Farming in Concord in the Second Half of the 19th Century
By Joseph C. Wheeler, Thoreau Farm Trust. This article was prepared for the William Wheeler Forum session of October 4, 2007.
Concord's farming practices have been in a constant process of change from the beginning of English settlement in 1635. The 19th Century was no exception. This was the century when our farmers moved from producing almost entirely for the family to mostly for the market. The second half of the 19th Century was especially influenced by changing markets due to new canals and railways and by an explosion of new science important to the farm.
In a history of Middlesex County we read about the 1900 Census: "Middlesex County showed the greatest per acre production of any county in the United States, and ranked second in the value of its vegetable crops." Marion Wheeler said that Nine Acre Corner, at this time, was watched by other farmers for the newest ideas. There was no lack of pride in Middlesex County farmers and Concord farmers in particular!
Now here I must tell you that whatever you and I might think, not everybody always thought that Concord farms and farmers were great. Bob Gross, quoting from a Social Circle memoir, tells of the Marlborough farmer saying in 1759 to Joseph Hosmer, who wanted to marry his daughter Lucy: "Concord plains are sandy, Concord soils are poor, you have miserable farms there, and no fruit... . You will never do better than your father... . Lucy shall marry her cousin John; he owns the best farm in Marlborough and you must marry a Concord girl, who cannot tell good land from poor." Fortunately, Joseph Hosmer ultimately won Lucy's hand. And fortunately, too, a hundred years later even the Marlborough farmer would have had to admit that the situation of Concord farming was much improved.
Brian Donahue wrote of the farmers and land in Colonial Concord in his book The Great Meadow. He described an agriculture of self-sufficiency where farmers produced mostly for family needs. He follows the sustainable nutrient chain from the nature-given Great Meadow hay transported to the farmstead and fed to the cows, producing, in addition to milk, the fertilizer for the crops grown near the home. In his epilogue he describes the shift in agricultural practices in the second quarter of the nineteenth century toward marketed crops. At this time we went from one or two cows to small herds, from forests to hay fields, from fireplace heat to cook stoves, from self sufficiency to the market economy.
In 1953 my mother, local historian Ruth Wheeler, wrote a long article for the Concord Journal about evolving farming practices in Concord. Ruth Wheeler wrote of the railroad coming in 1844, leading to Concord farmers supplying Boston markets with milk and butter, wood and vegetables. Boston was a growing city. This is when horses began to take the place of oxen and Concord's population, which had lately been decreasing, was enhanced by the new immigration -- especially from Ireland.
There was a magazine -- The New England Farmer -- edited by Concordian Simon Brown. In Concord there was the Farmer's Club. Brown's granddaughter, Miss Grace Keyes, preserved the minutes so they are available for the historian of Concord agriculture. There was also the very important Middlesex Society for the Promotion of Agriculture which centered in Concord.
The 19th Century agricultural revolution in Concord was spurred by a batch of bright and curious Concord farmers who read about, and talked to each other about, farming techniques. These farmers were not afraid of new ideas. Manifestations of this were the annual agricultural fair and the participation in the Concord Farmers Club.
In mid-century a great deal of fruit was grown in Concord and farmers were trying out the new varieties. For example, the 1852 report of the Middlesex Agricultural Society -- which had been holding shows since 1820 -- tells us that at the agricultural fair that year John B. Moore entered twenty varieties of pears, thirty of apples in addition to grapes and vegetables. Gardner Wheeler, William Wheeler's uncle, exhibited a miniature arbor covered with fragrant Isaballa grapes. Farmers exhibited very large apples -- my great grandfather, Henry Adams Wheeler, had the largest specimen -- a Hubbardson Nonsuch twelve inches in circumference. Even Ralph Waldo Emerson put a Flemish Beauty apple into the show. And, of course, Ephraim Wales Bull, who lived in this time, pioneered the Concord Grape.
Farmers in this period were raising more cattle. At the cattle show there were twenty-nine bulls and bull calves, nine pairs of steers, twenty milk cows, seven pairs of
oxen, thirty-five swine, twenty horses and a multitude of poultry. In the plowing match there were thirty-seven teams with the winner plowing an eighth of an acre in seventeen minutes. There were twenty teams of oxen and four of horses in the strength trials with the winner pulling seven thousand two hundred pounds.
One especially important development during these years was the production of strong steel. Steel shovels, forks and hoes worked much better than the former heavy iron tools, Plows were improved. Next came heavier machinery such as mowers, horse rakes and tedders. [Jarvis p 187]
|
Some notes on sources: I particularly want to thank Leslie Wilson and Constance Manoli-Skocay at the William Monroe Special Collections of the Concord Free Public Library for introducing me to the many relevant resources available there.
I found the minutes of the Concord Farmers' Club fascinating. One is inhibited to some extent by the need to read them in manuscript form, made harder by fading ink. The file on the 1852 Middlesex Agricultural Society fair is particularly interesting. These are at Special Collections.
