USA > Vermont > Windham County > Rockingham > History of the town of Rockingham, Vermont, including the villages of Bellows Falls, Saxtons River, Rockingham, Cambridgeport and Bartonsville, 1907-1957 with family genealogies > Part 39
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Farm people did not belong to half a dozen clubs years ago. .. Neither did they have television or radio. If they had a Model-T they didn't use it unless necessary which meant going to Grange or to town once a week and in winter with a horse and sleigh. The Farm Bureau, about 1912, and the Extension Service, began to change the over-all picture of farm life and in 1955, its goal was 9,000 members (Rutland Herald, Feb- ruary 9, 1955). It would be folly to say that farm women suffered from loneliness or ennui during this period. In the
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first place they didn't have time and in the second, it was their way of life and they always got out to Grange meetings and schoolhouse parties.
Agriculture began to pool its resources for individual and group betterment in 1913 with the farms in Windham County organized with John Dennison of Bellows Falls as temporary president. Although agriculture in Vermont has always had its ups and downs, most of it has been up and the depression of the 30's did not hit as hard here as in the mid west. When Aiken became governor in 1937, he said that the price of milk was about $1.35 a hundred weight but better organization and a Federal Marketing Order pulled us out of the slump. The sur- plus milk was used for schools in a "penny lunch program" which brought the school lunch project into being. In 1940, over 80 million dollars worth of dairy products were used in the school lunch program alone. Not until the 1930's did such things as soil improvement, the use of lime and "super" phosphates come to the farm to reclaim much of the state's worn-out land. Less grain is raised than once but new forage crops and better use of the land has enabled the farmer today to purchase his dairy and poultry rations and yet make more money. The natural en- dowment of New England farms had two disadvantages in the beginning; it was stony and leachy, needing fertilizer and lime but once fertility is built up to a high level, most land now farmed will produce more per acre than the fertile land of the great plains.
Agriculture covers many things, most of which have moved from home to factory production (The Hill Country of North- ern New England, Wilson). The labor of marketing milk caused Vermont's production to drop from 142,000,000 in 1899 to 122,000,000 in 1909 but as roads became better and city dealers were able to get to the farms, production increased until, in 1929, it was back at the 1899 level. As Massachusetts farms began to be devoted to truck gardens to feed the increasing urban population, Boston had to look farther north for its milk supply and Vermont came into the picture. In 1910, Vermont ship- ments were made only from main line railroads but in 1920, shipping stations were opened on branch lines and the farmer's output was hauled to them by truck. By 1930, 90% of all milk was carried by truck, often owned by the farmer. Today bulk tanks are superseding trucks and carry about 5% of milk to the creamery. Another reason for Vermont's increase in fluid milk to city markets was the drive, begun in 1915, for greater use of milk, by the Boston Chamber of Commerce and by 1922 Boston used more milk than any other city as well as butter and cheese, all of which meant more milk from Vermont. By 1930, 207,000,000 gallons of milk were used in Boston alone, most of it coming from Vermont. Bellows Falls shipped fluid milk and cream to Boston by train as early as 1890. With the ad- vanced production of fluid milk for city markets, the production
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of butter and cheese decreased as the farmer made more money through his whole milk sales. Factories for these products decreased as well. In 1900 Vermont had 240 creameries which sent all of their product to market as butter and cheese. By 1915, from 60 to 70% of these were owned by eight or ten city dealers who sent out most of their produce as fluid milk. By 1910, Vermont led all the United States with the amount of dairy products per capita and a few years later, it held the unique distinction of being the only state in the union with more cows than people, a position which it still holds. It was conceded that you could argue this point, as to just what is meant by a cow, the over-all coverage including beef cattle, oxen, steers, bulls, calves, heifers and cows. One biennial report of the Commissioner of Agriculture showed 465,565 head of cattle in the state, far ahead of the last human census which was 377,747 persons. If you eliminate the calves, it was figured, you would still have 358,435 "cows." In 1950 the Rutland Herald said that Vermont's cow population had increased more in the last five years than ever before in its history, adding 50,000 animals to the bovine list, making a total of 449,000 with people only 377,000, "way behind the 'udders'." 15 Between 1910 and 1920, Vermont lost 3,528 people, mostly from rural communities. World War I was blamed in part for this exodus, for, as after the Civil War, many boys elected to remain in the cities. "The total rural population of Vermont reached its maximum in 1850, steadily declining ever since" (Migration from Vermont, Page 217. Stilwell).
