FRYING PAN FARM

By

Elizabeth Brown Pryor

Office of Comprehensive Planning
Fairfax County, Virginia

September, 1979

Library of Congress Catalog Number
79-90519

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Cooperation and goodwill were the essential characteristics of the agricultural communities examined in this study, and it has been my pleasure to discover that those qualities are still very evident today among the county's rural folk. Many residents of the Herndon area shared their personal memories and offered really old-fashioned Virginia hospitality to those doing research. Without the help of Neal Bailey, Elizabeth Ellmore, Emma Ellmore, Virginia Greear, Holden Harrison, Mr. and Mrs. Ray Harrison, Margaret Mary Lee, Edna Middleton, John Middleton, Rebecca Middleton, Richard Peck, Elizabeth Rice, Louise Ryder, and Mary Scott, this monograph could not have been completed.

Special mention must be made of retired County Agricultural Extension Agent Joseph Beard, who shared his detailed knowledge of county agricultural practices on numerous occasions. He willingly arranged interviews with county farmers, and often helped to break the ice by accompanying the interviewer. This was always done with abundant good humor and his enthusiasm was infectious. I am also particularly grateful to Dr. John T. Schlebecker of the Extractive Industries Division of the Smithsonian Institution. His expertise in the field of agricultural technology and special interest in living historical farms added significantly to the quality of the monograph. Additional thanks go to Anthony Pryor of the Rockefeller Foundation who read this paper and helped to put its conclusions in perspective with trends of agricultural economics.

Nan Netherton originally conceived the project and did much of the initial groundwork. The majority of interviews with Floris area farmers were conducted by her. Mrs. Netherton's reputation in the county made it possible for us both to acquire private papers and photographs which might otherwise have been overlooked or withheld. What is more, she sympathetically "initiated" me into the project, offering suggestions and constructive aid without discouraging my own ideas about the direction the study should take.

Elizabeth Brown Pryor
Fairfax, Virginia
June 21, 1979

INTRODUCTION

In 1925 Fairfax County was still predominantly rural in character. Farmers occupied over half of the county's land, living on individual holdings which averaged 62.5 acres. Nearly 85% of these farmers were white and of this group only 15% did not own their own farm. They shared their domain with 3,605 horses, 11,636 head of cattle, 5,408 swine, 171,526 chickens and 178 mules. One-tenth of the farms enjoyed the use of a tractor and 25% had a radio. The average capital holding on land and buildings was $8,229, and the Fairfax County farmer netted something less than $1,000 income annually.[1]

These figures give a skeleton picture of Fairfax County's most prominent citizen in the period between the two World Wars; when the statistics are translated in prose, his shadowy form gains weight. The farmer at this time was a small landowner, possessing a farm only as large as his own family and a few hired laborers could manage. Although his capital holdings were not huge, they were well above the state average. He had the prestige of being a homeowner, and the pride of working his own soil, perhaps the same soil his grandparents had tilled. The rural family raised livestock for their own use, but principally for the market, and favored draft horses over tractors, mules or oxen to power farm equipment. This farmer's time was spent on a myriad of duties and details—his function was not yet totally specialized—ranging from butchering hogs to building chicken coops to thinning corn. He worked for himself, planning the day's activities, relying on his own judgment and initiative to cope with the varying responsibilities he shouldered. His numerical prominence gave him political and social leverage. It was the rural way of life that shaped the county and his demands which needed to be met.

At first glance this farmer's life seems tempered by nature and largely self-contained. The daily routine was established by seasons and sunlight; fortunes were made or lost at the mercy of the wind and rain. A farm was not only the farmer's livelihood and workshop but his home. Thus, unlike the city worker whose occupation was entirely separate from home concerns, country life had a total integration.[2] Moreover, the family farmer possessed a sense of continuity with the long tradition of the small landowner in America. In many respects his life was little changed from that of the thrifty, energetic and shrewd subsistence farmer whom Thomas Jefferson had praised in the eighteenth century as the ideal citizen of a democracy.[3]

In both startling and subtle ways, however, the traditional role of the family farmer was changing in the 1920s and 1930s. In Ellen Glasgow's novel Barren Ground, which examines the uncertainties of life on a northern Virginia dairy farm, the heroine, Dorinda Oakley, describes her emotional and economic reaction to the post World War I period:

With the return of peace she hoped that the daily life on the farm would slip back into orderly grooves; but before the end of the first year she discovered that the demoralization of peace was more difficult to combat than the madness of war. There was no longer an ecstatic patriotism to inspire one to fabulous exploits. The world that had been organized for destruction appeared to her to become as completely disorganized for folly.... The excessive wages paid for unskilled labour were ruinous to the farmer, for the field hands who had earned six dollars a day from the Government were not satisfied to drive a plough for the small sum that had enabled her to reclaim the abandoned meadows of five oaks.... She was using two tractor-ploughs on the farm; but the roads were almost impassable again because none of the negroes could be persuaded to work on them. Even when she employed men to repair the strip of "corduroy" road between the bridge and the fork, it was impossible to keep the bad places firm enough for any car heavier than a Ford to travel over them....[4]

Thus, social and technical advances that had long been desired in rural areas bolstered the farmer's optimism. Yet curiously enough this same progress often jarred his expectations and financial security. Improved roads meant improved markets, and increased contact with outside communities but, along with the advent of the radio, they resulted in a homogenizing of city and country ways, and lured many away from the farm. Concern for rural welfare prompted all levels of government to design programs to aid the farmer—programs which indeed furthered agriculture, but at the price of well-meaning interference in a previously highly individual sphere. Amid regulations and forms the farmer felt a nagging loss of independence. Perhaps most strikingly, widespread use of gasoline-powered equipment changed the pace of work, made him reliant on outside sources for fuel and parts, and involved investments which often prohibited purchase or encouraged specialization.

Hence, the family farm retained its size and shape but it could no longer revel in complete self-reliance.

The model farm at Frying Pan Park is a representation of this changing way of life. It recognizes especially the role of the family subsistence farmer and his contributions to the economy and solidarity of Fairfax County's rural communities. Although this study focuses on the institutions and personalities of the Floris-Herndon area, it is meant to be generic in scope. Dairying, which forms one emphasis of this monograph, was widespread in the area, and though each district had its distinctive elements, the underlying social values and farming methods were consistent throughout the county. In essence, Frying Pan Farm works much as a snapshot would to recall an important phase in Fairfax County's history. It gives a brief glance at a world we have lost, but which lingers significantly in the region's memory.

NOTES

Introduction

[1] United States Census of Agriculture, 1925, Statistics for Virginia (Washington. D.C., 1928).

[2] See, E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (London, 1966), 76-78.

[3] For an overview of Jefferson's political beliefs, including his admiration for the small farmer, see John C. Miller, The Federalist Era (New York, 1968), 70-83.

[4] Ellen Glasgow, Barren Ground (Richmond, 1925), 448-49.

PART I

Continuity

Tradition and personal experience colored the 20th century farmer's reactions. He was accustomed to a world in which his occupation and social status were assured, and childhood experience probably led him to assume the farmer's role naturally. The rhythms of farm life were based on the immutable round of the seasons. Each day's sun and wind pulled the tiller in its direction as did the unceasing need to tame the growth and habits of beasts and land. Nature was the farmer's clock, and though he bid the land to produce what he desired, it was the earth which fixed his hours and chores. From this close association with nature came a continuity and special bond between farmers, which defied both time and place.

Although the early years of the 20th century heralded a new era of specialization in agriculture, the farmers of Fairfax County persisted in executing the varied functions of general farming. Dairying might be the emphasis on many farms, but it was rarely pursued at the expense of production of grain or food for home consumption. Variety continued to be an important quality of farm work. Families on large and specialized farms still did chores similar to those done by subsistence farmers, though the amount of time allotted for each task might differ. The relentlessness of certain activities, such as feeding the stock, was the same whether the farm boasted one cow or fifty. Thus distinctions between general and specialized farmers were not so clear-cut in this period. The following pages detail the work done on a small dairy farm, yet the kinds and methods of activities also pertain to the farmer whose acreage was devoted solely to general farming.

Perpetuity—a continual need to perform certain tasks and watch over specific events on a daily basis—was the most fundamental aspect of farming. The farmer's day began with such an interminable chore: milking the cows. This twice-daily task was, of course, particularly important on dairy farms and its relentlessness is often the first aspect to be mentioned in any farming recollection. "When you have dairy cows," Joseph Beard, who grew up in the Floris area, acknowledged, "that's a 365-day proposition regardless of whether you're sick or anything like that." Another resident, Margaret Mary Lee, explained it more tersely: "Cows and hens and milk trucks did not take holidays."[5] The first milking was early in the morning and most farmers rose around four a.m.[6] The men and any hired hands usually began milking around 4:30 a.m., while the women prepared breakfast. What might initially appear to the outsider as a pleasing novelty was hard and demanding work. This was especially true in the morning when both the new and often the previous night's milk needed to be hauled to Herndon for the early train into Washington. Ray Harrison, with his brother the owner of one of the area's biggest herds, could milk a cow in six minutes—"quicker than a lot people could do it"[7]—but even at this rate, milking his 80-odd cows was a formidable undertaking. John Middleton, who lived down the road from the Harrisons, estimated it took about 1½ hours for seven people to milk his herd of 40 cows; they barely finished in time for the hired man, who took the milk to Herndon, to grab a sandwich and cup of coffee to eat en route.[8]

Portrait of a confident and successful farmer. Holden Harrison, c. 1935. Photo courtesy of Ray Harrison.

The well-equipped dairy barn owned by the Harrison Brothers, c. 1936. The Harrisons owned one of the county's largest herds. Photo courtesy Holden and Ray Harrison.

A Guernsey bull owned by Wilson D. McNair. Acquired in 1918, it was among the earliest pure-bred stock in the area. Photo courtesy of Louise McNair Ryder.

The interior of a large and well-maintained dairy barn on the farm of Holden and Ray Harrison. The barn could house over 50 cows. Photo courtesy of Holden and Ray Harrison.

The milk which traveled to Herndon was strained to remove any extraneous matter and cooked to about 35° F to retard spoilage and reduce the risk of spreading bacterial infections. This was a real problem until mechanized refrigerators became available, and the farmers had to use considerable ingenuity to keep their milk chilled. Some, like the Middletons, kept the milk in the well overnight, and Wilson McNair wrote that his family stored the milk in tall cans set in cold water. Occasionally more drastic action was needed. "Can you imagine going out to Herndon and getting great big chunks of ice and putting it in a washing tub and setting a can of milk in and keeping it cool all night long?" queried Joseph Beard.[9]

Milk earmarked for home use underwent the further process of separating the thick cream from the rest of the milk. In the days before mechanical separators the milk had to stand several hours for the cream to rise, and it was then skimmed by hand or the milk drawn off from the bottom of a can with a spigot. Mechanical separators streamlined this task by allowing the milk to be separated while still warm, using centrifugal action to bring the heavier cream particles to the bottom of the machine.

