did not harmonize with Stryker's emphasis on the use of the image to promote social activism. Soon after the Alabama series was completed, Evans returned to New York. There Evans and Agee reworked their material and searched for another publisher. In 1941, the expanded version of their story was published in book form as Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, now recognized as a masterpiece of the art of photojournalism. Continued

The Good Old Days: Funny Money

(Maryland Morning) Summer is here, bringing with it sunshine and humidity–but also lots of fresh summer fruits. Here in Maryland, we wanted to examine the way people who used to pick and can strawberries, tomatoes, and potatoes used to be paid. This was called piecework, and instead of receiving cash right away, for every bushel or pound or bucket workers picked or canned, they would receive a ticket or a token [scrip], and trade them in for actual money at the end of the week. Continued

See also: What did your folks do for a living - when they were children?

Ollie the Flying Cow

(Wikipedia) Elm Farm Ollie (known as "Nellie Jay" and post-flight as "Sky Queen") was the first cow to fly in an airplane, doing so on 18 February 1930, as part of the International Air Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri, United States. On the same trip, which covered 72 miles from Bismarck, Missouri, to St. Louis, she also became the first cow milked in flight. This was done ostensibly to allow scientists to observe midair effects on animals, as well as for publicity purposes. A St. Louis newspaper trumpeted her mission as being "to blaze a trail for the transportation of livestock by air." Continued

Rich history of Long Island Farm in Cromwell Valley may point a path to its future

(Towson Times) The recent listing of historic Long Island Farm on the National Register of Historic Places is not the final step for preservationists.
They say it's just the beginning of their search for someone to buy the farm, located in the heart of Cromwell Valley with a history that dates back to 1717. Continued

A time to harvest: Stone historic site gives glimpse into the past

(SoMdNews.Com) Take a short drive, 250 years into the past.
The Thomas Stone National Historic Site will hold a fall harvest celebration Saturday in Port Tobacco.
Visitors can learn what life was like around this time of year during the mid-1700s when the Stone family prepared for the winter on the more than 400 acres it oversaw. Continued

Image: Library of Congress

Vineyard Hopping, in Maryland?

(NYTimes) On a recent warm summer evening, well over a thousand people packed the lawns at Boordy Vineyards in Hydes, Md. Families tucked into picnics, toddlers ran freely, and couples and singles danced on the makeshift floor to a swing band pumping out oldies. But the main reason for the crowds was the wine. Continued

Images: Boordy Vineyards (Falmanac).