Figure 6. John Singleton Mosby.
Like many other Fairfax County farmers, Fountain Beattie found that he was better off to abandon diversified farming in favor of crops with respect to which he still enjoyed natural advantages. Thus, during the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Green Spring Farm is identified with dairy products and orchard and garden produce—all commodities which had to be marketed the same day they were produced or picked or which could be made into derivative products which could be easily transported to market and sold at prices which reflected value added by processing. Transportation, however, was a key factor. Virginia’s country roads were publicly acknowledged to be in a “lamentable condition,” and over even the best of them travel often was impossible in wet seasons of the year.[62] In this respect, the Little River Turnpike was one of the best of Virginia’s rural roads, having been laid out and constructed by professional engineers and maintained by hired labor with even more care and regularity than the public roads. In Beattie’s day, as in Moss’s time, the turnpike was the main road between Alexandria and Fairfax, the county seat, and thence to the Valley.
All these considerations led Fountain Beattie to direct his main effort to expansion of the orchards and herd of dairy cattle as rapidly as it was feasible. Year around, the farm was a busy place, with work enough for all of the Beatties’ 12 children—six boys and six girls—as well as their parents and hired hands. Daily chores, including milking and churning, went on all year, for the farm generally had numerous cows, horses, and mules. There was also a certain amount of grain to be raised each year for livestock feed, and a large vegetable garden. Fruit trees included pears, cherries, and apples in two 25-acre orchards—one located on each side of the Turnpike—which provided the principal produce of the farm. Farm produce was regularly marketed in Washington, Alexandria, and local grocery stores, as well as at a roadside stand during the harvest season.[63]
Reunion at Manassas: Colonel John S. Mosby visits Bull Run for the first time since the war. Pictured are (left to right) Fountain Beattie, Lycurgus Hutchison, John Mosby, and George Turberville.
The markets of Washington were only about nine miles from Green Spring Farm, but on market days it was customary for the farm wagons of the neighborhood to be loaded and on the road well before dawn. The Washington city wholesale market opened at 3 A.M. 25 each weekday, and farmers who came there sold directly from their wagons or from stalls to a milling crowd of brokers, wholesalers, retail grocers, hotelmen, and boardinghouse keepers. Most produce was sold by 7 A.M. and the farmer who did not sell out by that time generally had to sell at a sacrifice price or else remain in the market throughout the day, selling at retail to customers who attended the market later in the day.[64] With luck, therefore, the market produce farmer from Northern Virginia might expect to be on his way home by noon.
Not all of Fountain Beattie’s orchard produce, however, went to the market in this way. The spring house on the farm contained presses, storage facilities, and other equipment needed to make apple cider, applejack, and apple and peach brandy. Apples picked in the ripening season were stored in large barrels until the fall and winter months, at which time they were made into fermented or distilled beverages. According to his descendants, Beattie operated a licensed distillery and made brandies at the farm.
Beattie’s livestock operations at the farm ended in tragedy one day when he returned home to find that his barn had caught fire and been completely destroyed. The contents of the barn, which included all of his livestock and much of the farm equipment, were also lost. Only the horse he was riding at the time remained to start rebuilding the farm. As matters turned out, too much had been lost; Fountain Beattie never did more than acquire a few horses to perform the most necessary tasks. The dairy herds and field crops were never developed to the thriving level of activity which typified the 1880’s and 1890’s.[65]