Part 5 (2/2)
There were four or five princ.i.p.al distributors in Was.h.i.+ngton. 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 a.s.sociation the management of the a.s.sociation 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 a.s.sociation 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 a.s.sociation 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 a.s.sociation 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 b.u.t.ter 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 a.s.sociation was the largest farmer's cooperative in Virginia. It included 85% of the Was.h.i.+ngton area producers in its members.h.i.+p, 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 members.h.i.+p fund gave them a strong bargaining position. ”The distributors knew when that fund acc.u.mulated 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 b.u.t.terfat 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 a.s.sociation #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 s.h.i.+ed 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 a.s.set 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 Was.h.i.+ngton 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 quant.i.ties 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 s.h.i.+pping, 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 s.h.i.+p 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 b.u.t.terfat 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% b.u.t.terfat 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 quant.i.ty.”
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 establis.h.i.+ng herds of pure-bred animals.[151]
The mixing of breeds to increase b.u.t.terfat 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 a.s.sociations, 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 encompa.s.sed 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.
Mechanization and specialization of the family farm did not necessarily lighten the farmer's workload. An electric machine could cut several hours per week off milking time, but this time gain was offset by the hours spent on sterilization and maintenance. Threshers eliminated the time-consuming ch.o.r.e of hand-flailing the grain, but the farmer still had to cut and stack his harvest, and it took several men a number of days to run the machine. The grower was at the mercy of the machine's owner as to the day and time he was able to thresh; here again, he lost a measure of independence.[154] The excellent efforts of the Dairy Herd Improvement a.s.sociations also produced work for the farmers, especially those unaccustomed to bookkeeping. The landowner who had kept his records in an old shoe box was now expected to record the precise weight and b.u.t.terfat content of the milk given by each cow, as well as the market value, number of days tested and amount and cost of grain fed the animal. The data shown in the Herd Record Books belonging to C. T. Rice reveal them to be complex doc.u.ments which required in addition to the above information, hereditary records, descriptions of physical features, and yearly and monthly production averages.[155] The efforts were rewarding, of course, but, added to the farmer's already overloaded day, the recordkeeping could be burdensome. Both Agents Derr and Beard complained constantly of the farmer's reluctance to keep records and in their attempts to increase the area's professional methods and pride, they stressed the need to keep accurate accounts of the farm's transactions.[156]
The advent of technological application in the farming sector was a cause of both optimism and disquiet. It eliminated some drudgery, it streamlined and modernized, but it also uprooted traditions and added financial and emotional burdens to the already pressured farmer. To cope with the new agricultural methods and outlook, farmers increasingly chose to relinquish some of their independence and band together to solve their problems.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”Hard Work Made Easy and Quick” wrote a local farmer on the back of this photograph. The mechanical hay loader eliminated the taxing work of pitching hay into a barn loft, c. 1935. Photo courtesy of Holden Harrison.]
PART II--NOTES
_Change_
[92] Barger and Lansberg, _American Agriculture, 1899-1939_, 212.
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