Frying Pan Farm Part 8

[Ill.u.s.tration: The cream of the crop of Fairfax County girlhood on a float meant for the Piedmont Dairy Festival parade. Photo in H. B. Derr Report, 1930, Virginiana Collection, Fairfax County Public Library.]

The 4-H Clubs never caught on in Fairfax County to the satisfaction of the home demonstration and agricultural agents. "The past year has not been a banner year for club work," wrote Derr in 1926. "Four clubs were organized ... but the agent is inclined to think that with a number of [members] this was done to be excused from a study period. The small amount of work done on their projects seems to substantiate this belief."[171] The clubs grew slowly partly because they overlapped the work of the Floris Vocational High School and the Future Farmers of America Club, founded in 1927.[172] There is also some evidence that parents were reluctant to release their children from farm work to attend meetings.[173] For those who did join, the meetings seem to have been fun and profitable. "Not only do you learn from 4-H how to make a home and a living," an enthusiastic member commented in 1933, "but you also learn how to make life worthwhile. We now realize more than ever our duties, as the child of today will be the adult of tomorrow."[174]

As is evident in the above quotation, groups such as the 4-H or Future Farmers of America encouraged a child to identify with and improve on rural life. These organizations not only stressed occupational pride, but benefitted the community by training leaders who had early experience with professional farming techniques.

Aside from the need to influence milk and produce prices, two chief concerns of the farmer's organizations were the establishment of electricity throughout the county and the improvement of the area's roads. The move towards rural electrification was a popular one across the nation, cited continually as the one item most useful to the farmer for advancing mechanization and of greatest importance in raising the farm family's standard of living. With electricity the family could use a radio, rid themselves of smoky kerosene lighting and enjoy the use of more efficient and cleaner stoves and refrigeration. The pragmatic desire for electrical equipment to operate milking machines and water pumps was intensified by advertis.e.m.e.nts such as one which appeared in the _Herndon News-Observer_ claiming that electricity would make life "convenient and happy" as well as add fifteen to twenty years to the farm woman's life.[175]

Unfortunately, the route to establishing electrical facilities in the county was not an easy one. Some farmers used small gasoline engines to produce power, but these, the "contrariest little machines," were unreliable and frequently too weak to run milking equipment. Derr reported that 98% of the farmers desired this convenience but the expense seemed prohibitive. Commercial electric companies were reluctant to build lines through spa.r.s.ely settled areas, and the farmers were forced to finance their own power plants. In 1933 the federal government began a program to subsidize local electrification programs and make them financially viable the only drawback being the undue amount of red tape to go through involved in qualifying. "The cost of building new lines was found to range from one thousand to two thousand dollars a mile," stated a discouraged Derr. "We were hardly prepared to be told that the farmers ... must organize a farm cooperative ... borrow the money from the Government and build their own lines to be self-liquidating in twenty years at 3% interest."[176] Difficult as the process seemed, the farmers had little choice if they hoped to electrify their neighborhoods. In this instance, an organization was not only an advantage for success in furthering the community's amenities, but a necessity.

That the Floris community was one of the earlier areas to enjoy the benefits of electrification was a result of great effort on the part of its citizens. A franchise for an electric power plant was granted to Herndon in 1915 but never materialized, and prior to 1924 the nearest generating operation was in Alexandria.[177] A group of farmers from Loudoun and Fairfax Counties, headed by A. S. Harrison, hired an engineer and travelled throughout the Dranesville District to encourage farmers to contribute time and money towards an electrical plant.

Eventually they raised enough cash to form a stock company and a power line was built between Alexandria and Herndon, and subsequently on to Leesburg.[178] The initiative shown by the Floris farmers was rewarded by a distinct advantage over non-electrified communities. As late as 1940 over 35% of the county's farms were without electric power. A survey conducted in that year showed these non-electrified areas to be the least productive, and most depressed in morale and way of life.[179]

Water and sanitation systems were also difficult to establish despite concerted efforts by the home demonstration agents. Slightly over 10% of the county's farm homes contained "complete water systems" in 1932, though a larger percentage had partial plumbing facilities. Even in 1940, only 19% of the homes in the Dranesville area (and 40% in the county as a whole) boasted running water. Low as these figures seem, however, they were the highest in the state. Because good water was abundant in the area, farmers saw less need to campaign for extended water mains or sewer lines, in spite of their advantages for health and convenience. It was not until the population boom of World War II that really modern utilities were established in the county on a large scale.[180]

