FARMING IN MAINE

If you go exploring in the woods in any settled area of Maine, you're likely to come across stone walls marking what were once cultivated fields or cleared pastureland, now grown up to woods. What can you discover about farming in your community? Were there more large farms in your area at the turn of the century than there are now? What happened, and why?

Intervale Farmland, Fryeburg (Mrs. John Weston)

This photograph was taken on John Weston's farm in Fryeburg, probably in the 1880s. Fryeburg's valley land, known as the intervale, stretches on either side of the winding Saco River, and is still noted for its fine soil and plentiful crops. Fryeburg's first white settlers arrived in 1760 and quickly appreciated the natural meadows and the deep, stone-free soil. The valley became a successful farming region that produced a variety of livestock and crops. The area also supplied Portland with oak to make barrels for the sugar trade. Dairying grew more important in the beginning of the twentieth century, and Fryeburg farmers also raised replacement dairy cows for southern New England.
      The disadvantages of farming in a river valley are floods, poor drainage, killing frosts, and thunderstorms. In 1816, Fryeburg farmers dug a three-mile channel to help drain their fields. When it later silted up and became stagnant, they worried about malaria from mosquitoes.
      The valley looks hot and hazy in this photo, and everyone appears to be hurrying to get the hay in against the threat of an intervale thunderstorm-which usually comes down in buckets.

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Fryeburg has long been known for its farmland. The huge annual Fryeburg Fair, which gather folks from far and near, celebrates the agricultural heritage of this area.

Discussion:
1. Why did dairy farming became more important than crops?
2. How has farming changed since the 1880s?
3. What labor-savings devices would you see today in the hayfields?
4. Why does Maine have fewer farms today?
5. Were or are any of the people in your family crop farmers or dairy farmers?

Oxford County Farmland, West Paris (Jean Deighan)

Compare the difficulty of farming on this land with farming on the Fryeburg intervale. Even after a farmer had worked hard to clear the forests to make fields, these thin-soiled hills had pastures so rocky it was claimed that sheeps' noses had to be filed so that they could graze between the stones.

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Oxford County farmland doesn't compare favorably with the richer intervale land around Fryeburg.

Discussion:
1. What differences can you see from examining the photos?
2. Where do you suppose the rock for the rock wall were found?
3. Why do you think people stopped raising so many sheep? (Think about why people raised sheep in the first place? What did sheep provide?)

Activities:
1. Research uses for wool. Follow the process of making yarn or woolen cloth from sheep to cloth or clothing. Invite a spinner to your class to demonstrate weaving.

Oxen Mowing, Belfast (National Archives)

From 1829 to 1860 more progress was made in the development of labor-saving devices for the farmer than in all of previous history. One of the most appreciated by Maine farmers was the invention of the mowing machine. It was a long time before these became commonplace on Maine's farms, but by the early 1880s most farmers had put down their scythes and were using mowing machines. You'll realize how welcome the mowing machine was if you imagine yourself standing in the middle of a big field, with the sun beating down on you, a big, heavy scythe in your hand, and tall grass all around you as far as you can see.
      In this photo, taken August 14, 1911, the mowing machine is being pulled by a team of young Holstein oxen. They are mowing "swale hay" on soft ground. Oxen are better than horses for this kind of job. Horses tend to crowd and lunge on soft ground. Oxen move more slowly.
      Another reason for using oxen in boggy places is the shape of their hooves. Have you ever seen a cow's and a horse's hoofprints? Oxen, like cows, moose and deer, have "cloven," or split hooves, so they create less suction than a horse's hoof does when it is pulled out of the muddy earth. Even oxen sometimes had to wear strapped-on wooden mud shoes - rather like snowshoes - on very soft ground. If you look really close, you can see wire baskets over the oxen's noses. These are supposed to help the oxen stay focused on their work. Why do you think that would help?
      These oxen look experienced and used to doing their job. The man riding behind controls them just by talking to them. Have you ever heard the commands "gee" and "haw"? That means right and left. The driver has a whip in his hand just in case the oxen don't listen and he needs to give them a tap to get their attention.

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This is a good example of an early labor-saving device powered by animals. Can you imagine the man hours saved by this simple machine compared to the traditional "mowing gang" of men swinging their sycthes all day long?

Discussion:
1. What type of equipment is used to mow today?
2. If modern devices have eased the labor of farming,how come there are fewer farms than ever in Maine?
3. Check out the website www.ruralheritage for information on farming and working with draft animals.

