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This is the Lougee family cemetery with the stone house and barn across the road, and the white mountains in the distance. This is the spectacular view that Juliette Lougee wrote about
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Then the industrial revolution appeared on the horizon puffing steam and blowing whistles. The trains arrived with grain and people. They left with livestock and apples to begin with, then with perishables like butter, cream, milk, and eggs. Farmers abandoned barter and exchange and began producing commodities for sale.
Those who stayed on their York County farms often enjoyed success between 1900 and 1919. Better bred livestock, fertilized fields, silos, and disease controls helped them produce goods to sell in growing urban and seasonal markets. But the industrial revolution was turning the farm into a more efficient, more mechanized place by the 1920s. Surpluses caused prices to fluctuate. Experts encouraged farmers to specialize in order to control their costs and improve the quality of what they did produce. They also helped farmers find better markets.
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David and horse
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In the 30s there were no better markets, but many people stayed or worked on farms to get by. World War II increased demand and prices temporarily. After that some opportunities opened up, especially in poultry, but also in fruits and vegetables, and more recently in nursery products. But in general agriculture has kept losing ground in York County. By 1992 the total value of agricultural products was a $15.7 million,and agriculture employed fewer than 1 percent of the County's workforce. As we will soon see, only forest and fish products rank lower in value when livestock, vegetable, fruit, and nursery products are combined.
Epilogue
"Indeed, the transformation of farming was a central element in the changing character of Maine and the nation over the past forty years."
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This is the view from the stone house of the field, restored barn, and cemetery.
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Most of the family farms are gone, statistically interred in York County and almost everywhere else in the United States. Only the miles and miles of stone walls have been left to remind us of just how vast was their realm by the middle of the nineteenth century. Their departure has left many wondering what it means for our rural communities to lose an idealized and cherished way of life. As writers like Sherwood Anderson and Victor Davis Hanson have queried, does the demise of the family farm leave Americans both economically and spiritually impoverished?
It is a question which should not be answered too hastily. Many Americans would insist that the land has never nourished their spirits. They would argue that the soul of America dwells in the urban centers, where technology and capitalism reign while the arts and the intellect flourish. We will examine next in some detail what has motivated and inspired the residents of Sanford, Maine, and the family that literally put that urban center on the County map.
Excerpt from Fields Without Dreams:
You see, we are now ending a very old idea in this country- a belief that goes back to the Greeks of the polis- that a family inherited land, grew food, and was rewarded with a life that fed and clothed children and that such agrarianism had value to all beyond the confines of the farm. As the notion passes that such people were the foundry of the country- its values, its militia, its very resilience- it is not altogether clear where, or if, they are to be replaced and what is to be left in their wake.
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