American Greatness\ Victor Davis Hanson:
Almost all the pragmatic agricultural wisdom that my grandparents taught me has long ago been superseded by technology. I don’t anymore calibrate, as I once did when farming in the 1980s, the trajectory of an incoming late summer storm by watching the patterns of nesting birds, or the shifting directions and feel of the wind, or the calendar date or the phases of the moon. Instead, I go online and consult radar photos of storms far out at sea. Meteorology is mostly an exact science now.
Even the agrarian’s socio-scientific arts of observation that I learned from my family are seldom employed in my farming anymore. Back in the day, when a local farmer’s wife died, I was told things like, “Elmer will go pretty soon, too. His color isn’t good and he’s not used to living without her”—and tragically the neighbor usually died within months. Now I guess I would ask Elmer whether his blood tests came back OK, and the sort of blood pressure medicine he takes. I don’t think we believe that superficial facial color supersedes lab work. Farmers did because in an age of limited technology they saw people as plants, and knew that the look and color of a tree or vine—in comparison to others in the orchard or vineyard—was a sign of their viability.
I grew up with an entire local network of clubs and get-togethers, and ferried my grandparents to periodic meetings of the Walnut Improvement Club, Eastern Star, the Odd Fellows, Masons, the Grange, and Sun-Maid growers. They exchanged gossip, of course, but also vital folk and empirical information on irrigation, fertilizers, and machines.
The point was to remind us that “we” (i.e., the vanishing rural classes) needed to stick together—especially given glimpses of what the country would be like in the 21st century. When one of us died or got sick, people showed up with flowers, food, and offered help—whether the use of a tractor, or truck or hired man to “get you through this.”
Now? Zilch.
I don’t know any of my neighbors. Most are recent immigrants from south of the border, many here illegally. The land is almost all leased out to or has been purchased by large corporations. The old farmhouses are also rented and often poorly maintained: a sort of rural skeleton, with the flesh gone and the bones flaking apart. I hear from our coastal elites all about diversity, community, and caring. But out here, no one believes there is much diversity. Community does not exist. And as for caring, it is about making sure you get home at night without a drunk driver forcing you off the road—or worse. more
h/t Forcibly Deranged.
Spent a good portion of my growing up on my grandparents farm. Knew how to milk a cow and muck a stall before I could tie my own shoe. In the summer when you got the munchies you would go find a good carrot or some radishes that were getting big and pull them up and wash them at the spigot on the side of the house. Was nothing sweeter or tastier than a fresh carrot. Drank milk that was only separated but unpasteurized. Grandma made her own butter and fried fresh donuts on special occasions. Purchased flour in 50# lb. bags as all bread, rolls and sweets were made fresh. Fresh apple juice and applesauce in the fall. I miss those times and the hard work that went with it. It always paid off.
…my farming memories are mostly about a horse stomping on my foot in anger while a cow pissed with deadly accuracy THROUGH the slats of its stall onto my sister at my Aunt Mary Jo’s West Virginia farm when I was 9.
…that’s pretty much the extent of my agrarian background. I like cows just fine.
…on buns…
We dont need farms anymor, we can just get food from the store duh.
Racists.
So many parallels to VDH’s and my life growing up on a farm on the other side of the country.
I can look out at the mountain and tell if and when, and just how much it’s going to rain.
The color of the sky in the morning, the direction of the wind at specific times of the year, the lunar cycles, the size and placement of hornets nests, all were used by our elders to tell the weather.
It’s said that during the 1925 super tornadoes that hit Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, the farmers were the least affected because they knew something was coming due to being so in tune with their environment.
Now, a quick look at weather.com, and all that knowledge is confirmed.
Every once in a while, though, I go against what the forecast is, and usually am more accurate than they are.
Mom and Pop farms are all but gone. Industrial farms are the future now. In the dairy industry some of them even have their own methane power generation facilities to offset the cost of manure collection. Today’s successful farmer has millions of dollars invested in their operation. There is still hard physical labor involved and that’s where the Mexicans come in.
Ah yes castrating little pigs and cutting tusks good times on the farm. The cats would take the pig nuts out of the bucket as fast as we could drop them in.
Huron, my uncle has my grandpa’s old Emasculatomes (castration clamp tool) hanging on his garage wall with a lot of my grandpa’s old hand tools. Being large and made of shiny stainless people are always drawn to them. The looks on their faces when you tell them what they are.😀
Glamourous job Different Tim glamourous job.Squeal piggy piggy!Always felt a little guilty.
Huron, you could give them an apple and pet them later in the day. Dumb animals.
Different Tim
JANUARY 15, 2020 AT 7:09 PM
“Huron, my uncle has my grandpa’s old Emasculatomes (castration clamp tool) hanging on his garage wall with a lot of my grandpa’s old hand tools.”
…might be good to have in the front hall too, if you have a daughter, great conversation starter and maybe even more effective than showing off the knife collection…
Thanks MJA, great article and sad that it’s gone.
Many memories that I don’t have SNS’s abilities to relate
…you’re too modest, @Anymouse, I read you on a daily basis and you do just fine, and I know you’re better at character development, too.
…and I’m absolutely POSITIVE you have more to say about farming than me, because it would be difficult to know LESS, so have at it, the field is open…
VDH is a great common sense voice. He should sell the big California farm and buy a few acres near me.
There are small farmers and small business owners all over rural and small town America. We work hard, buy local, and care about our neighbors and coworkers. We make stuff, grow stuff, fix stuff, move stuff. And we forget to check our phones for texts because we’re busy with life and work and friends and family.
Oh, and we voted for Trump. And we’ll do it again.
Been a long time since I read something that I just enjoyed reading for the memories it brought back.
I didn’t grow up on a farm; I grew up on a boat. There are many similarities in that we both eeked a living from whatever we could coax from nature.
A sea, a storm could sink you literally (it happened to me) or it could destroy equipment and rigging that would take years to pay for.
Most of us on the New England coast lived month to month or even week to week.
I still miss all the old folk tales and remedies, hundreds of years of wisdom and experience passed down through countless generations.
I don’t miss the 18 hour days.
Sturge when i was a kid i did a summer commercial fishing on lake huron very tough work,I took a job the next summer as a sand blaster because it was easier.
the sadness of the last paragraph brings home a recent reality in my area when the sawmill, a mile from me, closed up … the old guy that ran it died & his kids had no interest in keeping it going. I stopped by a few times (in my 30 years of living here) just to chat & reminisce … now, like great-grandad’s farm, it’s gone
damn … something in my eye …. gonna miss that ‘old cuss’