Of greater significance was the effort to better the county's road system. Southern roads in general--and Virginia's in particular--had been notorious since their inception for ruts, abrupt endings and, especially, mud. In 1918 there were only a few miles of surfaced road in Fairfax County, and any roadbuilding or repairs were made at the discretion of individual landowners.[181] The inconveniences caused by the poor roads became legendary. One woman remembered the roads being so rough that eggs would break on the way to market, and another, Emma Millard, stated that conditions were bad enough that "you would lose your boots when you went through so much mud and had to go back and retrieve the boots."[182] When automobiles became more common on the county's thoroughfares, they increased the problem of dust, deeply worn grooves and splashing muddy water. At the same time they pointed up the necessity for improvement. The early solid tire vehicles could barely operate in the thick red Virginia mud, thus greatly r.e.t.a.r.ding transportation of produce and milk. "If you had three drops of rain on the road, [the tires] started spinning and you couldn't go anywhere much without chains," recollected one early farmer. "Every truck carried a set of tire chains in the event it rained. In the summertime if it rained, you stuck right on the first little grade you hit." Not until 1922 did farmers attempt to haul their goods in trucks, and even then they "broke more axles than anything else."[183]

Farmers were acutely aware of the situation and some of their earliest united efforts were focused on road improvement. Records of Farmer's Club #1 show the topic to be the subject of discussion at several meetings a year, beginning in 1909. Initially they tried only to interest the county in undertaking repairs but as conditions worsened, the landowners began to appeal to county judges and the Board of Supervisors for bond issues to surface Little River Turnpike and other main roads. Resolutions, such as the following from a Herndon-based club, were regularly sent to government officials:

Resolved: That we, Farmer's Club #4 ... favor pet.i.tioning the circuit judge of the county to order an election for the purpose of determining whether bonds shall be issued for the sum of $50,000 for the construction of a macadam road from Little River Turnpike at Chantilly to the Leesburg Pike at Dranesville, and as much more as possible.[184]

In some cases the clubs even worked together to build their own roads.[185] After ten years of pressure by farm groups, a bond issue was presented to the voters to pave the Leesburg Pike, the road from Chantilly to Herndon which ran through Floris, and a thoroughfare extending beyond Herndon to Mock Corner. The weight with which area residents viewed this issue is shown in a statement made by the Herndon Chamber of Commerce: "If this bond issue fails, it will be the greatest calamity that has befallen this community in many years." Happily the bond issue did pa.s.s and this, plus the statewide road program sponsored under the leadership of Governor Harry F. Byrd from 1926 to 1930, eliminated the bulk of the road problems. Only a few years later, in 1928, Fairfax was one of the foremost counties in Virginia in the area of transportation, with over 160 miles of surfaced roads.[186]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Improved and unimproved roads in the Herndon area, c.

1930. Note that the only surfaced roads ran between Herndon and Centreville. Map surveyed by the Office of the County Engineer, Fairfax County. Copy courtesy of Library of Congress Map Division.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Stuck in the mud on one of the county's roads, c. 1911.

Photo, Virginia Department of Highways and Transportation.]

Surfaced roads were an obvious boon to marketing but they also had a number of unexpected positive effects. Conscientious and efficient as the farmers had tried to be, the county had worn a rather untidy appearance for several years. A traveler observed that "the fences are not as trigly mended or the buildings as trimly painted as in the [Shenandoah] Valley. A haystack is merely a pile of hay and not a neatly fashioned c.o.c.k...."[187] County agent Derr also admitted that "in at least 75 percent of the farm homes there is little or no attention to the improvement of the home surroundings." The extension service worked valiantly to mitigate this problem by offering courses in landscaping and home maintenance, but to their surprise they found that the chief stimulus to home improvement was the repair of roads. Those areas which appeared most untidy were found on unimproved thoroughfares, which Derr maintained had a depressing effect on the farm family. "There is a direct correllation (sic)," he noted, "between the improvement of the roads and the painting and fixing up of things around the house."[188]

Another beneficial side effect of the surfaced highway network was the birth of the roadside stand for selling surplus produce, dairy and poultry products. There were some distinct advantages to the stands, as farmers could sell directly to the customer without the costly use of a middleman, and did not have to transport his goods to city consumers. A count made in 1937 found 210 roadside stands in the county.[189]

Earlier, the _Herndon News-Observer_ had reported the success of the new markets which lent themselves "to the disposal of second-grade products or fruits and vegetables too ripe for distant shipping [and had] grown to an unusual business ... for the farmers fortunate enough to live along popular highways." Business indeed seems to have been brisk; by 1926 the farmers were pocketing over $2,000 per month from the roadside markets.[190]

New discoveries in technology, educational opportunities and a refurbished transportation network were naturally considered advances in their time; they could be loosely headed under the term "progress." But progress does not run along a perfectly straight path, rather it dips and weaves ignoring some people and places in its circuitous route.