Vermont is naturally suited to dairying and farmers could raise much of their own feed which kept it in the front line as a dairy state. As before stated, the general outlook of the state can be taken as a yardstick with which to measure local farms which were concerned in the early endeavors to improve the quality of milk production. This consisted, among other things, in a law passed in 1925 to test cattle for tuberculosis by areas. Under this law the Commissioner of Agriculture could have all cattle examined in any town if presented with a petition signed by 90% of all cattle owners of that town. And any farmer who refused to submit to examination was quarantined. It also prohibited the importing of cattle into a clean town without examination. These tests actually started about 1920 with only 625 head of cattle in the state under supervision (Ver- mont History, "The Blood Farm of Stamford, Vt.", by Marion Lawrence). In 1931 T.B. tests were carried on by the State Department of Agriculture in Rockingham and in one week in April, resulted in a large number being condemned and taken to the packing plant in North Walpole for slaughter. Although the exact number from Rockingham is not available, 135 were brought in from Windham County with more expected. Some farmers objected strenuously to the slaughter of their cattle 15 See Addendum
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with only partial reimbursement by the state. Among those who did not consider it necessary, were Lewis Lovell and Will Pierce, leaders in the opposition. But as creameries put stricter regulation on their milk and agricultural leaders taught farmers to clean out "boarder" cows which ate as much as the rest but did not produce and as T.B. tests cleaned up infected herds, the whole picture of the dairy industry improved until in 1940 gross revenues from milk made up 62% of all farm income. About three fourths of this income is still derived from the milk pail with dairying in good condition and with excellent prospects today. It is said that enough milk is produced in Vermont each year to fill a river 80 miles long, 20 feet wide and 3 feet deep.
In 1953 the Meredith Commission of Taxation showed that most small Vermont towns have been growing smaller as the cities grew larger. In 1920 there was 32% of the state engaged in agriculture with 4,235,811 acres of farm land. (An acre was first defined as the amount of land which a yoke of oxen could plow in a day.) In 1950 only 17.9% of the population was farming on 3,527,381 acres. The number of farms had declined from 29,075 to 19,043 but the average size of farms has increased as well as their productivity. But much of our once farmed land will soon have little value unless used for some other pur- pose than being allowed to grow up to brush and scrub timber. This brings in the picture of deserted farms in Vermont which, by 1916, had assumed a large place on the horizon. Windham County had eleven in two school districts. The calamity was taken up by the papers with a hue and cry to the effect that thousands were looking for new and cheap homes; who ached to be real farmers on real farms but who "don't know that they can get comfortable homes in Vermont for a few hundred dollars." Much was said about advertising these derelict farms but every- one seemed to forget that many of them were deserted because their owners could no longer make a living on the worn-out soil. These have been reclaimed in many instances by summer people who remodel the buildings but who are not farmers. The hay is sometimes used by neighboring farmers, often for the cutting of it. Fields are rented for pasture. But in other cases, nature simply takes back its own. Re-forestation is the answer to many of these places. There are few deserted farms in Rockingham as modern agriculture has kept the land up to high productivity and many were originally on the wide, fertile river meadows. Some farms consolidated and some farmers moved down to the main roads for commercial ventures. During the wars, machine shops paid high wages and some farms were sold because of lack of help. Wages for hired help began to rise with the years, competing with the factories. During the period from 1910- 1914, a hired man's wages was $351, half of what other occupa- tions paid. From 1920-1925, farm wages rose to $586 while a
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factory worker could bring home $1,399. While farm prices also rose, for many the struggle was too great.