While the farmers sat down to breakfast the roads started filling with wagons and trucks bringing the day's milk from the entire area. Like Alexandria and Falls Church, the county's other major shipping centers, Herndon served what was known as a "milkshed" area, that is a community whose milk could be transported to that locality without spoiling. Here too the freshness of the milk was of crucial concern. Herndon, with its electric cars on the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad, served most of the county's Dranesville district; however, Floris' close proximity to Herndon gave it an added advantage, for even packed in ice water, milk could easily spoil during the sultry summer months.[10]

A farmer with a good-sized herd such as John Middleton would haul eight or more ten-gallon cans of milk to the depot depending on the time of year. The milk was transported in a light wagon with two horses, which generally held only one farm's milk, though sometimes two or more families shared this duty. Rebecca Middleton recalled her brother collecting cans in an early model truck with a canvas top; he traded hauling with the neighboring Bradleys.[11] For a short time a community co-op, based in Floris, was also established to collect milk for shipment to Washington, D.C.[12] As this milk-laden caravan approached Herndon, the small station there bustled suddenly with activity. For at least one local resident, the sight and sounds were memorable. The "banging of the milk cans at the depot," recalled Lottie Schneider, who grew up in Herndon, "... resounded far and wide." "I liked to hear [it] ... for busy men were working and it was a friendly sound."[13]

Milking was, of course, just one of many chores involved on the family farm. After a 6:30 breakfast (still early in the eyes of many city dwellers) there were stalls to clean, equipment to sterilize, other farm animals to be cared for. Most Fairfax farms retained a few animals for home use even when concentrating on milk production. Before mechanization completely revolutionized farm work, draft horses provided the farm's muscle and a fifty-acre farm would need two to four for plowing, raking hay, and cutting wheat with a binder. The feeding and grooming of these animals formed a vital task. Though Lang and Hurst's commercial meat wagon came through Floris and other communities each Saturday, many families kept hogs and chickens for their own consumption.[14] Elizabeth Rice from the Oakton area stated that, despite her husband's reluctance to spend energy on any facet of farming outside dairying, they raised hogs, "kept on the back end of the farm in the woods."[15] In Floris nearly every family also raised hogs and chickens and Holden Harrison remembered that they "used to get about a hundred chicks each spring—we'd eat them all up by fall."[16] Few Floris area farms kept sheep, though census figures show about 1,200 in the county during this period.[17] In addition, dogs, cats, mules and an occasional goat made up the farm population, all demanding the farmer's attention and time.

With the stock watered, fed, given fresh bedding, and possibly turned out to pasture, the farmer could turn his attention to crops and other matters. Census records show hay and corn to be Fairfax County's most important crops. Little of these were sold commercially, however, rather they were used as support crops for the dairy industry.[18] Hay and feed stores abounded in neighboring towns but most dairymen attempted to supply their own straw, ensilage and grain, thus cutting costs by making the most efficient use of their land. This involved raising several crops and a year-round effort of cultivation.

Work began in early spring when a team of horses—later a tractor—pulled a steel plow across each field, turning up the earth into a rough and lumpy mass. Little was known of contour plowing or planting at this time, and the team was driven back and forth in straight rows. C. T. Rice and County Agricultural Extension Agent H. B. Derr both noted that erosion was a major problem in the area at the time.[19] The newly broken ground was then worked with a "drag," generally made of heavy logs chained together and topped with a platform on which the driver stood. The purpose of this implement was to use the weight of the "drag" to break up the soil clods. After this was finished, a field still needed to be worked once more before planting, this time with a harrow. The harrow resembled a large, spike-toothed rake, with two sections, each containing four rows of teeth. Passed over the field, it stirred up the ground and continued the pulverization of the soil to make a mellow, friable seed bed.[20]

These chores were exacting and time-consuming. Neal Bailey, who has spent many of his 66 years in working fields around Floris, estimated that a man and strong team could harrow or drag but a ten-acre field in about 6½ hours. Plowing took even longer. "Most of the land was hard to plow and we had to start as soon as possible in the spring in order to get through before it got too hard and sometimes we didn't make it," wrote Wilson McNair. The majority of farmers could plow only an acre or acre and a half in a day's time.[21]

Fairfax County's soil (principally Chester loam, a clay soil with a slightly acidic base) was deep, fertile and, as Joseph Beard put it, "adapted to growing the kinds of things cows like to eat at a reasonable price."[22] Because it was somewhat acidic, the soil benefitted from the addition of lime and, of course, needed other fertilizers. Fertilization techniques had been known for hundreds of years (George Washington burned oyster shells to obtain lime for his fields), however, their benefits were not always fully understood. Most farmers spread manure and some guano on their cropland, but correct chemical balances for specific crops were achieved only infrequently. Often the small landowner did not have spare fields to lie fallow for a year—the ideal situation for soil enrichment. "We spread some lime a time or two, but not nearly enough," admitted Wilson McNair. "We got burned lump lime and dumped it on the ground in piles of one bushel and when it had slaked we spread it with a shovel." The spreading itself could be a problem, especially when the earliest trucks began to be used in the mid-1920s. A truck hauling seven or eight tons of lime would bog down in a wet field: "The only way you could get out was to dump the lime, and if you dumped the lime you were in the hole you got stuck in." Thus, a lack of understanding of soil building techniques was coupled with the physical difficulty of fertilization, to inhibit the optimum efficiency of the land in the early 20th century.[23]

With the soil prepared, the crops could be sown. In the fall, generally between mid-October and Thanksgiving, winter wheat was planted. A "drill" or mechanical planter drawn by horses was used, which could be adapted for use with oats, barley or rye. The area had once been a principal wheat-growing region, but in the early 20th century dairymen cultivated wheat chiefly for the straw which was used for bedding. In the mid-1930s, however, the availability of certified seed (seed which was grown to be of a uniform and established varietal type, much as genetically pure livestock was bred) raised the quality of Fairfax wheat and slightly increased the grain's marketability.[24] Edith Rogers, a long-time Floris resident and for many years a member of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, grew wheat on her family's farm to use in chicken feed, and to have milled into flour for home use. It was ground at the Herndon Milling Company.[25] Like the use of certified seed, increased understanding of fertilization and crop rotation practices boosted production of wheat per acre, yet it never gained prominence as even a secondary crop. In large part this was due to the fact that wheat was a less desirable ingredient in cattle feed than was corn or even soybeans.[26]

Corn was planted in the spring, generally in late April. Again a drill was employed, which, planting two rows at a time, enabled the farmer to plant about ten acres in one day. The wide variety of uses for corn made it Fairfax County's most important grain crop and a 1926 report on the area's agriculture observed that "nearly every farm has more or less corn."[27] Not only was the grain a chief ingredient in the dairy cattle's "concentrate" or feed mixture, but it was used to feed horses, chickens and to fatten pigs near butchering time. The leaves and stalks were ground for ensilage or stored in the shock for dry fodder. During the 1920s, County Agent Derr promoted a continual campaign to improve the area's corn production and even introduced a new variety, dubbed "Fairfax County White Corn," because of its local success. He also worked to increase yields of other popular strains, notably Reid's Yellow Dent. In a report on his work in this field in 1925, Derr shows his methods to be not far removed from the early genetic experimentation of Gregor Mendel.

For the past four years the writer has assisted one of his best demonstrators in improving his crop of Reid's Yellow Dent Corn. The first year the best 50 ears were planted in 50 separate rows and at harvest time the best yielding 10 rows were selected for the next year's work. This work was continued, each year the number of rows being reduced. This year the results show a very uniform type of corn....[28]

Soybeans began to be introduced into the area during this period and Fairfax County farmers also sowed various grasses for summer pasturage and to make hay for winter feeding. Timothy and clover predominated among pasture crops. Some farmers persisted in raising alfalfa, despite H. B. Derr's repeated protests that it was unprofitable on the county's lime-poor soil.[29] A few ambitious farmers even experimented with grasses attempting to find those which produced the highest milk yields and one went so far as to have a special ladino clover seed brought from Oregon because he felt it increased the richness of his milk.[30] As with wheat and corn, improved varietal types and stricter control over the uniformity of the seed greatly aided the cultivator.

Spring plowing on the McNair farm near Floris. The serene aspect of the pre-mechanization farm is evident in this photograph taken in the first decade of the twentieth century. Photo courtesy of Louise McNair Ryder.

Naturally, the farmer's work only began with the sowing of the seed, for activity continued throughout the year. The work of calving, of pruning orchard trees, digging garden beds, and trimming cattle hooves occurred in the spring. In early summer the corn was thinned from four to two stalks per hill, by using a sharp stick to dig the stalks out. Then, toward the end of June the winter wheat was harvested. Cut with a binder and tied in bundles, it was shocked (put in stacks of ten to twelve bundles, wigwam fashion, with a bundle on top to shed water, or stacked on poles in a mound with the outside sloping a bit to let the rain run off) and left to dry in the field. If threshed by hand after about a month it had to be gathered and taken to the barn for further drying.

In the 1920s, however, only a few farmers still wielded the flail; most threshing was done by steam and later gas-powered threshing machines which travelled from farm to farm. Wilson McNair described these cumbersome and sometimes dangerous machines this way:

The thresher was run and pulled by a traction engine. They moved slowly only about 2 mi. an hour. The engine had a water tank mounted on each side in the rear to carry water while it was moving from one place to another.... The engines all had whistles and they would blow them every once in a while when they were on the road so we would know they were coming. We had to haul up some wood to fire the engine before we threshed....

In later years we had self-packing and weighing threshers with blowers that moved the straw further from the thresher. One time Mr. Hornbaker threshed for us. We had a small engine and thresher that was pulled by a team. While we were washing up for dinner some one looked up and saw smoke, [on] the other side of the barn where the thresher was. All hands ran up there and pulled the thresher out of the way and saved the wheat that was threshed, but the straw burned up. A spark from the engine had fallen into the straw.[31]

During the summer months of the cultivation process, insect control was also a major consideration. By the late 1930s a few large farms, such as the Harrisons, could hire an airplane to dust their crops, but modest farms of necessity relied on hand labor for this, as most other chores. "As ... new varieties of clover, alfalfa, and other plants came to be used, seems like the insects came along with them," lamented one farmer.[32] The Japanese beetle, introduced into America in the 1920s, wrecked particular havoc with the crucial corn crop. "The Japanese beetle was just awful," recalled Ray Harrison, "it would eat the tassel up which pollinated the corn ... then would get right into the ear of the corn and go right down into the shuckings."[33] Against these pests, and the inevitable destruction of wildlife, weather, and weeds, the farmer had to maintain an eternal vigilance. Much of the growing season was spent in monitoring these destructive forces.