A Two-Horsepower Threshing Machine, Lincoln County
(Maine State Museum)

In this photo taken around 1900, two horses are providing treadmill "horsepower" for a threshing machine behind them. The men are throwing oats or barley from a hayrack down to a man who feeds it to the thresher. The thresher will separate the grain from the straw, which gets pitched up onto another wagon.
      The men help regulate the power and speed of the treadmill by changing the angle of its tilt. Gravity helps do the work, too. The horses cannot stop walking and have to wear "toe caulks" on their feet to keep a good grip. For the horses, walking on a treadmill was not terribly hard work, as long as they got regular rest breaks. The men here are probably working harder than the horses-except the one resting on his pitchfork!
      Treadmills like this one came in many sizes. Dog or goat-sized treadmills were used for work such as churning butter. Human-powered treadmills date back to the Middle Ages in Europe. Americans now spend millions of dollars for chrome-plated home treadmills designed not to work up butterfat, but to walk off fat butts!

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Again, horsepower helps to ease the men's work, although the men in the photo seem to be working as hard as their horses. Treadmills, powered by both people and animals, have been used to operate simple machines since very early in human history.

Activities:
1. Research treadmills and what types of simple machines have been powered in this manner.
2. Design a simple machine powered by a treadmill. Show details of your design, whether your design is belt driven or cog driven.
3. Borrow a treadmill, if available. Try it out. Estimate how long you think you would have to tread to churn a pound of butter, grind a pound of flour, or lose a pound of body fat. Even though many people today prefer a treadmill for exercising, this power is seldom harnessed to operate machines. Why is this so? Could treadmills provide potential commercial power? Why or why not?
5. Research the affect of treadmills on human health-are treadmills agood source of exercise?
6. Research the treadmill test used to measure endurance and/or heart rate as a diagnostic medical tool.

Note: The Boothbay Railway Village has at least two wooden treadmills on display.

Harvesting Potatoes, Unity (Maine State Museum)

The horses in this early 1900s picture are pulling a mechanical potato digger. With a machine like this a man with two horses could dig up two and a half acres of potatoes in one day. Without it, he would spend about four days just to dig and pick one acre. The wheels on this digger provide traction to run the digger, and pulling this was hard work for the horse. Later, engine-powered diggers were invented, which were much easier on the horses pulling them.

      How many photographs in this exhibit have animals helping do the work? How many different jobs are they doing? Who or what does those jobs today?

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Again, horse-power helps a farmer harvest his crops. Note the barrels used as containers in the potato field.
Potato farmers in Aroostook County produce the bulk of seed potatoes for large companies such as Campbell's Soups. Often the crop is contracted for sale even before it is planted in the ground. Using the seed potatoes, the large companies raise their own potatoes which are later used in their huge canning operations.
      Northern Maine schools traditionally open in August, allowing students to work as potato harvesters during the fall potato harvest. This practice continues even though farms need fewer harvesters today due to larger and more efficient harvesting machines.
      During WWII German prisoners of war were imported to Maine to help with the harvesting because so many young men were soldiers in Europe. (See Ethel Pochocki's Penny for a Hundred, a delightful book that tells the story of German POWs in Aroostook County.)

Discussion:
1. How are potatoes harvested today? What machines help with the harvest?
2. How has the invention of labor-saving devices affected the size of farms?

Activities:
1. Make potato prints. Cut a potato in half. Carve in a design. Using ink pads (which may be constructed from food coloring and felt), stamp designs onto paper (use paper from paper making activity).
2. Create a potato recipe book and have a potato fest. Select favorite recipes and bring in the dish to share. (Perhaps the PTA would sponsor the event as part of the photo display.)

Corn Packing at Hallowell (Maine State Museum)

In this photograph, taken in the early 1900s, old men, women, and young children are husking sweet corn at the Litchfield Road "corn shop," where it would later be canned, labeled, and packed for market.
      It was said that a "smart man" could husk twenty-five baskets of corn in a day, earning four cents a basket. Up until 1874 corn was pared off the cob with a small knife. This was replaced by a multi-knived device that did the work of twelve men and required just one man to feed the corn into it.
      At the time this photo was taken there were over eighty corn-packing factories in the state. Farmers planted sweet corn under contract to a local factory, but usually grew only a few acres of corn at a time, since corn depleted the soil and because it was a lot of work to pick it. The canning industry claimed that the unique sweetness of Maine canned corn came from the soil and the "sparkling atmosphere," but farmers knew that the real reason was tons of cow manure applied to small fields.

Loading Sweet Corn, Cornish (Down East Magazine)

Loading sweet corn for delivery to the local A. H. Burnham corn-canning factory at the turn of the century. Pickers walked along the rows with a basket, then walked out at right angles and dumped the ears in a pile. The hottest, steamiest place in Maine at midday was the middle of a cornfield, where no breeze ever penetrated.

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Hot summer weather produces a good sweet corn harvest. Workers pick the corn by hand and lug baskets of corn out from between the rows of cornstalks. The corn is loaded onto wagons, and horse-power hauls the corn to the factory for husking and canning.

