: Todo al Vuelo Obras Completas Vol. XVIII by Dar O Rub N - Nicaraguan literature

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Holden Harrison, 1935 6 Harrison dairy barn, 1936 6 McNair Guernsey bull, 1918 7 Interior Harrison dairy barn 7 Spring plowing on McNair farm 12 Shock of wheat, Ellmore farm, 1925 15 Mechanical hay loader, 1935 15 Small orchard apiary, 1925 17 Inventory of 1920 farmer 20 Plan of Smith farm, 1929 21 Rebecca Rice canning fruit 25 Elizabeth Harrison, Herndon 25 Homemade manure sled 27 Broadcast harvester, 1921 37 Wheat being mechanically harvested, 1925 37 Tractor-drawn drill, 1922 40 McNair aboard a Row Crop 70 tractor 40 Soybeans on a demonstration farm, 1925 43 A wild cherry tree destroyed by web worms 45 "Hard Work Made Easy and Quick" 54 The Fairfax County Grange meeting, 1940 60 The Floris Home Demonstration Club, 1930 63 A 4-H Club, "Achievement Day" displays, 1930 63 A community fair, 1922 64 A suggested model farm for Fairfax County, 1924 64 The 4-H Girls Camp at Woodlawn, 1925 66 A Piedmont Dairy Festival parade float, 1930 66 Map of improved and unimproved roads, 1930 70 Stuck in the mud on one of county's roads 71 Aerial of Kidwell farm and Floris vicinity 75 1930 map of Floris community 88 G. Ray Harrison, 1925 90 Early threshing machine 118 Laura Parham and Kim Stanton work in vegetable garden 118 The farmyard at Frying Pan Farm in the early fall 118 Farmer's house--Frying Pan Farm 120 Two young girls meet two young goats 120 John Hopkins in the Moffett Blacksmith Shop 120 Pat Middleton at 4-H Club Fair 121 Cattle judging, Floris School, 1950 121 Dressage competition at Frying Pan Park, 1978 123

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 ,229, and the Fairfax County farmer netted something less than ,000 income annually.

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. 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.

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....

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.

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