The benefits of this watchfulness became apparent with the harvest. As mentioned above, wheat was the earliest crop reaped but the major harvesting was done early in September. Corn was cut and shocked at this time, and the large task of filling the silo was undertaken. To do this stalks and leaves of the corn were chopped by an ensilage cutter. Like the thresher, this machine was generally owned by an outside agent; it travelled from farm to farm to process each farmer's fodder. The early cutters were powered by steam, but like numerous other farm instruments, gasoline-driven equipment was developed during World War I. On a large farm up to twenty men were needed to keep a threshing machine or ensilage cutter going. Bundles of corn were chopped by the machine and then conveyed to a fan which blew the ensilage through a pipe into the silo. There one to four men tamped it down and guided the nozzle on the blower pipe to insure even distribution. It was dirty work, the corn stalks oozing juice and sticking as tenaciously as burrs to the clothes, hands and hair of those working in the silo. A small landowner might complete the silo filling process in a day, but for large farms it often took the better part of a week.[34]

Just as the spring brought forth a burgeoning activity, so did things happen with a rush in the fall. Haying was done just before the corn harvest, in the hot, late summer days which would cure the new-mown grass in the field. To cut the hay the county's farmers often used a one- or two-horse rake with a single attachment to raise or lower the rake's teeth when passing over a meadow. The dried hay, with its almost overpoweringly sweet smell, was lifted by forks into a wagon, tramped down, then transported to fill bursting barns. The least mechanized farms forked the hay into the lofts by hand but later barns were equipped with a mechanical fork for lifting the hay. Haying had to be done at precisely the right time or the grass would not cure properly and the hay would spoil. The combination of heat, hard, backbreaking work, and the necessity for hurry made haying a particularly fatiguing time.[35]

Most of the harvest was used right on the farm. Like manure, which was recycled to enrich fields and gardens, the grain and hay crops went to nourish the farm's dairy animals. Little was marketed and little was wasted. "That proved to be the best thing you could do," noted Holden Harrison, "grow as much of your own feed for your cattle as you could. You sold your ... crop production through your milk can."[36]

A shock of wheat on the Ellmore farm near Floris. On this particularly successful farm the wheat was sold for seed to help improve the stock on other area farms. Photo in Annual Report of County Agent H. B. Derr, 1925, Virginiana Collection, Fairfax County Public Library.

This mechanical hay loader on the Harrison Brothers' farm near Floris dates from 1935. Photo courtesy of Holden Harrison.

The fruits of the year's labor came not only from the hay fields but from garden and orchard, whose abundance had to be gathered, preserved and stored in the late summer season. Fairfax County had once been a major truck farming section but the onslaught of insects and competition from large commercial orchards (such as those in the Shenandoah Valley) had relegated this produce to the realm of home use. The A. S. Harrison farm included plum, apple, peach and cherry trees and Margaret Mary Lee recalled that cherries, pears and apples grew in her family's orchard. Sometimes pears and apples were made into cider but most of the fruit was dried or canned for winter use. Many farmers made the extra effort to keep bees under their fruit trees because they aided pollination and produced honey from the blossoms. The Lees were among those who enjoyed the soft hum of the bees among the orchard trees. Margaret Lee especially liked to recall them darting busily between the fragrant white sheets, when the washing was hung in the yard.[37]

The vegetable garden, too, had a prominent place in the farm scheme. Elizabeth Rice noted that "everyone had a good garden, growing such things as sweet corn, limas, string beans, potatoes, tomatoes, and asparagus."[38] Others mentioned lettuce, herbs and popcorn in the family vegetable patch and many farms had grape arbors.[39] Like other areas of cultivation, the garden plot required care and attention for three seasons of the year. The round of soil preparation, planting, nourishing and harvesting added additional responsibilities to the multitude of duties which already crowded the sunlight hours. Still, the rewards were great: self-sufficiency, economy, and the enjoyment of the earth's fresh bounty.

With the harvest over the farmer would fill the less hectic winter hours with the unending minutia of the farm. Fence and equipment mendings, cutting ice from ponds and rivers, chopping wood, and grubbing up trees all had a part in his busy life. Another burst of activity occurred in early winter when animals were butchered for the year's meat. Most farm families bought their beef in Herndon, but nearly everyone kept hogs for home consumption.[40] Neal Bailey, a veteran of many local butcherings, described them in this particularly detailed manner:

Two to three meat hogs per year were raised and slaughtered, all about Thanksgiving. Farmers used to do everything by the almanac. Two men would grab a hog and throw it on its back and cut the jugular vein with a butcher knife. The pig was thrown then into a scalding trough—a metal trough with water placed over a wood fire burning in a trench.... In the old days, the local farmers heated rocks red hot and threw them in a big barrel of water. It was a day's work to haul rocks for this. The hair was scalded and scraped off. Then the hog was gutted. Old folks used to take the insides and make chitlins out of them. I never ate them myself. The hogs were hung up overnight in a shed or in a tree where dogs couldn't get it, to let the carcasses cure. The skin was left on the carcass, and next day, it was cut up and salted down in a box. It was kept tight so flies and mice couldn't get in.... Anything that was left in spring was smoked to preserve it through the summer.[41]

A small orchard apiary kept to provide honey and aid pollination of the fruit trees. Photo in Annual Report of County Agent H. B. Derr, 1925, Virginiana Collection, Fairfax County Public Library.

Each family preserved its own meat and as Emma Ellmore related, "everybody had his own pet recipe ... for mixing the salt and the brown sugar—and some smoked the meat and some didn't." Lard had to be rendered for storage in the cellar, sausage hand-ground and canned or frozen, the heads boiled until the meat left the bones, then chopped and pressed into a pan with the pot liquor to make headcheese. Butchering time seems to have been an especially unforgettable occasion, for its details stand out sharply in the minds of many. "After butchering each year, Mother made ... buckwheat cakes to eat with fresh sausage," reminisced Margaret Peck. "Baked on a long black griddle, over a wood stove, spread with homemade butter and topped with corn syrup, they were the right beginning for a winter day."[42] For Floris residents, the smells and tastes of a time seem to whirl the memory backward with particular acuity.

Even in the hectic activity of harvest, a farmer was obliged to move through the evening routine of milking, feeding and bedding his animals. With these tasks completed, and a final check on the barns to see that all was snug, the farmer's day was nearly complete by about 6:00. He ate a hearty supper, then read The Southern Planter, and possibly mended farm machinery or did a little work in the barn.[43] For those who arose at 4:00 a.m. "in all kinds of weather," sleep came early and the house was usually dark by 9:00 p.m.[44]

*

In all of this activity of cultivation, the rush of harvest, and regularity of day-to-day chores, the farmer worked, not alone, but in conjunction with his family. Unlike the industrial worker, whose employment was discrete and separate from his home life, the farmer's home was his workshop, and his labor directly connected to his sustenance. His family was an integral part of this scheme; far from being removed from the household's form of support, they were intimately bound up in it. Wife, husband, children and grandparents all contributed in their distinct sphere. The term "family farm" was no idle denomination, but a recognition of the importance the entire family played in the smooth operation of the farm.

The relationship of a farm husband and wife was in many ways a truer partnership than that of the urban marriage. "A farmer needs a wife like he needs the rain," is an old farm saying, expounded for decades in the farmer's almanacs. It has now been collaborated by rural sociologists to show that farm efficiency was based largely on the partners' shared duties.[45] The farmers themselves seemed to realize this. In a 1932 nationwide survey of factors which farmers regarded as most important to their success, "co-operation of wives" was ranked second.[46]

The activities of rural men and women were co-equal, not identical. Women rarely worked in the fields except in the press of harvesting when they might drive a horse to pull up the hay fork—"what we've all done, I guess," agreed one group of Floris women.[47] They only occasionally aided the men in the barn. Edith Rogers remembered working with the stock as did Margaret Mary Lee, who helped with milking and also recalled washing the milk storage tank and other equipment. This pleased the local milk inspector who told her, "When women are in the barn, I know the equipment is clean."[48] Except for such intermittent work, the outside duties were left to the men. Instead, most women's activity was to be found in the farmhouse and garden. Her responsibilities encompassed the expected areas of housekeeping, decorating and sewing, and often the less obvious work of bookkeeping or lawnmowing.

The farm woman's most demanding task probably centered around the preparation and preservation of food, a vitally important function, for to waste or misuse food was to negate the hard labor of a year. In the current era of convenience foods, the time-consuming nature of cooking is easily forgotten. Just operating a wood-burning stove was a complicated task, attested to by the directions for laying a fire in a contemporary cookbook.

To build a fire, first let down the grate, and take up the ashes and cinders carefully to avoid raising a dust, sifting the cinders to use in building the fire; brush the soot and dust out of the upper part of the stove, and from the flues which can be reached; be sure that all parts of the ovens and hot-boxes are clean; if there is a water-back attached to the stove, see that it is filled with water; if it is connected with water-pipes, be sure in winter that they are not frozen; brush up the hearth-stone. Lay the fire as follows: Put a few handfuls of dry shavings or paper in the bottom of the grate; upon them, some small sticks of pine wood laid across each other; then a few larger sticks, and some cinders free from ashes; a few small lumps of coke or coal may be mixed with the cinders. Open all the draughts of the stove, close all the covers, and light the fire; when the cinders are lighted, add fresh coke and coal gradually and repeatedly until a clear, bright fire is started; then partly close the draughts. To keep up a fire, add fuel often, a little at once, in order not to check the heat: letting the fire burn low, and then replenishing it abundantly, is a wasteful method, because the stove grows so cold that most of the fresh heat is lost in raising the temperature again to the degree necessary for cooking.[49]

INVENTORY OF THE ESTATE OF GEORGE W. KIDWELL
December 9, 1925

This inventory, attached to the will of a small farmer, shows the diverse equipment found on the 1920's farm.

Plan of the family farm of Mason F. Smith, drawn by Mason Smith, Jr., for a 4-H Club project. The farm was bought in 1932 by Floyd Kidwell and now constitutes the nucleus of Frying Pan Farm Park. From Mason Smith, Jr. Livestock Record Books in Annual Report of County Agent H. B. Derr, 1929, Virginiana Collection, Fairfax County Public Library.

Though the wood-burning stoves often imparted a special flavor to the food prepared on them (for example, one farm cooking devotee opined that no waffles could taste like those from a wood-burning stove[50]), the stoves were fearfully hot in the summer and needed constant refueling and expert attention to heat evenly. Few Fairfax County farm women had the luxury of electricity in their kitchens until well after 1935. Statistics show that only 65% of farm women cooked with electricity even in 1940.[51]

In addition to the large regular meals required by a hard-working family, the farm woman prepared the gargantuan harvest meals shared by all who worked in the fields. Cooking these meals in the late summer heat was a chore which took several days. "An ordeal" one veteran called it and enumerated some parts of the expected menu: corn bread, hot biscuits, pork shoulder, pressed chicken, fried chicken, vegetables and pie. "We'd put food enough together for them—and did they eat!"[52] Even at other times of the year, a farm wife needed to count on unexpected visitors and accommodate her activities to an unforeseen need to entertain. Her adaptability is attested to by Joseph Beard who described the open farm hospitality of the era:

When anybody came around to your farm in those days, when dinnertime came, you'd say, 'Well, it's time for dinner. Let's go eat.' It didn't seem to matter if you had somebody drop in on you on short notice. Women, ladies, mothers, wives, were accustomed to this kind of thing. It never seemed to upset them. They just took it in stride. They put on another plate and said, 'We haven't got much, but you're welcome to what we have.' They'd go on like this. They would bring out the best they could find. That was the kind of condition that prevailed.[53]

The lady of the house in this period did not merely cook her family's food; she was instrumental in its production and processing. The family garden was generally her responsibility. It was she who planted the early radishes, herbs, flowers and all the multitude of summer vegetables in the cool, moist spring soil, weeded and nurtured them through the summer months, and finally gathered them in the lingering Indian summer days. If there were daughters in the family, they aided her in this as in her other activities. When the produce was finally all picked, peeled and cut, she combined them with vinegar, sugar, and spices to preserve the vegetables as pickles, jelly or canned goods. It was warm and tiring, but highly rewarding work. "Never will I forget the pungent fragrances that pervaded the air when it was catsup or pickle-making season," wrote Lottie Schneider.