Notice the crew of corn huskers includes the elderly, women, and children. Can you find the baby in the buggy at the far left of the photo. Most probably the children who were old enough to husk came with their mothers. At four cents a basket, it would take a while to earn a dollar. Corn was a major crop in Maine for many years, with several canning factories spread across the State. What purpose do you suppose the open-sided sheds served?

Discussion:
1. Why do you suppose corn huskers included the elderly, women and children?
2. Note the beautiful baskets used for holding corn. Who were noted for making these ash baskets?
3. Are there any corn canning companies in Maine today?

Activities:
1. Have a corn husking activity - one ear per student. How long would it take to husk a basketful (one and one half bushels)?
2. Have a corn husking contest and see who can clear an ear the fastest.
3. Create a corn recipe book. Have a corn fest. Cook the corn the class husked.
4. Research the canning industry. How/when did it start? What changes have taken place? What other foods were canned in Maine at the turn of the century?
5. Check the canned goods in your grocery store. Do you find any Maine company labels? Why is Maine no longer a canning industry giant?

Pottle's Store, North Perry
(Maine Historic Preservation Commission)

Inside J. W. and B. B. Pottle's store in the 1890s. Most people still raised much of their food at home, but at a store they might buy dried salt fish, barreled western flour, salt, sugar, rice, molasses, coffee, tea, boots and shoes, yardgoods, tobacco, or liquor.
      People often bartered, offering the storekeeper butter, eggs, cheese, livestock, meat, potatoes, dried apples, dried, beans, wool, furs, hides, grains, honey, axes, or shingles in exchange for goods from the store.
      To encourage their customers to buy with cash, the Pottles sometimes held contests. If you were the person spend the most cash at the store during the last six months of 1894, you received a present on New Year's Day. The First Place winner got one barrel of Pillsbury's Best Flour. An earlier contest for Pottle's cash customers was to guess the weight of a six-year-old mare named Polly. The nearest guess won the horse.
      Before the automobile, your choices for shopping were limited and the local storekeeper operated with little competition and high markups. The next time you go to the grocery store, see if you can spot items that might have been in an old-time country store long ago.

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Old-fashion country stores are a treat to visit. There are only a few left in Maine that cater to nostalgic tourists in the summer time. If you ever pass a "country store," sometimes called a "general store," on your travels, it is usually worth a vist. "Penny" candy, barrels of pickles, and a motley assortment of goods provide an entertaining shopping experience. From root beer cappers to crackers by the pound, country stores usually carry goods that are seldom found under one roof.

Discussion:
1. How has grocery shopping changed from the days of the country store?
2. What items were most popular?
3. What types of items were not available in a country/general store? Why?
4. What is a drummer?
5. What are dry goods?
6. How did the items arrive at the general store before trucks were available?
7. What is a barter system?

Activities:
1. Divide the class into teams of three. Have each team stock a "country store" on paper. Limit the choices to 100 items. Estimate a selling price for each item. Be sure to take into consideration such limitations as refrigeration, transportation, and availability.
      What type of containers were available for the goods?
      Were any of the items prepackaged?
      As a second step, visit a local supermarket. How many of the same items are available? How have containers changed?

The J. H. Smalley Farm in Union, 1890s
(Union Historical Society)

The stool hanging on the fence indicates that these cows are milked in the yard. Jerseys were "butter cows," and the Smalley women probably made butter to sell. Farm-made butter, a cash crop of great importance, was almost always made by women.

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Think of the many products produced on a dairy farm. Butter used to be sold from the farms to the cities. Now large dairy companies produce nearly all the butter consumed in the United States.

Discussion
1. Make a list of different types of cattle. What makes a good "butter" cow?
2. What other products are produced by cattle?
3. What types of products have replaced butter on many tables?

Activities:
1. Learn to churn butter. (Very rich cream shaken in a jar will produce a soft butter, or an eggbeater will do the job.)
2. Compare butter and margarine products. Which is the most healthful type of spread to use? Which tastes best?
3. Visit the local supermarket. How many choices of butter and/or margarine are there? What claims does each make about its product?
4. Create a graph showing which type of spread your classroom families use.

Making Hay Near Skowhegan (Maine State Museum)

Haying in Maine usually begins after the Fourth of July. Good hay had to be harvested on warm sunny days, because rain could ruin (or rot) the hay after it was cut. Farmers worked long days until dark in order to "get the hay in" before any disaster could ruin it.

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Discussion:
1. What are some uses for hay?
2. What labor-saving devices have helped to make haying easier?
3. Maine hay was sold to Boston and Florida. Why do you think farm lenders tried to discourage the selling of hay?
3. Hay used to be stored loose in a hay loft in the barn. Hay that was sold was pressed into heavy bales by custom presses that went from farm to farm and were powered by horses or oxen. Eventually baling equipment was developed to make the "square" bales that we're all familiar with. What were the advantages of bales? Recent new machinery has changed the shape of bales on some farms. See if you can find out why and what shape is now often preferred.