Consequently, many of the changes so eagerly embraced by the farmer of modest means were the very factors which eventually crowded out the family farm. The farmers of Fairfax County were for the most part unaware of their impending doom, being instead optimistic and relatively prosperous during the 1920s and 1930s. But the small, varied and preindustrial farm could not compete for long against the lure of city wages, highly mechanized and specialized farms, and the inroads of the city into rural areas.

Mechanization most drastically altered life on the family farm. Work rhythms and patterns, previously geared to hand labor, were disrupted, and even the sounds on the farm changed. Older cows, for example, disliked the noise of the electric milking machines, and Wilson McNair wrote that

horses were generally scared of traction engines with their hissing steam, etc. When the engine met a team it would stop and one man would lead the horses by the bridle past the engine.... At the railroad crossing in Herndon there was a bell that rung when a train was coming. Our pony, if the bell was ringing when we crossed the track coming home would break into a dead run. You couldn't hold her.[191]

To the interim farmer, caught between completely automated equipment and the tradition of hand labor, the change in work habits, knowledge and goals could be more than vaguely disquieting.

As mechanization increased, many began to speak of agriculture in industrial terms, believing that "factorizing" the farm would solve its problems. This meant dispensing with any unnecessary tasks, such as raising sheep or making soap, and as much as possible replacing manpower with machinery. Technical terminology started to creep into farm talk.

C. T. Rice referred to his dairy as "a milk producing plant,"[192]

ancient terms such as "culling" became "selective breeding," and even the animals were referred to as machines, which if "poorly constructed must be ... discarded by the good breeder."[193] To independent-minded farmers, who, as Sinclair Lewis had observed, jealously guarded the ability to escape the mill and turmoil of the city, this industrialization seemed the ultimate compromise. The findings of the Commission to study the Condition of the Farmers of Virginia (1930) show the rural values of a most fundamental character to be those most prized by the agriculturalist:

Among these are: a) The advantages of the country for bringing up a family ... a greater sharing of responsibilities, a closer knit, more stable family life.... b) The satisfactions ... of contacts with forces of nature, of caring for plants and animals, and of seeing them grow.... c) Greater freedom from various types of restraints, including somewhat greater control over time and freedom of personal action; also less intense struggle to keep up with or ahead of others.... d) somewhat greater freedom from illness, together with a better prospect of attaining old age. e) Greater security against unemployment as well as less prospect of falling into absolute want.[194]

Yet in the post-World War I period the farmer had increasingly to commercialize and mechanize his business to remain solvent and to "citify" his life, destroying in numerous instances the standards he held dear.

"I used to 'farm' some and made money at it; now I'm 'engaged in the pursuit of agriculture' and can't make ends meet," commented one U. S.

Secretary of Agriculture, echoing the sentiments of many small landowners.[195] The new farm mechanization was, in many cases, not particularly well adapted to the family farm in this period.

Gasoline-powered tractors, harvesters and other equipment worked most economically on the large, level acres of midwestern farms, and the east coast farmer with modest landholdings could not hope to compete on the market with the streamlined efficiency of western farms. Mechanized farming was also capital intensive. Besides the initial cost of equipment there were expenses for maintenance and fuel. Whereas the farmer had been able to raise feed for horses or mules inexpensively, he could not grow gasoline.

Farmers usually had to borrow money to purchase equipment and sometimes they over-indulged. "I know one or two that did," said Joseph Beard.

When you have several thousand dollars invested in machinery, and you only use it three, five, ten, fifteen days a year, the rest of the time it's sitting idle ... it would have been ... better if they had hired their work done from someone else rather than put that much into it.[196]

More cash was needed to buy manufactured goods as the farm became less self-supporting, but prices for raw materials remained low during the agricultural slump of the 1920s and 1930s. "Agriculture was much less distressed when the farm was a self-supporting home," reflected the _Washington Star_:

But when factories began producing commodities in quant.i.ty the farmer could buy them easier than he could make them at home.