When our mothers made apple butter in great kettles each child took a turn at stirring the delicious mixture. The wonderful fragrance made the task easier even though the thickening ingredients sometimes sputtered and caused burns as they popped out on the hands who used the stirring paddle.[54]

The pantry shelves filled with glass jars displaying their highly colored contents produced feelings of pride and plenty in the farm woman.

Poultry keeping also fell to the farmer's wife. There were a sizable number of commercial poultry farms in the county—it was in fact the area's second most important farm industry—but most dairy and general farms kept just enough for their own use.[55] Egg collecting, feeding and cleaning of the chicken house and yard, even killing, dressing and plucking the poultry were done by female members of the farm family. Thrifty women saved the feathers for pillows and coverlets and nearly all sold their excess eggs to the "hucksters" who travelled from farm to farm buying surplus goods. These peddlars also bought rabbits, turkeys, and other poultry, as well as home-churned butter from the farms. This was yet another area in which women utilized and processed the raw materials of the land. Twice a week the cream that had been skimmed and saved was churned (generally in round barrel churns with wooden paddles), salted, and packed in stone jars to be picked up and transported to the Alexandria and Washington markets. One of the early hucksters was Earl Robey who collected eggs and chickens once a week. "He travelled with 2 horses hitched to a covered wagon," wrote one farmer. "In later years he had a model T truck." The money made by the women was theirs to keep, for running the house and personal expenses, and the austerity or comparative comfort of a farmstead was often the direct result of the energy and efficiency of the farm woman.[56]

The rural woman's place was respected and secure on the farms of fifty years ago. The farmer might consider himself the overall manager but he recognized his spouse's vital contributions. "Mutually they both decided to make things go and they did go," wrote one 1930s farm boy of his parents. "Mother did not feel inferior to father and she never felt that he expected her to feel so."[57] If the woman's role and duties were firmly set in this rural society, then so was her status.

An additional responsibility was that of caring for children, but in the farm family this was more clearly a joint obligation of the father and mother than in families in which the male parent left home to work. Too, children were more closely tied to the family as a working unit; they felt both the necessity of aiding their parents with the running of the farm and the pride of contributing in a real sense to the family's well-being. Of course, farm children attended school, but they also shared the pattern of their parents' life. With father and mother they awoke in the early hours of the morning to help with barn or household chores: "It didn't make any difference how small they were, they got up at six o'clock."[58] Many learned to milk before the age of ten. On weekends, summer holidays and after school, they were also expected to help on the farm. Both boys and girls performed the unending job of gathering firewood for the kitchen stove. Carrying water was another constant chore which often fell to the family's children, for as late as 1940 nearly 40% of the county's homes still lacked running water.[59] Farm youngsters learned to drive a team and ride horseback at an early age, and this enabled them to take a horse to be shod, fetch a mower section from the general store, or run other unexpected errands. Margaret Lee stated that as a girl she used to hitch up a mule and buggy each Monday to take the family's laundry to be washed by a local Negro laundress, and pick it up again on Thursday.[60] Girls also helped with the dishes, fed chickens, and cooked while boys tackled plowing, threshing and animal husbandry. One woman recalled the special satisfaction she felt when, at the age of thirteen, she shocked an entire field of wheat.[61] By doing these chores and errands, farm children were not merely assisting in the farm operation. In the emulation of their parents' activity, they benefitted from a kind of on-the-job training which both sharpened their skills for a later farm career and furthered their identity with the family group and farm life in general.

The farm child's close connection to his parents' life and the necessity for performing a variety of chores also acted in some measure as a force for social control: the child who worked with his parents was expected to act in a manner acceptable to them. Furthermore, the close-knit nature of the community reinforced the parents' values when their offspring were away from home. "A farmer was always busy, and his kids didn't run the streets," noted Joseph Beard.[62] Another native of northern Virginia explained the prevalent philosophy in more detail:

Papa was a firm believer that work was a therapy that kept young people out of mischief. It was unthought of for youngsters to get into serious trouble in those days other than smoking corn silk or grapevine, and that was a punishment in itself. All were assigned specific chores and the youngest started out picking up chips and other small pieces of wood from the 'woodpile' for kindling to start the fire in the kitchen range at daylight in the morning.... As we grew a little older bringing in the firewood was added to the list of chores and when you grew big enough to chop and split cordwood, usually around the age of 10-12 years, one found the chores around the home were endless.[63]

Rebecca Rice, daughter of C. T. Rice, canning fruit in her home near Oakton, Virginia. Note the ice box and wood burning stove, standard features of the early 20th century kitchen. Photo in H. B. Derr Reports, Virginiana Collection, Fairfax County Public Library.

Elizabeth Harrison in her room on a farm near Herndon, Virginia. She refurbished the room herself as part of a 4-H project. Photo in H. B. Derr Reports, Virginiana Collection, Fairfax County Public Library.

The round of chores might seem endless, but farm kids had their fun, too. Joseph Beard and Richard Peck both recall swimming in Horse Pen Run and Peck also reminisced about fishing in the local streams.[64] Margaret Lee was sometimes treated to a baked sweet potato after school; she rode the family mule for recreation.[65] At Halloween, much secret giggling went on as plans were afoot to take an outhouse and sit it on the school porch, or sneak all of the milk cans out of the dairy and set them outside.[66] Skating on the baptismal pond of Frying Pan Baptist Church, and neighborhood events such as picnics, watermelon feasts and oyster suppers also lent excitement to the child's life. Perhaps the most pervasive enjoyment came from the ever-changing delights of the countryside itself. Wrote one resident of the Herndon area: "We could ramble through the woods, finding huckleberries, wild flowers, sassafras roots and stems, chestnuts and lovely mosses."[67]

*

Although children provided a great deal of supplemental labor on the county's small farms, the "hired hand" was also an important part of the community's work force. One local resident estimated that approximately half of the farms in the Herndon area used hired labor, and this figure is collaborated by the agricultural census of 1940. Other evidence shows that the largest single expense (about 38% of total farm expenditures) for the owner of thirty or more acres was hired help.[68] In Fairfax County, as in most of the South, this hired labor was composed almost entirely of the community's black residents, though occasionally a family would employ a white man. The Ellmore family, who often had a white man as their hired help, was such an exception.[69]

A homemade sled used for hauling manure to the fields. Note the two young boys who, by driving the sled, shared the family's responsibility for the farm. Photo in Annual Report of County Agent H. B. Derr, 1925, Virginiana Collection, Fairfax County Public Library.

Extra help was engaged in several ways. Larger farms frequently kept one or two men throughout the year, sometimes supplying them with a house and their noon meal as well as a salary.[70] On most farms, however, extra help would be hired at particularly busy seasons by the day or the week. "In the summertime you'd get seasonal help, gather them up here and there, wherever you could," stated Holden Harrison. "If you could carry those men, at least the best ones, over the winter, then you'd have a good force that you could depend on for your summer work, your planting and harvesting."[71] In some cases the hired man would come with his team of horses for which he received additional wages. In another variation groups of workers would organize into crews to perform a specific function (for example, to fill a silo) and travelled from farm to farm accomplishing this special task.[72]

Many of the laborers in the Floris area came from Willard, a community of both whites and blacks, just over the Loudoun County line. About 85% of Fairfax County's black population owned no land in 1934 and supported themselves solely by agricultural labor.[73] Unlike this large landless majority, many of Willard's families owned three to fifteen acres of land. Most of these families grew vegetables on their land and nearly all kept a cow.[74] A few black families tried to support themselves by truck gardening, a difficult task when competing with larger more economical farms. One such farmer, Ernest E. Webb, struggled to maintain his children by selling vegetables in the city market. Biweekly he took his goods by wagon across the low, unstable Chain Bridge and along Canal Road to the markets in Washington, but for this long, exhausting trip his profits were slim: "We made enough to come back home, feed the horses, and feed ourselves a little for another trip."[75] To eke out an existence, most blacks had to supplement any farming income they might have by working as agricultural laborers.

Those laborers who did not have steady employment had to wait for work until they were needed for a specific job. When a farmer wanted extra help, he went to the black community, or sent word by someone else, and detailed the number of men needed and the job to be done. "In the spring my father would go up there [to Willard] or send me up there to see if I could get three or four fellows to help get the spring work going," remarked Holden Harrison. "Maybe you could get them and maybe you couldn't."[76] Sometimes there was a labor shortage, but frequently more men wanted work than there were jobs to go around. Several area residents remembered that if word got out that ten men were needed for a job, often fifteen or more would show up.[77] This was especially true during the agricultural depression of the 1920s and 1930s, which hit blacks far worse than the county's white population. The blacks' landholdings were of inferior quality and generally too small for efficient operation, and this, combined with their meagre operating capital and inadequate reserves, made the black agriculturalist more dependent than ever on work from the large landowner.[78]

The hired man was expected to arrive in time for the early morning milking and work the lengthy fifteen-hour day alongside the farmer. His chores ranged from making hay to cutting wood and building fences. Neal Bailey recalled that he spent his entire first day as a laborer driving fence posts with a 16-pound hammer. The standard salary was $1.00 to $1.50 per day plus all he could eat for lunch. Some farmers paid by the job rather than by the day though they found the latter system preferable. When the help was not so concerned with completing a task rapidly, farmers believed it produced a better quality work. Occasionally the white farmers shared or traded work with their black counterparts. More frequently, hired hands worked for a share of the fruits of their labor. At butchering time, the hired help might go home with sausage, side meat (bacon) or a pork shoulder for his pay. At berry season they picked a farmer's blackberries or wild cherries for half of the take.[79]

The women and children of the black communities in Fairfax County also worked. Black women took in laundry, picked fruit and sometimes came to the white farmer's houses to help with canning or meat preservation at butchering time. One woman worked as a midwife; according to Margaret Lee, the only one in the area. She delivered Miss Lee's younger sister around 1913.[80] Children as young as nine would thin corn or pluck potato bugs off the dark, leafy plants for 50¢ a day. Girls used to pick berries and pull field cress when it was going to seed, and some children worked in the farmhouses running errands.[81] The Ellmore family often had a young boy to help do odds and ends, and another Floris resident noted that "there was some twins of about twelve years old and we needed a little help so I took one of them in the house and my brother had the other out to help him with things."[82] Neal Bailey recalled going out to help his father cut corn at a very young age and being told to "keep working—you have no back," even when it felt as if it were breaking.[83]