Though it does not cover the end of the century, Edward Jarvis' Traditions and Reminiscences of Concord, Massachusetts -- 1779-1878, edited by Sarah Chapin is full of information.
An article on farming written more than a half century ago by my mother has a special degree of authenticity about it since she and my father owned a dairy farm from 1916 to 1953 and she understood farming first hand. It covers the whole period from settlement to time of writing. See "Farming" by Ruth R. Wheeler, Concord Journal, 16 July, 1953. This can be read at the Thoreaufarm.org website.
I also read the farming section of Middlesex County and its People by Edward P. Conklin, 1927, Volume II; an article published in Economic Geography in 1941 by Edward Akerman; a 1975 article by Marian Wheeler; the record of a 1964 panel before the Conantum Garden Club called "Conantum and Nine Acre Corner through the Changing Years" where I found the George Brigham quotation; a paper by Bob Davidson done in 1995 called "Changing with the Times: Farming in Concord 1830 -- 1880"; Robert Gross' article in the Journal of American History, Volume 6, No. 1 of June, 1982 called "Culture and Cultivation in Thoreau's Concord" ; a document on the Middlesex Asparagus Growers Association and a paper by Leslie Wilson published in this publication for June/July 2002 called "Farming in the 19th Century." Finally there is the Keyes/Tolman manuscript on "Houses in Concord in 1885" All of these are available at Special Collections at the Concord Free Public Library. Then there is the book by Howard S. Russell, A Long Deep Furrow: Three Centuries of Farming in New England, published in 1976. For the first 200 years of farming, Brian Donahue's The Great Meadow: Farmers and the Land in Colonial Concord published in 2006 is excellent. |
By 1878 strawberries had become an important crop for some farmers. Jarvis tells of John B. Moore, surely one of Concord's best farmers, who regularly had thirty men, women and children picking strawberries for the Boston market. In 1874 Moore picked 12,600 quarts of strawberries and George Wheeler -- of the Sudbury Road Wheelers -- 6,000 quarts. Gardner Wheeler picked 4,500. Some one hundred farmers were growing strawberries for market and the number was growing.
It was about this time that the production of asparagus exploded. Between 1876 and 1879 ground planted to asparagus doubled. [Jarvis 195] In the early asparagus years in the late 1870s the largest producers were mostly on Sudbury Road led by George Wheeler, Judge French and Charles Hubbard. Bob Gross called Concord "the asparagus capital of the Guilded Age. By the 1880s Concord produced 75,000 bunches of asparagus, half the Massachusetts crop. [Russell, p. 450.] The Middlesex County Asparagus Growers Association later registered the Old North Bridge brand of asparagus. Members packaged a one-pound bunch, of an exact length and a maximum number of spears. In those days the bigger spears were definitely considered to be the best! Each bunch was held together with two rubber bands, was labeled, and -- at least in my days -- was sent to market standing in water.
In addition to strawberries and asparagus, farmers were growing squash, cabbage, cauliflower, melons, root crops, rhubarb, corn, peppers, celery, spinach, mint and string beans -- all of which could be sent to market in Boston. [Ackerman, pp 61-74.]
Commercial milk production expanded in this period. According to Jarvis [ p. 198], milk production doubled between 1865 and 1875 by which time there were some 1.200 cows in Concord.
A note on wood -- listed by Hiram Jones as his third most important source of income. Wood was in high demand in the Boston area for heating, cooking and even for the railroads. Forests were disappearing. It is said that the decade after the Civil War marked the high point for cultivated land and the low point for forest cover in New England. Most of Concord was open -- in contrast to our mostly wooded landscape today. [Russell p. 460]
Concord farmers got quite technical about soil fertility. These were the days before chemical fertilizers were generally available and the name of the game was manure -- or what my Aunt Julia used to call "dressing." In his paper for the Concord Farmers' Club Hiram Jones said that "The ability of the farmer to succeed in improving his soils and grow greater crops depends on his applying to the land plenty of manure either from the resources of the farm or other sources... .Barn cellars ought to be... supplied with absorbents in the form of meadow [grass], fallen foliage from the trees and other materials for absorbing the liquid droppings and preventing, in a measure, the escape of volatile fertilizing qualities." His barn (photo at top right of this page), now owned by the Victor Tylers, is well set up for this process: hay mows on top, cows on the middle floor and a full cellar to receive the solid and liquid "droppings."
Of course manure wasn't the only subject these great Concord farmers discussed at their meetings. Subjects included: hoed crops, root crops, grain crops, grass crops, live stock, farm buildings, farming tools, reclaiming waste lands, garden fruits, ornamental gardening, fruit and ornamental trees. And they kept great minutes which we can read at Special Collections at the library.
Art Credits: Barn photo courtesy of the Thoreau Farm Trust. Page designed by Windfall. Other images courtesy of Clipart.com.
 |