At first glance this looks like an admirable situation. But the hitch arose when the farmer found himself unable to maintain a fair basis of exchange.[197]

The result was that many farms of long-standing ownership had to be mortgaged. In the s.p.a.ce of one year (between 1924 and 1925) county mortgages rose a dramatic 30% and by 1940 they had risen another 20%.[198] Worse yet, a small but significant number of farmers and farm laborers were beginning to leave the countryside altogether to work in the city.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Kidwell farm and Floris vicinity shown in an aerial photograph taken in 1937. Photo, National Archives and Records Service.]

The county's improved transportation system was partially responsible for this. Access to markets had been facilitated by surfaced roads but an easy avenue to city jobs was also opened. Short and regular hours, higher pay and city amenities were strong attractions to the farmer who had had to work "from daybreak to backbreak" for a scanty living.[199]

In recognition of this problem, Derr wrote plaintively in his annual report of 1925:

The worst feature is the fact that our small farmers in the main have such a hard time to get along that many of them are actually training their children along more lucrative lines, and occupations other than farming. Many of these farmers have sold their farms or abandoned their leases and moved into the cities and are earning more money per day than they made per week in the country. Another important factor in this exodus from the farm is the fact that so many of our farm boys with good health and strength, and not afraid of hard work are making good in the city.[200]

Continuing on, Derr quoted one discouraged farmer: "One of my daughters is making 22 dollars a week, and my wife is talking of getting a job too. My wife can earn more in the city than I am getting so I guess I will take care of the house and let them go to work."[201]

Ironically, additions such as electrification, intended to improve the rural standard of living, seem to have done little to check the migration. USDA and United Nations studies show that the very amenities which should have made life in the country more attractive often resulted in a large flow of the population towards urban areas, a trend which continues today in developing countries. Even increased education, which had as its goal professional quality in agricultural training, sometimes simply broadened the farmer to possibilities outside his own realm. Sociologists and agriculturalists have found these repercussions puzzling and have not discovered clear-cut reasons for them. Perhaps with country and city life being ever h.o.m.ogenized by the use of radios, automobiles, consumer goods and the interflow of people, the step of leaving the farm to try city life seemed less foreign and formidable. In Fairfax County the proximity of Washington and Alexandria made it especially tempting.[202]

It was not only farm owners who left home for city jobs, but the farm laborers. The effect of this exodus was devastating to the county's small farmer. Initially the scarcity of help meant cutting back additional farm activities, the products of which were not earmarked for the market. Rebecca Middleton remembered, for instance, that farmers stopped raising their own hogs chiefly because of the difficulty of hiring laborers to help with butchering.[203] As labor shortages grew, the available help raised their prices significantly, eventually outpricing themselves for most farmers. As Joseph Beard observed, this trend did not affect Fairfax County in a really dramatic way until after World War II, "by virtue of the fact that most farmers raised anywhere from two to five children. Most every farmer's hired hand raised from two to five children. Now there just wasn't room on this farm to employ ten to twelve children." With such large families the drain to Washington did not so clearly affect the farms at the outset.[204]

Nevertheless, the trend retains its significance, for the high cost of labor, which contributed greatly to the demise of the self-supporting farm, had its roots in the optimistic improvement of transportation systems in the second and third decades of the century.[205]

The improved roads carried yet another liability: an increase in land value and the consequent rise in taxation. In 1923 the average acre in the county was worth $5 to $10; it had more than doubled in value by the end of that decade.[206] Taxes rose accordingly. The editors of the _Fairfax Herald_ complained in 1926 that in addition to the cost of living which had risen 78% from 1913, they paid federal taxes which were 200% over the pre-World War I figure.[207] The farmer also carried the burden of cost for his much-desired roads. In addition to bond issues, there was a Virginia state gasoline tax which fell heavily on the farmer with his gas-driven machinery and need to haul produce to market.[208]

Taxation, like labor, machinery and manufactured goods, called for additional cash, which was more and more difficult for the family farmer to raise. "There's only one thing that has driven the dairy industry out of Fairfax County, and that's taxes," concluded Holden Harrison. "The land was suitable, the location was suitable, but who's going to run a dairy on $10,000 an acre land?"[209]

An editorial in the _Fairfax Herald_ for September 6, 1935, reflects well the changes seen on farms of the depression era.

Housewives throughout the county are becoming more and more incensed over the steadily rising prices of foodstuffs, particularly meats.... In many places housewives are actually boycotting merchants who attempt to sell meat at the present price level. The blame for the present rise in prices lies directly at the door of the Raw Dealers and Brain Trusters. These smart young gentlemen had a theory and in pursuance of that theory they slaughtered a great number of hogs, in order to keep prices at an unnaturally high level. They succeeded only too well.[210]