Radio Script #1192

Little Talks On Common Things
February 25, 1979

Ninety years ago Maine was already changing from an agricultural to an industrial state, but in 1888 farming was still Maine’s predominant occupation. An examination of that year’s report of the Maine Board of Agriculture gives us some realization of farming’s importance in this state. That Board was comprised of 18 persons: the President, B. A. Brown of Bangor; the Secretary, Z. A. Gilbert of Greene; and one member from each of Maine’s sixteen counties. The representative from Kennebec was S. C. Watson of Oakland, and the one from Somerse’t was G. J. Shaw of Hartland.The growing season of 1888 had not been good. The report said:

“Snow long on the ground until late in the spring, and that no seed was put in until late May. All summer rainfall was almost continuous. It was hardly possible to dry hay or any other fodder crop. The flat lands became so softened by excess of water that teams could not be driven over them, and many large fields were left unharvested. Potatoes had to be dug with water standing between the rows. Most fall planting had to be abandoned. Nothing like it has ever before been known in our state. “To add to this calamity, there were unseasonable frosts. A heavy one occurred on September 6, killing vegetables allover Maine on high and low land alike. That frost was followed by others through all of what is usually a warm autumn month. By early October every fall crop had been ruined. The year’s grain yield was very light, much of it actually destroyed by water in the fields. Such devastation has not been seen in Maine since the notorious Year of No Summer in 1816.

“It is ?true that apples that had resisted complete freezing were abundant, but they were small and so frostbitten that they soon rotted after being picked. Very few of them were suitable for the market.” After that general and woeful introduction, the report got down to specifics •. Through the years, attempts have several times been made to raise beef in Maine, and a bit of it is still done. But, as the great pasture lands of the west opened, this rock-pitted state did not have the rich pasture·lands to meet that competition.

The 1888 report said: “Raising beef cattle was once profitable in Maine. It has now been driven to the wall by the abundance of Chicago dressed beef, which is sold here in Maine cheaper than we can produce it. Six cents a pound on the hoof is now top price for Maine beef, and that has to be young steers. Cows bring less., and bulls are not wanted at all by the meat men.” The report added a comment on sheep. “Sheep still offer some encouragement to Maine farmers. Even though the price of wool is low, the demand for mutton in the Boston market keeps its price high enough to bring a good profit to sheep raisers.”

The report says nothing about how cattle and sheep were brought to the Boston market. In 1888 there were still big stock yards and processing plants in Brighton just outside of Boston. From the early 19th century, when Maine. animals first appeared in that market, a common expression in Maine was “driving cattle to Brighton.” By 1888 Maine was so well supplied with railroad lines that buyers scoured the countryside, gathering a few cattle from each selling farmer and herding them near a railroad station from which they were transported in· freight cars to Brighton. One such assembly place was a large corral near the station in Clinton. That assembly place was actually better -known for sheep than for cattle, and the two kinds of animals were never mixed in the same corral.

We learn much about how this trade in sheep was carried on by reading the diaries of George Flood, founder of the G. S. Flood Co. in Waterville, who in 1888 was a prominent dealer in sheep and wool. Flood would journey all over Somerset County, buy sheep, corral ‘them in Clinton, and ship them to Brighton. In shearing time, if the market warranted (as it apparently did not in 1888), he would likewise buy wool allover the county. Before the coming of the railroad, the animals’ transportation to Brighton had been different. They were gathered into groups of ‘several hundred cattle or sheep, and by men traveling all the way on foot or horseback, were driven over the road to Brighton. Usually the dealer accompanied his drovers. He was paid in cash, that is in gold and silver coins, and it was no easy task to get that heavy load of money safely home to Maine. That is why, like the Western cowboys, Maine drovers were usually heavily armed.

