<\/p>\n
Well into the last quarter of the 19th century, farming was more important than industry in Maine. Although by that time the state had a few woolen and cotton mills, five shoe factories, several foundries and other small factories, the only important product aside from wheat grown on the farms was lumber.<\/p>\n
Nearly a hundred years ago, in 1878, the Kennebec Journal published a long article under the title “The Farms of Skowhegan.” When we now realize how important industrial development later became for that town, it is interesting to note what agriculture meant to the people there in 1878.<\/p>\n
The article began: “Indian corn has always been a leading crop in Somerset County.” That statement was certainly true. When Father Rasle, the Jesuit missionary, arrived at the Indian settlement on Old Point in Norridgewock, late in the 17th century, he found the natives already familiar with planting and harvesting corn. When the English raiders attacked the Indian village in 1724, they divided into groups, one group going toward the corn field to intercept any Indians at work there. Certainly, for fully a hundred and fifty years before the 1878 article appeared in the Kennebec Journal, corn had been grown in Somerset County.<\/p>\n
The article continued: “One man in Bloomfield raised 195 bushels to the acre last year. Some of the ears were 14 inches long. Cornville, the town just north of Skowhegan, produced large quantities.” The writer might have added that Cornville got its name because its soil was so favorable for corn.<\/p>\n
The article went on: “Potatoes have long been a staple Somerset crop, and many carloads are exported annually. In 1862 over 30,000 bushels of potatoes were sold here for shipment to the Boston market. As early as 1837 more than 40,000 bushels were raised in Bloomfield and Milburn, the two towns that were later merged to form Skowhegan.<\/p>\n
In 1846, Judah McClellan, a prominent citizen of Bloomfield, stated at a meeting of the Central Agricultural Society: “The area that is now the State of Maine, including the territory along the northern boundary, now in dispute with Canada, lies between the 45th and 48th degrees of north latitude. In colonial days its forests were full of wild animals with furs of great value. It has abundant timber of white pine, spruce and hardwoods, with rivers to take it to the market. In the spring, all the streams flowing into the ocean were once thronged with salmon, shad and herring. Though most of the animals and the fish are now gone, lumbering still flourishes if properly managed. The trouble is that it often brings bankruptcy and poverty to people who rush in without capital or experience.”<\/p>\n
Judah McClellan made that statement before a different kind of experience also brought wealth to a few men from Maine, but poverty to many more. Two years after McClellan spoke before the Agricultural Society, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill, near Sacramento in California. Hundreds of Maine men and boys rushed to the gold fields.<\/p>\n
Almost none of them made any money panning gold. But a few shrewd fellows, like the Flints and Bixbys of Madison and Anson, did make fortunes because of the gold rush, but they made it in selling goods to the miners, weighing the small particles of gold dust, and spending the profits in purchase of California land. Some of those early gold seekers turned profitably to ranching. In fact it was two Somerset County men who brought the first merino sheep across the mountains from Illinois to California.<\/p>\n
Another old settler of Somerset County reminded the Kennebec Journal reporter that in the middle of the 19th century, there was a flurry in Indian wheat. Strongly recommended by agricultural papers, it sold well in Central Maine. This man said he sent to Hallowell for a peck of it and sowed it expectantly. But it proved a failure, and he knew of no one in the Skowhegan area who got any good out of it. This farmer also told the reporter: “I tried rutabaga turnips, half an acre of them, but in the winter, when I cut them up for my cattle, they were a “mess. So I got right sick of raising rutabagas. I am convinced our small Somerset farms had better stick to old fashioned Irish potatoes.”<\/p>\n
That Somerset man of more than a century ago would be interested to learn that there are many Aroostook farmers today who feel about sugar beets just as he felt about turnips. They too are inclined to stick to old-fashioned Irish potatoes.<\/p>\n
Another member of the Central Agricultural Society questioned whether Somerset farmers used their land to best advantage. He said: “They keep the best land close to buildings, use it for mowing and tillage, while allowing more remote fields to remain inferior pastures, when often those fields have better soil than the ones they try to cultivate. Furthermore, our farmers limit fertilizer to the dressing accumulated on their own farms, and they do not rotate the crops.”<\/p>\n
Another man lamented the scarcity of hired men. He said: “Help is scarce on our farms. A good man spurns $15 a month and found, telling us he can get double that on the river or in Bangor. The increase in factories has also made a heavy drain on female help. You can’t get a girl for a dollar a week when she can get four dollars in a mill. If this continues, the farm dairy will soon disappear.”<\/p>\n