Condensed milk and milk powder, that "strange shadow of dry and canned milk" (Dorothy Canfield Fisher in Vermont Tradition) seem to be increasingly on the up grade. The fact that milk is mostly water which is heavy to transport is being played up by both science and industry. Mrs. Fisher says that factories have grown in size and number while manpower on farms had dwindled, absorbing the excess labor supply. "The latest figures I have seen, indicate now that there are rather more men and women working in them than there are left on the farms-Vermont's living-and-earning program has three supports; small industry, farming and the tourist trade." (Ibid.) Although tax commissioner Leonard Morris, in 1954, said that Vermont is "no longer a serf tied to the tumbrel of agriculture," (not every farmer loses his head, literally or figuratively) and who believes that manufacturing is the key to our economic security which brings into the state $225 million a year, Vermont dairy farmers in 1953, formed a unit of the American Dairy Association to promote the sale of dairy products. It was in- stigated by the Vermont Farm Bureau and included representa- tives from every county in the state. Vermont is the first unit of the organization which hopes to have a membership of 25 states, representing 60% of the country's milk supply. Industry, it must be admitted, has become a powerful factor in the life of the state but she can still hold up her head as the "dairy state."
To advertise and instigate improved farm methods in the state, Vermont sent out a Better Farming Special Train in 1915 over the Rutland Railroad with a baggage car containing two dairy cows, one having made a profit of $15 a year, the other $45, also dairy utensils, horticultural and forestry exhibits. Morton Downing, a student of agriculture at the University of Vermont was on the train and many local people gathered at the depot to view the exhibition. Mr. Downing later became county agent for Rutland County.
From the following figures, the contention that farms are decreasing in number but increasing in acreage is proven. In 1880 the average size of farms in the United States was 134 acres; in 1920 it was 148; today it is 210 acres (Rutland Herald). It is an era of fewer but bigger and better farms. The average size of Vermont farms increased 22.4% during 1954 while the total number decreased. In a four year period, the number of Vermont farms declined from 19,043 in 1950 to 15,981 in 1954, farms being counted as places of three or more acres if the annual value of agricultural products sold amounted to $150 or more. Of these, 10,000 were accounted as "real" farms.
In 1914 there were 598 horses on Rockingham farms. In 1955 there were forty-nine. Horses, mules and oxen are a thing
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of the past. The peak of the horse population was in 1915 after which it steadily declined as tractors moved into the picture. One editor said that the horse and mule population was shrinking "almost as fast as the buffalo did back in the good old days.' Most of today's horses and mules are in the south with Texas in the lead and even the famous Missouri mule needs a "save the mule campaign." The tractor influence has contributed largely to the agricultural revolution with its mechanical horse power. "Where once a man bought a team of horses for $350 which reproduced themselves with a surplus of colts to sell and which fertilized the land, his son has $20,000 or more invested in machinery whose lifetime is unlikely to be more than five years before it is turned in for far below the original price." (Dorothy Thompson in Ladies Home Journal, January, 1957.) It usually brings about half price. Today a leading automobile factory makes one truck for each three cows in the country; 34 years ago the ratio was one truck for one hundred cows. One tractor and one man have replaced four pair of horses and four men a generation ago. Behemoths of machines move across the land where once Dobbin bent his patient shoulders. But in 1954 there was the unusual sight of four pair of oxen hauling the trunk of a huge elm tree over the snow in Kingston, N. H. Work is done faster and better in this machine age. There is little difference between the farm home and town home today. It is interesting to note that a higher percentage of Vermont farm dwellings had running water piped into them than in any other 44 states, according to the 1950 census.
Once Vermont raised more sheep and wool than any other state in the country. It was our largest crop until 1850 when western competition and consequent drop in prices, plus the ravages of dogs and bears, forced Vermont farmers to mark sheep off their list. Between 1900 and 1910 sheep in the United States, outside of the western states, decreased 3,900,000 head although the market value was 35% higher that year. Stray dogs were given as the main reason for this. In 1913, of 894 answers as to why they were no longer raising sheep, 531 farmers said "dogs." Vermont is one of only three states having a weak law on this subject which does not protect the sheep raiser. In 1918 the bank at White River Junction sold sheep to farmers at cost in an attempt to persuade them to raise them again. Most Rockingham farmers once kept at least a few sheep, to be sheared of their winter wool by the peripatetic shearer in March or April and turned out to the hillside pastures for the summer. But when you have to sit in the pasture with a gun, as one Rockingham woman did, it is not worth the effort. However, sheep can still be profitable, according to Reginald Switzer of Bellows Falls who, for a number of years, raised a large flock on his Grafton farm. He said that while natural conditions are the same as 50 years ago, farm habits have changed and sheep
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raising is more of a specialized industry. A new experiment was started in Dorset, Vt. in 1953 and Vermont still had 13,000 in 1957, 2,000 more than two years ago. The pastoral picture of grazing sheep on a Vermont hillside may still be found.