Within these labor relationships the white employer retained the most control since he set wages and hours, and because he worked with the knowledge that the black families were dependent on him for employment. Yet the blacks had their influence too, for the larger landowners needed their labor to keep the farms operating smoothly. The farmer's dependence was apparent in instances such as that related by Ray Harrison, who remembered one Christmas night when no help at all showed up. That night he milked fifty-two cows by hand, something he could not afford to do every day.[84] In numerous ways the hired hands exercised some control over their working conditions. For example, seasoned workmen reserved the right to "break in" a field hand new to the neighborhood, thus both initiating him into local work patterns and assuring that his expectations and treatment corresponded to that of the veteran help.[85] In times of intense activity, the labor supply would be short and the workers raised their prices accordingly. One farmer recalled that during an exceptionally busy silo-filling season the help were "jacking up the price ... ten cents an hour about four times in one day.... They were putting pressure on because they thought they had the leverage there." In this case the farmer called their bluff and sent the workers home, but in many instances, the laborers held sway and received higher wages during peak work periods.[86]

The white attitude toward their black workers seems to have been paternalistic, as was the pattern of most racial relations in the post-bellum South. Though area farmers maintain that their hired laborers were liked and respected—"as much a part of the neighborhood as anyone else"—in conversation capable workers were referred to as "boy" or by the old plantation epithets of "Aunt" and "Uncle." A hearty noon meal was part of the hired man's pay, but the help ate outside by themselves, rather than with the family.[87] Moreover, rather than admit his need for the laborers, the white employer sometimes viewed his hiring in an altruistic light. "I remember my brother went over to these colored people that had been working for him at different times, in the middle of the winter, and told them to come over and cut some wood, and he paid them for it so that they would have something, because they were pretty bad off. So he just made work for them," stated one county woman.[88] Undoubtedly, charitable motives were truly meant, but the outcome was a paternalistic attitude which failed to recognize the mutual dependence of land and labor.

This reliable supply of labor eliminated the county's need for migratory workers, and also reduced the amount of tenancy since most farmers found labor enough to manage all of their acreage. Nevertheless, during the period between 1918-1940, about 10-12% of the white farm population and 2% of the black were tenants.[89] Statistical evidence shows over half of the tenants to be cash croppers in 1925 and 40% in 1940. Many historians believe this to be the least beneficial system for the tenant as his obligation was to pay the landlord a fixed rent on the land regardless of the success of his crop.[90] However, Joseph Beard stated that most of the tenants with whom he had contact when he was county agent in the late 1930s were sharecroppers. By this system, the renting farmer supplied his tools and labor, the landlord furnished the land, and the crop was split.

Fairfax County never harbored the kind of perpetual tenancy described by James Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, in which families lived in squalor and humiliation with little hope of pulling their way out of debt. This occurred more frequently in the one-crop areas of the deep South where exhausted soil and crop dependency made for a high debt risk each year. Beard maintained that the sharecroppers of the late 1930s were respectable people, merely renting land until they could afford to purchase their own. In several instances, they were young local couples who went on to buy their tenured land and to become established members of the community.[91] Still, at best, any tenure system was a demoralizing one for the renter because his profits were consistently skimmed off to the landlord.

PART I—NOTES

Continuity

[5] Interview with Joseph Beard by Elizabeth Pryor, Fairfax, Virginia, January 23, 1979; notes from interview with Margaret Mary Lee by Nan Netherton, Herndon, Virginia, March 28, 1978. All transcripts and notes from interviews used in this paper are deposited in the Fairfax County Library Virginiana Collection (hereafter cited "Virginiana").

[6] Notes on interview with Elizabeth and Emma Ellmore by Nan Netherton, Herndon, Virginia, March 2, 1978.

[7] Interview with Holden Harrison, Ray Harrison and Virginia Presgraves Harrison by Elizabeth Pryor, Chantilly, Virginia, February 5, 1979.

[8] Notes on interview with John and Edna Middleton by Nan Netherton, Herndon, Virginia, February 24, 1978.

[9] Interview with Joseph Beard and Holden Harrison by Elizabeth Pryor, Floris, Virginia, March 6, 1979; Wilson Day McNair, "What I Remember," unpublished manuscript, n.d., copy courtesy of Louise McNair Ryder; author's conversation with Rebecca Middleton, Floris, Virginia, April 4, 1979.

[10] John Middleton/Netherton, February 24, 1978; and interview with Joseph Beard by Nan Netherton and Patrick Reed, Fairfax, Virginia, November, 1974.

[11] Ellmore/Middleton/Pryor, March 8, 1979.

[12] "Floris Producers Active," Herndon News-Observer, January 22, 1925.

[13] Lottie Dyer Schneider, Memoirs of Herndon, Virginia (Marion, Virginia, 1962), 10 and 30.

[14] Notes on interview with Richard Peck by Nan Netherton, Herndon, Virginia, February 23, 1978; notes on interview with Virginia McFarland Greear by Nan Netherton, Herndon, Virginia, March 2, 1978; and Schneider, Memoirs of Herndon, Virginia, 10.

[15] Elizabeth Rice to author, Wilmington, Delaware, January 30, 1979.

[16] Beard/Netherton/Reed, November, 1974; Peck/Netherton, February 23, 1978; Ellmore/Netherton, March 2, 1978; and Harrison/Pryor, February 5, 1979.

[17] Agricultural Census, 1925; and Federal Crop Reporting Service, Virginia Farm Statistics, 1935-1936 (Richmond, 1936).

[18] Ibid.; and Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 6, 1979.

[19] Lehman Nickell and Cary J. Randolph, An Economic and Social Survey of Fairfax County (Charlottesville, 1924), 29-40; notes on interview with Neal Bailey by Nan Netherton, Herndon, Virginia, December 12, 1978; "Fairfax Farmer Threw Away His Plow in 1928 and Amazing Results Have Been Revolutionary," Richmond Times-Dispatch, September 17, 1951; and Annual Reports of County Agricultural Extension Agent H. B. Derr, 1928, 1929 and 1932, in Virginiana.

[20] Bailey/Netherton, December 19, 1978.

[21] Ibid.; and McNair, "What I Remember."

[22] Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 6, 1979.

[23] Derr Reports, 1928, 1932; McNair, "What I Remember"; and Joseph Beard quoted in Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 6, 1979.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Notes on interview with Edith Rogers by Nan Netherton, Herndon, Virginia, n.d. (c. spring, 1978).

[26] Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 6, 1979.

[27] Bailey/Netherton, December 19, 1978; Rogers/Netherton; Derr Report, 1926, 9.

[28] Derr Report, 1925, 2.

[29] Agricultural Census, 1925; and Derr Reports, 1921 and 1924.

[30] "Fairfax Farmer Threw Away Plow."

[31] Bailey/Netherton, December 19, 1978; and McNair, "What I Remember."

[32] Harrison/Pryor, February 5, 1979.

[33] Ibid.

[34] Bailey/Netherton, December 19, 1978; notes on interview with Joseph Beard by Elizabeth Pryor, Fairfax, Virginia, February 27, 1979; and Harrison/Pryor, February 5, 1979.

[35] Bailey/Netherton, December 19, 1978; McNair, "What I Remember."

[36] Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 8, 1979.

[37] Harrison/Pryor, February 5, 1979; Lee/Netherton, March 28, 1978; Elizabeth Rice to Mary Scott, n.d. (c. fall, 1978), copy courtesy of Mary Scott.

[38] Elizabeth Rice to author, January 30, 1979.

[39] 4-H Record Books, copy in Annual Report of County Agricultural Extension Agent; Derr Report, 1927; Beard/Pryor, January 23, 1979; and McNair, "What I Remember."

[40] Rogers/Netherton; Greear/Netherton, March 23, 1978.

[41] Bailey/Netherton, December 19, 1978.

[42] Margaret Peck quoted in Out of the Frying Pan (Herndon, Virginia, 1964), 4.

[43] J. Middleton/Netherton, February 24, 1978.

[44] Ellmore/Netherton, March 2, 1978; and Beard/Pryor, January 23, 1979.

[45] See Hills Southern Almanac, (Virginia Fire and Marine Insurance Company, 1929); J. H. Kolb and Edmund S. de Brunner, A Study of Rural Society (Boston, 1935), 36-37.

[46] Ibid., 37.

[47] Ellmore/Middleton/Pryor, March 8, 1979.

[48] Rogers/Netherton; Lee/Netherton, March 28, 1978.

[49] Juliet Corson, Miss Corson's Practical American Cookery (New York, 1886), 4; and Adeline Goessling, The Farm and Home Cook Book (Chicago, 1919).

[50] Frances Darlington Simpson, Virginia Country Life and Cooking (Washington, D.C., 1963).

[51] Virginia Polytechnical Institute, The Housing of Virginia's Rural Folk (Blacksburg, 1940), 26.

[52] Rebecca Middleton quoted in Ellmore/Middleton/Pryor, March 8, 1979.

[53] Beard/Pryor, January 23, 1979.

[54] Schneider, Memoirs of Herndon, Virginia, 30.

[55] Derr Reports, 1926, 1927; nearly all interviews collaborated this information, see especially Peck/Netherton, February 23, 1978.

[56] Greear/Netherton, March 23, 1978; McNair, "What I Remember."

[57] Unidentified 1930s farmer quoted in Kolb and Brunner, A Study of Rural Society, 33.

[58] Ibid.; Beard/Pryor, January 23, 1979.

[59] VPI, Housing, 26.

[60] Lee/Netherton, March 28, 1978.

[61] Ibid.; Ellmore/Netherton, March 2, 1978; Peck/Netherton, February 23, 1978.

[62] Beard/Pryor, January 23, 1979.

[63] Edwin W. Beitzell, Life on the Potomac River (Abell, Maryland, 1968), 130.

[64] Beard/Pryor, January 23, 1979; Peck/Netherton, February 23, 1978.

[65] Lee/Netherton, March 28, 1978.

[66] Ibid.

[67] Schneider, Memoirs of Herndon, Virginia, 31.

[68] Lee/Netherton, March 28, 1978; and W. C. Funk, "An Economic Study of Small Farms Near Washington, D.C.," United States Department of Agriculture Bulletin 848, June 22, 1920. This study concludes that the farmer with thirty or more acres spent 38% of his revenue for labor, as compared with 10% for feed, 11% for marketing and 3% for insurance and taxes. See Table IV of this study for a complete breakdown.

[69] Ellmore/Netherton, March 2, 1978.

[70] Harrison/Pryor, February 5, 1979.

[71] Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 6, 1979.

[72] Ibid.

[73] Ibid.; and William Edward Garnett and John W. Ellison, "Negro Life in Rural Virginia, 1865-1934," Virginia Polytechnical Institute Bulletin 295, June, 1934.

[74] Beard/Pryor, February 27, 1979; and Bailey/Netherton, December 19, 1978.

[75] Dana Gumb, "Pioneer Recalls McLean," Echoes of History, (March and May, 1972), 28.

[76] Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 6, 1979.

[77] Beard/Pryor, February 27, 1979; and Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 6, 1979.