The report of 1888 did have a few cheerful notes. It presented evidence that, while the price of beef was too low to encourage farmers, there had taken place a pleasing increase in dairying. Creameries to produce market table butter were springing up allover Maine. That was about the time that two factories were opened in my native town of Bridgton – one, a so-called milk factory to produce canned, condensed milk, was not a success and by the time of my birth had been abandoned. It stood for many years an empty, rotting structure until someone had the good sense to burn it. The other, called the creamery, from which was sold both butter and cream, was more successful and continued operation beyond the middle of this century. That report of 1888 said there were new creameries at Bangor, Belfast, Clinton, Fort Fairfield, Garland. Pittston, Rumford, Rockland, Springvale and Waterford. In 1888 Maine had 45 different agricultural societies, and most of them held annual fairs. The North Kennebec Society, centered in Waterville, held its fair on the flat land of Upper Main Street where are now the Elm Plaza Shopping Center and the Industrial Park. Its president in 1888 was Hall C. Burleigh, whose son-in-law, Virgil Totman, now lives not far from where the fair was held.

That 1888 report contained several articles on various agricultural subjects. One, written by J. M. Deering of Saco was on the Management of Fairs. He wrote: “A good fair means a variety of high quality exhibits. It needs every kind of farm products. It must display different kinds of tools and implements, especially the newest farm machines. Our exhibits of farm products can be improved only whEm many farmers and their wives overcome their present excessive modesty that causes them to fear they have nothing good enough to exhibit.” Deering admitted that proper judging to award prizes posed a persistent problem. But he insists there were many persons in every county fitted by education and experience and so possessed of inherent fairness to be good judges and sufficiently specialized to furnish plenty of this to serve in every category of article and· livestock exhibited at a fair. He suggested that fairness might be better secured if all judges were brought in from outside the county.

What did Deering have to say about what was later called the Midway – the amusement center of a fair? He wrote: “The improvement of our fairs does not call for wheels of fortune and the games of chance that unfortunately have sprung up of late. We do need a variety of attractions, but not that kind. We must have clean fairs that do not rob the public. A fair nmst not be a gambling establishment, sanctified by agriculture.” Mrs. Mary Rollins of Winthrop had an article on “How I Make Prize Butter. 1.1 She wrote: “First I must have Jersey cows. No other breed equals the Jersey for butter fat. They must have proper food and water. In the fall when pastures are turning brown, my cows get second crop clover and mixed feed. I do not wait until snow comes to give them extra rations, and they always get plenty of salt.”I never allow my butter milk to stand in the barn. It is brought directly into the house and is immediately strained. The milk is then set in pans, and within 12 hours I skim off the butter cream. “Many people are too anxious to get the churning done quickly. That is one example of how haste makes waste. You must not expect the butter to come in less than 40 to 50 minutes. Shorter churning never brings prize butter.

“Taking the butter from the churn, I wash it in pure, cold water, then rinse it in slightly salted water, weigh it and salt it ounce for ounce. I let it set for two hours, then place it in one-pound molds. Then for handling it, I put it in butter boxes and cover them with a cloth wrung out of salted water. If that is not done, the butter turns brittle.” If you have listened to Mrs. Rollins’ account of her butter-making you may have been astonished at how much work and how many hours it took her to get a pound of butter ready for market. And remember that she had a lot of other housework to do on the same day. But the good lady tells us that during the year she sold 2,460 pounds of butter and the net profit had been nearly $200. In 1888 when a farm family’s income was often less than $500 a year, that $200 was not to be sneezed at. Mrs. Rollins was not enamored of the new factory creameries. She said: “Milk from the cow is better churned right at the farm. Butter made from the cream skimmed from milk well spread in pans cannot be equaled in quality by the factory method.”

That 1888 report repeatedly called for home products … “Raise more and buy less.” That, it said must be the living slogan of Maine farms. It said: “The keynote of Maine agriculture must be abundant production. We must produce what can compete with western products, and we must make our farms more nearly self-sustaining, producing many things we now buy from outside the state.”

And with that kind of last hurrah for Maine’s 19th century fairs, we say goodby until next week.

Year: 1979