Most Vermont farmers have a few hens and chickens and some have turkeys but the two breeds do not mix. Most farmers have either one or the other. In Rockingham, Old Town, Warren Skelton cares for thousands of chickens on the Abbott farm. In 1936 Frank Weeden together with Francis Bolles of the Green Mountain Farm, went into the turkey business in a big way with the largest White Holland turkey farm in New England. In 1940 they combined forces with five growers, pooling 5,000 turkeys at Thanksgiving for New England markets through Hubbard, Parker & Small. In 1943 this farm was awarded the Grand Champion prize for the third time in six years at the annual Poultry Show in Boston.
Silos began to be built in the 1880's and by 1896 the Babcock tester was in use to test the milk of individual cows. In 1900 attempts were being made to help the farmers which led to the Farm Bureau and Extention Service. The Farmers' Institutes were the first steps in this direction which were taken over in 1928 by county agents. Farm Extension work originated in the south with the eradication of the boll weevil. In 1865 an agri- cultural college was formed in Burlington as part of the Uni- versity of Vermont and the Grange was instituted to aid the farmer also, the first Grange in Vermont being at St. Johnsbury in 1871. Farmers were struggling toward the light back in 1869 when one hundred met in Montpelier, seeking ways to place their business on a more solid foundation.
Forestry control began in Vermont in 1904 when the legis- lature authorized the governor to appoint a member of the Board of Agriculture to act as Forestry Commissioner and the first selectman of each town to control forest fires. It exempted from taxation for ten years, lands planted to trees under certain regulations. In 1906 a nursery was established to raise seedling trees for reforestation to be sold at cost. In 1910 there were 376,000 trees sold and the year before the office of the State Forester was organized with a commissioner of Forestry. To- day tree farming is an accepted way of life for worn-out pastures, after a fire or to replace the down timber after a hurricane such as that of 1938 when many farmers took advantage of seedlings at a minimum price. An interesting item is that witch grass, the farmers' enemy, was introduced into Peacham, Vermont from England by a congressman and first dubbed "congress grass." It was considered valuable because it did not winter- kill-how we wish that it would-and yielded much hay. How it got around the country is anyone's guess but it soon outlived its usefulness and became known as the farmer's curse.
Vermont farms were slow to acquire electricity although it
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had been in force in the villages since the turn of the century. The cost of wiring houses and barns were prohibitive for many and private generating plants were installed on the more pros- perous farms. Power companies were not anxious to run their lines into areas with only a few subscribers. In 1930 only 11% of Vermont farms had electricity with its freedom from lamps and hand work. But soon 30% of these farms were wired as the power companies co-operated in building the rural lines which web the hills and valleys today. To the farm women, it meant a lessening of her labors and made her a sister to her village neighbor. Today Vermont has modern conveniences on a higher level than any average American rural and village home in the North Central states. (Vermont Tradition, page 256.) With the radio came the special broadcast by the Vermont Extension Service during haying, a consideration to the farmer who never knew, in the morning, if it would rain or not. All in all, farming is a way of life in Rockingham today as it is in the state and nation.
Number of farms in Vermont
Value per acre
1900
33,104
$ 10
1910
32,709
$ 13
1920
29,075
1930
24,898
$ 37
1940
23,582
$ 30
1950
26,490
$ 39
1954
15,971
$ 62
THE MAPLE SUGAR INDUSTRY
"An early Vermont poet once said that this state was famous for four things:
Men, women, maple sugar and horses;
The first are strong, the latter fleet,
The second and third are exceedingly sweet And all are uncommonly hard to beat.