[78] Garnett and Ellison, "Negro Life in Rural Virginia," 13.

[79] Beard/Pryor, February 27, 1979; Bailey/Netherton, December 19, 1978; Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 6, 1979.

[80] Lee/Netherton, March 28, 1978.

[81] Bailey/Netherton, December 19, 1978.

[82] Ellmore/Netherton, March 2, 1978; interview with Edith Rogers by Patty Corbat, Craig Smith and Phyllis Hirshman, June 12, 1970.

[83] Bailey/Netherton, December 19, 1978.

[84] Harrison/Pryor, February 5, 1979.

[85] Bailey/Netherton, December 19, 1978; Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 6, 1979.

[86] Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 6, 1979; Beard/Pryor, February 27, 1979.

[87] Greear/Netherton, March 23, 1978; Peck/Netherton, February 23, 1978.

[88] Rogers/Corbat, et al., June 12, 1970.

[89] Nickell and Randolph, An Economic and Social Survey of Fairfax County, 75-76; and Agricultural Census, 1925. Nickell gives a 13% tenancy and lists 175 out of 304 tenants to be working on a cash-tenant basis. The Agricultural Census for 1940 also shows a 10% tenancy figure.

[90] Beard/Pryor, January 23, 1979. For a grim but revealing view of what tenancy could mean during this period, see James Agee and Walker Evans, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, (New York, 1960).

[91] Harold Barger and Hans M. Lansburg, American Agriculture 1899-1939 (New York, 1975), 212; and Beard/Pryor, January 23, 1979.

PART II

Change

In its seasonal cycle of activity, the close and interdependent family relationships, and the singular self-motivation of the farmer, the early 20th century farm carried on many of the traditions of the past. Except for the change from slave to free labor and the marginal use of mechanical equipment, these elements made up a world in which the farmer of 1890, 1870, or even 1850 would have felt comfortable. But running concurrently with these expected qualities of rural life were major changes which jarred and fractured the constant trends of farming. Change in attitude, technology or society occurs during all periods, but the 1920s and 1930s were a particularly dynamic time in the field of agriculture. Advances in the understanding of plant biology, animal husbandry and soil conservation, together with higher living standards through rural electrification and improved communications, were a cause for optimism about the future of the family farm. Yet these advances irrevocably altered the familiar rural life patterns. To maintain his own station within this changing world, the farmer's outlook and methods would also have to change.

*

Perhaps the most obvious modification of the traditional methods of farming was the increased mechanization of many farm functions during the early part of the 20th century. Not only were plows improved (by the addition of a vertical disk which made for deeper cutting and more thorough turning of the soil) and heavier harrows developed, but gasoline-powered machinery began to be widely used.[92] The diesel tractor had actually been available as early as 1905, but was not generally adopted until World War I at which time military experimentation improved the engine's construction and worker shortages made the labor-efficient machinery especially valuable. The introduction in 1924 of an all-purpose tractor, which could cultivate as well as prepare the soil, increased the machinery's usefulness and gave an additional thrust to its popularity.[93] The tractor was meant to replace the work of draft horses, the large, gentle creatures who, along with oxen and mules, had supplied the farm's power for centuries. The saving the new machinery incurred was chiefly in time, an intangible element of economics which farmers were just beginning to consider in their appraisal of income and farm value. Often the use of a tractor cut work time by half or more. Ray Harrison recalled that it took five horses and three men several days work to clean out the trees and brush for a potential field; his brother could do it with only one helper in a single day.[94]

A broadcast harvester capable of picking four rows at a time. This mechanical picker was developed by a county farmer, H. C. Clapp. Photo in H. B. Derr Report, 1921, Virginiana Collection, Fairfax County Public Library.

Wheat being mechanically harvested, c. 1925. Few farms could afford the luxury of such equipment at this time. Photo in H. B. Derr Report, 1925, Virginiana Collection, Fairfax County Public Library.

The early tractors were not without their problems. Initially their wheels were of steel, which packed down the wet earth making plowing difficult, or lost traction and became mired in the ever-present red mud; the addition of spiked wheels or heavy chains helped only a little before pneumatic tires were introduced in 1932.[95] The machinery was also expensive and complicated to repair. Few farms were as fortunate as the Harrisons' on which one brother had taken numerous mechanical courses and had even worked in a tractor repair shop.[96] For farmers who could not always correlate time savings with financial advantage, the large capital outlay seemed unnecessary or even unwise. As the machinery was best adapted to large farms and intensive cultivation, this was especially true in situations where the farmer did not feel overworked, or held few ambitions to expand production.

Thus, Fairfax County farmers were slow to embrace the newfangled technology. A 1924 survey of the county showed that only 10% of the farmers owned a tractor despite County Agent Derr's assertion that the "cutting of wheat with the tractor had been found the most economical way for many reasons. The principle being rapidity and saving of labor."[97] As late as 1936 Derr wrote that the majority of the small farmers could not afford to purchase mechanized equipment and were compelled to continue with their horses. The cost was partially offset by machinery loaned by the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), for example, a seed corn grader and wheat smut treater which travelled "like a missionary ... from farm to farm in their crop improvement work."[98] Nevertheless even men such as A. S. Harrison, one of the area's most progressive farmers, were hesitant about the new machines, as Holden Harrison relates:

He knew I was sort of a tractor bug, and one day he called me in and he said, 'Now son, now we don't use tractors out here, we grow the feed for the horses ... we do our farm work with horses.' But that very spring it got so hot that an old broken down tractor that I rounded up did more work than the twelve horses we had.[99]

Economics, custom and suspicion of objects so divorced from nature's cadence reduced the farmers' enthusiasm for new machinery.

Mechanized milking equipment was also held in suspicion initially. Milking machines were developed around 1900, but a prejudice against them lasted well into the 1920s. Older cows, accustomed to hand milking, did not like the sound and feel of the machines and many farmers contended that they impaired the milk-producing capabilities of some animals.[100] Separators were likewise mistrusted by some who felt that they skimmed the cream inadequately. Moreover, most of the dairy equipment required electricity for its operation and for many years this was not readily available in the area. These factors kept milking machines from being swiftly adopted in Fairfax County. Conversations with farmers of the inter-war period indicate that such equipment was not generally acquired until the mid 1930s.[101]

Farmers learned of the new labor-saving devices by word of mouth, through agricultural organizations, catalogs and manufacturer's salesmen. The latter could be a nuisance to the already preoccupied farmer, but he also acted as an invaluable informational source.

One dairyman explained:

That was a very useful service that salesmen performed. Salesmen sort of get a black eye from some quarters but they kept the farmers up to date on the new machines.... We had a very good tractor with steel wheels, and a salesman came in and said, 'I'm representing Goodrich Rubber Company. We're making tractor tires now and if you'll let us put a set of tires on your tractor we'll let you try them out, and if you don't like them, we'll take them off and go back home with them.' So we did, we tried them and they worked.[102]

The new equipment, attachments and improvements could be bought on credit, or by deferred payment (that is, extended credit) until a crop was harvested. This was frequently necessary as the machinery was costly. Joseph Beard indicated that a tractor cost about $600 to $800 in 1930. The Sears and Roebuck catalog for 1928 offered an electric milker for $145 (including a ¾ horsepower engine) and a harrow attachment to be used with a tractor for $60. Cream separators ranged from $42.95 to $100 without a motor, which could cost as much as $30.00. "Don't make a horse out of yourself," the catalog cajoled. But with the additional cost of parts, maintenance and fuel, a farmer earning only $1,000 annually could at best hope to equip his farm only gradually.[103]

To offset costs, farmers retained their old tools while gradually acquiring up-to-date equipment. An inventory of the equipment on a fifty-acre farm shows the mix of old and new owned by the typical farmer of this transition period. In 1928 the farm of George W. Kidwell near Hunter was equipped with harnesses, a two-horse plow, and blacksmithing tools, but also a gasoline engine, an oil drum and automobile.[104]

Ultimately, of course, the machines were of tremendous advantage to the large and specialized dairyman. They speeded and streamlined the twice-daily milkings, efficiently strained and separated the milk while warm. Later, the machines cooled the milk to the optimum temperature required to retard spoilage. This latter development was an especially noteworthy improvement over the old well or ice-water coolings.

Similar advances were made with electric incubators and chicken feeders for poultry specialists and improved spraying equipment for orchardists. Warren McNair was a pioneer in the Floris neighborhood in the use of mechanized hatcheries, establishing one which was powered by coal before World War I. Like the dairy equipment, poultry technology offered efficiency and improved production.[105]

A tractor-drawn drill which could plant four rows at a time. This snapshot shows a black agricultural laborer planting soybeans, which were used as high protein livestock feed. Photo in Annual Report of County Agent H. B. Derr, 1922, Virginiana Collection, Fairfax County Public Library.

Wilson D. McNair aboard a Row Crop 70 tractor, featuring rubber tires, c. 1940. In the background is the farm's chicken house. Growing poultry and eggs was the specialty of this farmer. Photo courtesy of Louise McNair Ryder.

Along with a slow-growing recognition of the advantages of automated farm equipment came a quantum leap in knowledge of the agricultural sciences. Some experimentation in plant and animal breeding was attempted around the turn of the century, but the real impetus for extended research was the passage of the Smith-Lever Act in 1914. In Virginia the work was undertaken at the Virginia Polytechnical Institute (VPI) in Blacksburg. The early efforts of the United States Department of Agriculture were enlarged at this time and, most significantly, were made accessible to individual farmers through the county agricultural extension program. Interconnected with the state agricultural colleges, the program used representatives known as county agents to advise and educate the farmers. Working on a personal level, they were able to, in the words of one Fairfax agent, "bring the college to the people." As a result of the improved access to information, new ideas on breeding, animal care, soil improvements, and planting almost inundated the farmer.[106]

Of special importance was an increased understanding of livestock breeding and a change in the desired criteria for a prime animal. As more and more emphasis was placed on pragmatic qualities, the old show points of stature, color or markings lost prestige next to reproductive capacity or productivity. One Maryland farmer who marketed his products in the same areas as Fairfax dairymen, stated the case emphatically. "What does a man want a cow for? Milk! And to get milk you've got to have a ... female animal with some size to her, strong bone, a good bag and a big barrel—a real machine ... producing quality milk."[107] A Fairfax County poultry raiser concurred. Complaining to the editor of the Fairfax Herald in 1926, he wrote:

As is now being done, fowls are being judged by the show standard rather than from a utility standpoint. As one member [of the Poultrymen's organization] present stated ... one of his birds won the blue ribbon as the best marked bird in her class but shortly after the fair he sold her in the market owing to [her] being such a poor layer.[108]

Actually some disagreement occurred over exactly which qualities should be stressed in breeding. Experts in animal husbandry found that cross-breeding often produced the highest yield of milk, a conclusion which was at odds with those who wanted to emphasize pure-bred stock. In Fairfax County, H. B. Derr followed the latter persuasion. In the end both parties hoped to achieve the same result: a controlled breeding program which would allow the farmer to predetermine the type and characteristics of the stock on his farm.