The Kennebec Journal then pointed out that in 1878 Maine had hundreds of vessels carrying to the south and west, Maine lime, granite, fish, cord wood, bark and every variety of lumber. Those vessels brought back flour, sugar and molasses. Thirty years earlier, Maine had raised a lot of wheat and made its own flour. But it could not compete with the rich black soil of the prairies. By 1878 the New England states were importing two million barrels of flour a year. The Journal deplored the fact that Maine did not at least raise wheat and send it to mills in New York.<\/p>\n
But to the Journal, the agricultural prospect was far from gloomy. It said: “Excellent livestock is raised in Maine, and through the influence of agricultural societies the stock, especially milk cattle, is being steadily improved. But, on the whole, Maine farmers have been slow to accept new machinery. It took many years for the mowing machine to replace the hand scythe, and quite as long for the threshing machine to replace the flails. The cast-iron plow has indeed long been used here, but the cultivator has only recently appeared. Even horse rakes have not yet become a usual accompaniment to mowing machines. ”<\/p>\n
Although by 1878, the culture of silk worms had been proven unadaptable to Maine, the Journal was unwilling to give up. It said: “Efforts to raise silk in Maine are worthy of praise. If we can spin and weave it, we may be able to keep our young women from the corrupting influence of the factories of Lawrence and Lowell.”<\/p>\n
As to sheep. the Journal commented “The first sheep in Somerset County were inferior, but about 1850 Jonathan Farrar introduced the merino breed, and at last wool production became definitely profitable. Wool buyers went all aver the county, bidding against each other for the farmer’s annual shearings.”<\/p>\n
The Journal declared that the middle of the century had been the heyday of Somerset farmers. It said: “The year 1851 saw Somerset agriculture at its peak. The experience with winter wheat was especially successful. The fields were beautiful as they awaited the sickle. It at last seemed possible for Maine to raise our own bread stuff, and no longer be dependent on the mills of New York.<\/p>\n
The hay crop was the largest in memory.<\/p>\n
Potatoes first appeared in Somerset County in 1845, right at the time when the great potato famine was at its worst in Ireland, and the migration began that made Boston and New York predominantly Irish cities. In the middle of the century few farmers cultivated orchards. Except for apple, pear and plum trees near the farm houses, yielding fruit for family use, Maine’s abundant wild and semi-cultivated apples were all used for cider and vinegar. In fact by 1878, Maine was a strong prohibition state, making illegal the manufacture or sale of alcoholic beverages. But the Maine law always exempted apple cider. A farmer could make all the cider his apples would produce.<\/p>\n
This Journal article declared that agriculture had developed slowly in the Skowhegan area. Most early settlers were concerned with hunting, fishing, and trading with the Indians. The march of civilization up the Kennebec was long and tedious. The time from the first brief settlement at Popham, near the mouth of the river, to the settlement at Bloomfield in 1771, was longer than the period from the birth of the nation in 1776 to the year of the article’s publication, 1878. The Journal said: “Among the causes of this slow advance were the severity of our winters, the hardship of life in an unbroken forest, the hostility of French and Indians, and persistent indifference of the government in Boston. Not until the Treaty of Paris in 1763 were the Proprietors of the Kennebec Purchase able to draw settlers to their lands.”<\/p>\n
In early days, it was a long journey from Somerset farms to any grist mill to grind the grain. First they had to take the grain all the way to Hallowell, later to Getchell’s Corner at Vassalboro. William Allen, the historian of Norridgewock tells how grain went to the mill and the ground meal came back. He himself once saw Sampson White, a man of great strength, carry l~ bushels of corn on his shoulder ten miles to mill, wait just long enough for it to be ground, shoulder the meal and carry it the return trip ten miles home. Allen said that a family once sent two boys on foot ten miles to a mill, each with half a bushel of grain on his back.<\/p>\n
Corn meal, so hard to get ground, was used sparingly. Occasionally the housewife would make a little hominy or hasty pudding. Near where are now the Skowhegan Fairgrounds, Peter Heywood gave the town 50 acres for use of the minister, together with land for a cemetery. His recompense was that the town should clear for him five acres of land each year for ten years.<\/p>\n
Though jumping quickly from one subject to another, that Kennebec Journal article of a century ago does tell us something about Somerset County farms.<\/p>\n
Year: 1975<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Read the script for “Little Talks” program #1051, Broadcast on May 11, 1975<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":405,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42942,35296],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9555"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/405"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9555\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}