At this time of year perhaps it is the third item which comes first to mind although probably no woman would care to have it said that a mere "drop in the bucket" had the jump on her!" (This is Vermont, sponsored by the Vermont Historical Society)
About 63% of Vermont consists of trees and of these a goodly part are sugar maples. It is said that maple syrup was first made in the state in 1752 by Capt. Samuel Robinson of Bennington. Today about one third of Vermont farmers make maple syrup and in 1938 there were 29,000 farmers. While there are probably today few of the ancient maples still in exis- tence which, not long ago, must have been here when the Pil- grims landed, there are trees enough tapped to make Vermont the leading state in the country in the maple industry with New York, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire
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following. It produced, in 1954, 620,405 gallons, according to a state bulletin and although most of this industry is in the northern part, Windham County was third in production with 59,990 gallons of the sweet stuff, an increase over the 46,888 gallons in 1949. Fifteen years ago the total value of Vermont's maple products was $3,143,000, a gain of two million over 1909. Since there seems to be a decided tendency for syrup to become stronger the farther north you go, Vermont would seem to be in the position of a happy medium.
Sugar making, like everything else, has come a long way from the primitive methods of Vermont's first inhabitants, the red men and of the pioneers with their great iron and copper kettles which, the rest of the year, were used for washing, soap making or any other household chore. One old man recalled that it was always the potash kettle that was slung over the open fire when he was a boy, filled from the sap pails on the yoke balanced on the shoulders. No dry wood was stacked up the year before, green wood was chopped as needed. And one mess of syrup was never finished for all day they dumped in the new sap as it boiled away and they only "syruped down" at night and carried it home to cook down some more for tub sugar as no one thought of selling it. The next step was the sheet iron pans set over a crude fireplace of field stone in the woods, sans chimney or flue. These graduated to the first sugar houses with arches for the pans and chimneys for the smoke but no one called them evapor- ators. In the early days cane sugar was a luxury ; everyone made up their own maple. But as farm children went to the city, they introduced their homely sweets there and gradually it began to have a market value. One day cane sugar became a commodity and maple the luxury.
The sugar season varies. It may last from the middle of March to the middle of April; it may begin in the middle of February or the first of April. It is as unpredictable as a woman. It may last six weeks or two. The 1954 season was early in Rockingham and the next year saw trees tapped in February but with a first short run. Weather is the chief factor but the previous season's growth and health is conducive, too. For three years before 1900, maple caterpillars stripped the trees so that for half a dozen years the syrup was of inferior quality. The same pests returned in force in 1953 and 1954 but with less destructive results. Methods in tapping trees have changed also, wooden spiles or spouts giving way to metal and pails passing through the same conversion. Today producers are urged to use plastic containers to replace buckets and in 1957, plastic tubes to carry sap were displayed at the Eastern States Exposition, cutting labor cost by 50% and increasing sap by 75%. Oil burning evaporators are also coming into use, elimin- ating the picturesque stacks of cordwood in the lean-to behind the sugar house, also, it must be admitted, the labor involved
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with them. And if an old-timer misses the fragrance of wood smoke drifting through the bleak March woods, it is just that time is marching on and making things easier for the farmer in every way. On the gathering sled or wagon is the metal tank into which the sap is poured but the great pair of horses which strained to "break out" the road to say nothing of their pre- decessors, the patient oxen, and to pull the heavy load to the sugar house, is replaced by the ubiquitious tractor which is all things to all men. And in the big sugar orchards or "sugar bush," on side hills appears the web work of pipe lines connecting trees directly to the sugar house. These were always backed up to a hill so that the loads of sap could be driven along the upper bank and dumped into the storage tanks which were always on the north side to prevent the sun from souring the sap. The old arches were often of brick but the new ones are iron under the evaporator pans where the sap boils furiously and the sweet steam pours in grey clouds through the ventilators in the roof. Nothing is left to guesswork today; sugar thermometers make accurate work of the once homely job and the hot syrup is strained through felt to remove the "sugar sand" or nitre which is part of the process of nature. The "sugaring off" rig is smaller and often the syrup is cooked down on the kitchen stove to make cakes. Once every family laid in a five or ten pound pail of sugar each year, which formed a thick, dark syrup on top as its contents were scooped out.
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