To improve the county's stock, farmers were urged to breed their livestock with purebred animals whenever possible, and keep accurate records of milk and egg production. An especially successful tool was the establishment of Dairy Herd Improvement Associations which tested the yield and butter fat content of each cow's milk. The aim of these organizations was to identify the high and low producers in a herd so that poor producers could be sold and breeding done to best advantage. Agricultural Agent H. B. Derr moved quickly to establish these groups in the county. By 1920 two of the fourteen Dairy Herd Improvement Associations in Virginia were in Fairfax County, and the result was a continual improvement in the stock owned by Fairfax farmers. Derr reported with pleasure that within the first year of the program 15% of the cows were eliminated and replaced by better stock and that "one dairyman said the first month's test paid for the year's work."[109]

Similar improvements were taking place in the grading and standardization of seed. When Derr first arrived in Fairfax County in 1917, he complained that it was "the dumping ground of about as bad a lot of seed as he had ever seen."[110] Old or genetically mixed seed yielded poor crops and Derr organized volunteer farmers to help test new strains as well as established varieties in the area's soil. The experimentation for crop return and quality and controlled breeding done at the Virginia Polytechnical Institute and similar institutions increased the variety of seed available and made for highly predictable returns. An additional help was the increased dependability of seed distributors. Holden Harrison recalled that Southern States Cooperative was particularly conscientious in this regard. "Other seed companies had begun to improve their seed stocks, but Southern States put the emphasis on it. The seed wheat we got from Southern States outproduced any other that we could find."[111] Whereas traditionally many had merely been saving the most likely ears of corn or a random bushel of wheat for seed, the farmer now demanded certified seed of a variety most responsive to his area's soil type and weather.

Agriculturalists were also making huge strides in understanding the physical needs of animals and disease prevention. The discoveries about bacterial and viral infections made by medical researchers during the 1920s and 1930s were beginning to be understood in veterinary circles and applied to animal care. Mastitis and chicken cholera were among the common diseases brought under control by new drugs. County agents carried medicine and veterinary equipment with them using it both in emergency cases and to instruct farmers in sanitation and preventative care.[112] Health standards, especially for dairy products sold in Washington, D.C., had been stiffened during the first World War, and it was important for the farmer to understand disease prevention not only to save his animals but to keep his produce marketable.

Soybeans on a demonstration field showing the improvements made by the addition of lime to the soil. Photo in H. B. Derr Report, 1925, Virginiana Collection, Fairfax County Public Library.

Veterinarians abounded in the area, but were called in generally for required tests (such as tuberculin) or when the situation was really grave; most farmers relied on their own experience for delivering calves or treating common ailments.[113] Among the prominent vets in the county were Dr. Harry Drake, Dr. Bernard Poole and C. L. Kronfeld. All of these men made house calls, bringing medical kits and medicine with them. Their fee was $2.50 per visit which included the price of follow-up medicine. Perhaps because this fee was prohibitive to some, or through a desire for self-reliance, farmers often neglected to call the veterinarian until an animal was critically ill. "The farmer in what I suspect was fifty percent of the cases lost the animal anyway after the vet got there," acknowledged Joseph Beard,

because so many times instead of having preventative medicine ... they never called him until things were in very bad shape. I suspect that the vet would have been able to save so many of the animals that he didn't by virtue of the fact that he didn't get there on time.... They weren't interested in prevention; they were interested in the cure.[114]

The farmers were not entirely to blame since preventative medicine was a new concept, the benefits of which were not always immediately obvious. County agents Derr and Beard both waged exhaustive battles to convince local agriculturalists of the advantage of vaccination and show them the proper methods of inoculating their own animals. Derr found the farmers unwilling to do their own vaccinating, preferring to rely on specialists; yet with classic inconsistency they were also reluctant to call in a veterinarian for such a purpose.[115] In the end, the agents found that, like many other progressive techniques which seemed new and unsubstantiated to the farmer, demonstration worked better than rhetoric. An example of this occurred in 1926 when a farmer let some cattle onto a pasture, believed to be infested with a calf disease known as blackleg. When one of his best calves died, he panicked and turned to the county agent. The farmer's animals were all inoculated, as were those on several neighboring farms, and there were no further losses. "This incident has done more to place confidence in vaccinations than several years' talking could do," wrote a pleased H. B. Derr. "There are no more doubting Thomases in that community at least."[116]

Similar work was undertaken to convince orchardists and crop producers of the advantages of preventative spraying to eliminate bacterial diseases and aid in insect control. The county's production of fruits, vegetables and grains had suffered less from direct neglect than from ignorance of proper care.[117] The value of chemical pesticides was just beginning to be understood (their use would not reach major proportions until the years after World War II) and Joseph Beard noted that the agents were frequently "bombarded with all these new advertisements coming from the supplier or chemical company...."[118] The agents refrained from recommending products that had not been tested for at least three years at the State Agricultural Experiment Station, insuring some safety in the pesticides, though Beard admitted that the principles of chemical buildup were not yet recognized.[119] Slowly word travelled through the county of the advantages of protecting crops from disease. By 1930 the program was progressing nicely, as Derr reported to the state agency. Driving through the county one day, he met a successful orchardist whom he had previously urged to use fungicides. "Derr," the farmer remarked to him, "you sure keep me busy; every time my wife sees your spray notices she makes me get the machine out and go to work, but it surely does pay to spray."[120] Here too the farmer relied on his own verification and judged personal experience stronger than the words of experts.

A wild cherry tree destroyed by web worms. Insect pests such as these were a chief reason for the decline of orchards in the area. Photo in H. B. Derr Report, 1925, Virginiana Collection, Fairfax County Public Library.

*

In this period of exciting and crucial advances in agricultural knowledge, the individual landowner was sometimes at a loss to, in his parlance, separate the wheat from the chaff. Radio programs, bulletins from the USDA and VPI, local newspaper columns and talks by visiting experts all vied for the farmer's time, as did the news in The Southern Planter, Country Gentleman and Farm Journal, favorite periodicals in the area. "These programs came so rapidly the farmers just about got familiar with one until another appeared," Derr reported in 1936. "As one farmer put it, 'just one durned thing after another."[121] Furthermore, the information was often confusing, at odds with the handed-down teachings of generations, or juxtaposed with other advice with which it was dramatically opposed. The Herndon News-Observer, for example, carried several articles on "scientific feeding" in its early 1925 issues and advocated crop rotation and strict attention to cleanliness. Only a year later, however, it printed a column advising farmers to feed kerosene and lard to hens to rid them of vermin.[122] In an even more blatant example, this paper contained an article written by Virginia state dairy specialist John A. Avery, which counseled area farmers to increase their dairy herds; the same edition ran a piece by H. B. Derr which bemoaned the surplus of milk then glutting the Washington market.[123] It is not surprising that the farmer, caught in the midst of a bewildering amount of concrete advice and misinformation, sometimes preferred to stick to his ancestors' ways. Thus, the old adages—that corn should be planted when the leaves were as large as squirrel's ears, or that when a hen's comb isn't bright red, it isn't laying—were relinquished with reluctance.[124] The only consistently accepted source on scientific farming seems to have been Virginia Polytechnical Institute's Handbook of Agronomy, which more than one farmer stated he held in one hand while directing the plow with the other.[125]

A particularly difficult question for the farmer to consider was the problem of specialization. General farming had been the rule for so long, and one-crop systems had such a reputation for running farms into debt, that many were doubtful of the advantages of specialization. Here, too, they received mixed signals. On one hand farmers were advised to sink their all into poultry or dairying, only to hear that to concentrate too completely on one area would limit their self-sufficiency and mitigate the integrated quality of the farm. In an increasingly technical world, however, specialization had many attractions. Expensive machinery needed to be purchased for only one kind of production, the farmer could cut down the vast influx of information to only those subjects which directly interested him, and the methods of mass production, first pioneered in factories, could be applied to his concentrated effort. Moreover, specialization in market commodities produced the cash which had become ever more important to buy equipment, pay taxes and purchase manufactured goods which were no longer made on the farm. In the end, Fairfax County farmers generally effected a compromise: while focusing on one aspect of farming, they retained many of the advantages of the general farmer. Vegetable gardens, poultry houses, orchards, and sometimes sheep all kept their place on the family farm. Even C. T. Rice, who liked to refer to his farm as a milk producing plant, with "little time or space for anything else" kept a few chickens and hogs.[126]

An early specialization in the county was truck gardening. The long growing season and potential markets in Alexandria and Washington in theory seemed to point to success in this field. The list of vegetables and fruits grown for the commercial market was impressive and included potatoes, corn, tomatoes, spinach, black-eyed peas, parsnips and rhubarb, apples and several varieties of berries.[127] One man even grew artichokes, making quite a substantial profit, but decided to move his operation to more productive soils in New Jersey.[128] Yet those who attempted raising large quantities of these crops found it difficult to show clear profits. Fruit growers had to compete with the world-famous produce of the Shenandoah Valley, whose strong cooperative organization gave an added advantage to the area's natural abundance. Hay and forage grains were of decreasing importance in a country rapidly becoming enamored of the automobile. In addition, a slump in farm prices had begun in 1920-21, the after-effect of the inflated agricultural revenues of the World War I years.

A study of small truck farms in the Washington, D.C. area showed that despite intensive labor and a double cropping system, a farmer was often clearing only $500 annually by raising produce for the city markets. The study concluded that it took "the best management and a considerable knowledge of farm practice and markets" to till such a farm to advantage. On the smallest farms it was only the exceptional farmer who could make more than a living without any outside source of income.[129]

Marketing the produce was a special problem of truck farming. The vegetables had to be delivered and sold at the peak of their ripeness and their highly perishable nature made this somewhat difficult in the days before refrigeration. It was generally undesirable to sell through a middleman, and therefore the farmer was responsible for personally marketing as well as raising his produce. Moreover, the trip to Washington was tedious and time consuming, especially in the early 1920s when the condition of the area's roads was at a notoriously low point. One market farmer's trip was described in this way:

He planted all sorts of garden produce and he had what you'd call a market wagon; it was a covered wagon.... During the day he would fill that wagon with his produce and in the evening he would hook his ... two horses to the wagon to get to Washington. He'd aim to get there by six o'clock in the morning when the markets opened. He would sell his produce as much as he could [directly from the wagon] ... to individuals at the old Center Market.... They paid a higher price. If he had any left over he had to sell it at whatever he could get to the people who owned the stalls.... It took him three or four hours ... to sell his load of produce. Then it was the next night before he came home.[130]

Conditions at the city markets were also less than perfect as large companies tried to dump cheap produce from outside areas on the Washington consumer. Not only did they compete with the local farmer for the lowest prices, but they misused the stall space itself. Even when a new market was built in 1933, this remained a problem. One irate farmer angrily stated to the editor of the Herndon News-Observer that the large retail trucks held all the available spaces while the area farmers "stand out doors (sic) all day and part of the night, trying to eke out money for taxes, interest and other arbitrary costs." The streets were filthy, he continued, and the market protection itself inadequate. "The only pretense of shelter barely covers the sidewalk, leaving the farmer's truck or car outdoors where produce is in danger from heat, cold, or rain."[131]

Partially because of these problems, the specialty which gained in distinction and profitability at this time was dairy farming. There were several additional reasons for this. The land itself was well adapted to the raising of milk cows; its gently undulating terrain—which formed numerous natural water depressions—coupled with the abundance of small streams or "runs," made water easily available. To the dairy farmer who must water his stock regardless of seasonal conditions, this was essential. As previously mentioned, Fairfax County also possessed soil types which worked up well and produced high yields of the pasturage and ensilage crops required to support large dairy herds. And, one observer noted, the weather was favorable for the dairy industry: "The winters are relatively short in Fairfax, thus allowing cattle to stay out often until the latter part of November, returning to pasture by April or May."[132]

These natural assets tell only part of the story for, as stated above, Fairfax County continually produced well above the state per acre average in both corn and orchard fruits and its market crops were considerably varied as late as 1920. Although dairying required more capital initially and more land than did market gardening, it held an advantage in that the plummeting farm prices did not affect milk products as disasterously as crops. The really great asset that the Fairfax County dairy industry possessed, however, was its proximity to the large milk-consuming markets in Alexandria and Washington, D.C., and the speedy access afforded by rail lines connecting the two areas. Where truck farmers needed to sell their produce personally in order to make the best profit, milk producers sold to distributors, who collected at the depot, making rail transportation a feasible marketing device.

In the earliest days of the century milk was shipped by boat to the city markets, but the lack of river access for many farms and the ease of spoilage on this slow mode of transportation retarded the growth of the commercial milk market. It was not until the old and unreliable steam railway lines, such as the Washington and Old Dominion Railway, were converted to electricity around 1912 and refrigerated cars were widely used, that the shipment of milk became really profitable.[133] Communities such as Floris, situated only a few miles from the Herndon depot, began to flourish as dairy centers when only a few years earlier poor transportation would have made marketing of such a highly perishable product unthinkable. So successful and rapid was the dairy boom that by 1924 over 1,800 gallons of milk were shipped daily from the county to Washington, and its production was the highest in Virginia.[134]

Other factors served to enhance the burgeoning dairy industry. Around 1910 milk pasteurization and bottling plants were established in Washington. This created a large market for whole milk, which had formerly been held in suspicion by many people who believed milk to be a carrier of disease. Another important aspect was the well-directed efforts of the two county agricultural extension agents who, in addition to introducing the previously mentioned Dairy Herd Improvement Associations, encouraged the use of pure-bred bulls for breeding, often acquiring the free loan of USDA animals for the purpose. The use of these bulls was an added incentive for farmers to pay the nominal fee and join the Dairy Herd Improvement Associations, since membership was required in order to borrow a government animal. By these methods and repeated admonitions to "get out of the scrub class and join the pure-bred bunch," the county agents helped Fairfax farmers develop so fine a reputation for quality dairy cows that buyers came from many states to procure these high-testing animals for their farms.[135]

Another factor affecting the rise of dairying in Fairfax County was the early formation of the Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Association. The organization had been informally started in 1907 as a clearinghouse for grievances among some producers in the vicinity of Washington, D.C., but for many years it "amounted to little more than an occasional general meeting for the purpose of some united effort toward raising the price of milk."[136] In 1920 it was incorporated and a full-time manager employed. Each member paid a fee of one cent per gallon of milk sold (a fund which was accumulated and refunded when a farmer left the organization) and the Association handled the business of selling to the distributors in Washington. By such collective action the dairymen were able to control milk prices more effectively, and their unity assured a measure of security against unscrupulous action by distributors. In the early years of Fairfax County dairying this was a very real threat as former Association member Holden Harrison attests:

There were four or five principal distributors in Washington. I don't know whether they got together on this or not, but to start out with they had a two price program. They paid you more in the winter than they did in the summer.... The dairy farmer was at the mercy of the milk distributor then. They set prices just as low as they thought the best dairyman could continue to produce.... The distributors were about to starve the farmers out, that's what brought it around. We weren't getting a fair deal. So when we formed this Association the management of the Association could say, 'We've got these farmers lined up. They pretty well depend on us and we can pretty well tell them what to do.' Through that leverage they could pretty well tell the distributors what to do, too.[137]

The Association furthered its prestige—and its bargaining power—by waging a battle against "bootleg," or uninspected, milk being brought into the area from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. It had the additional advantage of stabilizing prices so that the farmer with only a small amount of milk for the market could compete with the larger producer whose more economical methods had previously allowed him to undersell his smaller neighbor. Better methods of testing and pasteurizing the milk were also concerns and the cooperative used its muscle to negotiate loans for its members.[138]

Furthermore, in the late 1920s, the Association became concerned about the drop in prices due to an overabundance of milk in the area and developed a system of handling the surplus. "It eventually built itself into a position where the Association itself either rented or purchased a plant that could take care of surplus milk...," stated Holden Harrison. "This surplus milk was processed into cheese or butter or ice cream or maybe even powdered milk.... They had a plant in Frederick, Maryland, and they would divert whatever amount of producers' milk to Frederick to the processing plant and keep it out of the hands of the distributors."[139] This action had the double advantage of avoiding waste and preventing a profit-lowering glut of milk.

By 1927 the Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Association was the largest farmer's cooperative in Virginia. It included 85% of the Washington area producers in its membership, despite the effort of distributors to dissuade some of the better producers from joining. They exercised bargaining control of over $2,500,000 annually. Though they never actually went on strike, their large membership fund gave them a strong bargaining position. "The distributors knew when that fund accumulated to a good-sized sum that we weren't just a fly-by-night outfit that could be pushed around, that we had resources we could rely on."[140] Furthermore, the organization wisely kept its clout by avoiding political issues and exercising minimum control over individual methods of production. Its purpose was to streamline the commercialization of a farm product, and in this effort it was highly successful.

Northern Virginia's reputation for dairy excellence grew both in local circles and throughout the state as a result of published census reports and statewide comparisons of milk volume and butterfat content. The 1925 agricultural census shows Fairfax County to be the largest producer in the state, with average yield per cow 70% above the statewide figure; in 1940 this margin was even greater.[141] Dairy Herd Improvement Association #1, based in the Herndon area, had especially impressive results. In 1935, for example, it had the second highest overall average in Virginia and included four of the state's five most productive herds. In 1937 the county's high-testing cow, a Holstein owned by Dr. F. W. Huddleston, gave 2,031 pounds of milk (8.6 pounds to a gallon) per month to a statewide average of 620.[142]

As a result of these impressive showings, many local farmers shied away from general farming and began to put their energies into milk production; new farmers were drawn to the area specifically for the possibilities in dairy farming. Of ten families interviewed in the Floris area, all save one connected their family's removal to Fairfax County to the combination of transportation ease and excellent prices afforded by the Washington milk market. "In this period there was an immigration of farmers from other parts of the country, particularly in the Valley of Virginia, who did not have an opportunity to market their farm products and their livestock very readily up there in the Valley," related Joseph Beard, "... the Southern Railway, the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac [Railways were] quite an asset to people who wanted to market their farm products so a lot of them moved up here."[143] Many of the newcomers became outstanding in the field of dairy husbandry, for example, C. T. Rice, a celebrated dairy owner of the Oakton area, whose animals consistently scored highly on milk production. He came to the county in 1915 but "threw away his plow" during the 1920s to concentrate solely on dairying, citing erosion problems and the more constant income of dairying as his reasons.[144] So widespread was this tendency to embrace dairy farming that a traveller riding through the county in 1930 sensed that "it is not farming country at all, because there is very little planting done. We saw few fields in which a crop had been recently harvested ... it is apparently a grazing country."[145]

Despite its spectacular achievements, the Fairfax County dairy industry did not rise with an unchecked ascent but suffered a certain share of problems and setbacks. In one sense its very success was its worst enemy. Although many farmers continued to focus on dairying, by 1926 there was a surplus of milk on the Washington market and the county agent noted that "it appears as if we had sufficient dairies."[146] Still, while prices dropped steadily between 1926 and 1935,[147] farmers continued to increase their yields in hopes of increasing profits by shear quantities of milk sold. One county farmer commenting on the futility of this, remarked:

We were getting about 25¢ a gallon for our base milk. Seventy-five gallons a day at 25¢ a gallon wasn't paying the interest and the mortgage on [his farm loan]. So we decided in 1928 that we would put in some more cows and get a little extra money to help pay off this mortgage and this loan. So we started shipping, instead of 75 gallons of milk a day, 90 to 95 gallons of milk a day. Then milk went down from 25¢ a gallon to 22¢ a gallon. Well, we couldn't do that, so we put some more stalls on the barn and built a new silo and put in enough cows to ship 125 gallons of milk a day ... it was only netting us 18 to 19¢ a gallon ... the more we worked, the more we produced, and the harder we worked, it seemed like the less net income we had.[148]

Against this turn of events the state agricultural service advocated poultry and truck farming for those entering the county and urged a more uniform distribution of the county's cattle. Some farmers had too few cows for even their own use. Others had too many and no feed. "A few good cows well kept, rather than a large number poorly fed, will bring in a steady income, that will do much for our farmers in their present conditions," advised County Agent Derr.[149] He also hoped to see farmers concentrate on the butterfat content of their milk and to increase their production of cream for which there was a continual market; the skim milk left after the removal of cream could be fed to calves, pigs or children. Most often Derr cautioned against the dangers of complete specialization at the expense of an integrated farm in which each facet of the farm was both aided and benefitted by every other part. "The old slogan, 'the cow, the sow and the hen,' is a very true one," he wrote, "especially in the South."[150]

Derr did well to emphasize the quality of milk products. A 1932 ruling in the District of Columbia requiring a 4% butterfat content in milk sold there occurred just as Derr was complaining that "with many the quality of the milk is not such a vital question as the quantity." Holstein cattle, which gave higher yields but less rich milk than did Jerseys or Guernseys, predominated in the county, making the new demand a difficult one to meet. In desperation some farmers tried cross-breeding the two strains with mixed results; the inevitable outcome was to compromise the county's movement towards establishing herds of pure-bred animals.[151]

The mixing of breeds to increase butterfat content was not the only element which undercut the breeding program. One problem, the selling of highly profitable animals, was yet another hazard of success. "Owing to the excellent reports being made by our cow testing associations, numerous buyers from other states have come into the county and by paying almost fabulous prices have taken away quite a number of our best animals," Derr wrote in 1926. "In some cases this has proved a costly undertaking for our dairymen, as by bringing new animals into their herds ... either T B or abortion has been introduced."[152] Another factor working against pure-bred stock was the depression, which for farmers encompassed not only the 1930s, but the entire period following the deflation of World War I prices. With less cash available, many farmers bought poor quality bulls rather than invest the money for a pure-bred animal.[153]

Notwithstanding these setbacks, dairy farming continued to be Fairfax County's predominant (and most prestigious) industry during the 1920s and 1930s. Indeed, it flourished well into the 1950s and was eclipsed only by the overwhelming spread of urban workers into the area in the second half of the century. Until this development occurred, it was the dairy farmer's life which set the style and pace of life in the county.

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