PART IV

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 theWashington Star:

But when factories began producing commodities in quantity 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]

But when factories began producing commodities in quantity 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 space 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.

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 homogenized 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 laborshortages 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 theFairfax Heraldcomplained 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 theFairfax Heraldfor 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]

That the farm family was no longer raising its own meat, that they had lost a good deal of control over the quality and availability of their daily necessities, that housewives viewed themselves as important and cohesive enough to organize a boycott, that farm commodities were no longer strictly under the regulation of the farmer, and that the government's interference was beginning to be questioned and resented were signs of radical change in rural economic and social structure. The farmer was no longer so isolated, nor so overtaxed with sheer physical labor. The price he paid for these advantages was diminishing control over a way of life which had begun to slip away.

PART III—NOTES

Professionalization and an Increased Standard of Living

[157]Thomas A. Bailey,The American Pageant(Boston, D. C. Heath, 1966), 416.

[158]United States Congressional Record, 1914, 1916, 1917.

[159]Beard/Pryor, February 27, 1979.

[160]Kolb and Brunner,A Study of Rural Society, 424.

[161]Harrison/Pryor, February 5, 1979; McNair, "What I Remember" and "Fred Curtice, Fairfax Dairy Farmer,"Washington Post, October 24, 1978.

[162]"Poultry School at Fairfax," February 16, 1933; and "Two Day Poultry School a Success," March 2, 1933, both inHerndon News-Observer.

[163]Advertisement inHerndon News-Observer, June 4, 1925.

[164]Beard/Netherton/Reed, November, 1974.

[165]Derr Report, 1925, 14; and 1937 Report.

[166]Minutes of Meetings, Farmer's Club #1, Herndon, Virginia, October 1, 1909 to January 13, 1935, copy courtesy of Rebecca Middleton.

[167]"Dairymen to Meet,"Fairfax Herald, August 30, 1935; "Floris Producers Active,"Herndon News-Observer, January 22, 1925; Derr Report, 1927; for an outstanding example of a contract such as the one described, see contract between Burden S. Athey and Windsor Lodge Farm, Huntley, Virginia, May 31, 1933, in possession of Mrs. Mary Scott.

[168]Lucy Blake Report, 1938, 7.

[169]See all of the annual reports of home demonstration agents, especially Sarah E. Thomas Reports, 1933 and 1934; and Lucy Steptoe Report, 1936.

[170]For 4-H Club activity, see annual reports of home demonstration agents; and "The Short Course,"Fairfax Herald, July 16, 1926.

[171]Derr Report, 1926.

[172]"Floris 'Aggies' Organize,"Herndon News-Observer, January 13, 1926 (sic, 1927); and Ellmore/Middleton/Pryor, March 8, 1979.

[173]"Influence of Club Members,"Herndon News-Observer.

[174]Muriel Wheeler, 4-H Record Book, Herndon Club, 1933, in 4-H Record File, in Virginiana.

[175]15th Census of the United States, Agricultural Summary, 1930; Kolb and Brunner,A Study of Rural Society, 387; and advertisement inHerndon News-Observer, March 26, 1925.

[176]Derr Report, 1935, 13; and Harrison/Pryor,February5, 1979.

[177]Harrison/Pryor, February 5, 1979; and Rita Shug, "The Town of Herndon," unpublishedmonograph, George Mason University, May, 1973, 8.

[178]Harrison/Pryor, February 5, 1979.

[179]VPI,Housing, 26.

[180]Ibid., 14 and 26; "Farm Home Water Supply for Fairfax County,"Herndon News-Observer, June 23, 1932; and Netherton, et al.,Fairfax County, 519.

[181]Fairfax County Board of Supervisors,Historic Progressive Fairfax County in Old Virginia(Alexandria, 1928), 35; Harrison/Pryor, February 5, 1979.

[182]Greear/Netherton, March 23, 1978; and interview with Emma Millard, by Dana Gumb, November 15, 1972.

[183]Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 6, 1979.

[184]Minutes of Farmer's Club #1; and Resolution of Farmer's Club #14, n.d., copy found in Minutes of Farmer's Club #1.

[185]Derr Report, 1925, 14.

[186]Publicity Committee of Herndon Chamber of Commerce, "Facts Regarding Bond Issue Every Voter Should Know," 1924, copy courtesy of Holden Harrison; Robert T. Hawkes, Jr., "The Emergence of aLeader: Harry Flood Byrd, Governor of Virginia, 1926-1930,"Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, LXXXII, July 1, 1974, 281;Historic Progressive Fairfax County, 35.

[187]Agnes Rothery,Virginia: The New Dominion(New York, 1940), 124-25.

[188]Derr Report, 1925.

[189]Lucy Blake Report, 1937, 7.

[190]"Improved Highways are Big Aid to the Farmer,"Herndon News-Observer, December 30, 1926.

[191]McNair, "What I Remember."

[192]"A Unique Fairfax County Farm."

[193]"Cows Like Machines,"Herndon News-Observer, April 28, 1932.

[194]Report of the Commission to Study the Condition of the Farmers of Virginia to the General Assembly of Virginia(Richmond, 1930), 35; and Lord,Men of Earth, 147.

[195]Jere Rusk quoted in Joseph Schafer,The Social History of American Agriculture(New York, 1936), 159. This book also contains an excellent summary of the problems mechanization produced for the small farmer.

[196]Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 6, 1979.

[197]"The Way Out for the Farmer,"Washington Star, June 19, 1932, section 7, 3.

[198]Nickell and Randolph,An Economic and Social Survey of Fairfax County, 53; andAgricultural Censes, 1925and1940. The figures are 21.9% mortgaged in 1924, 28.4% in 1925 and 30.25% in 1940.

[199]J. Middleton/Netherton, February 24, 1978.

[200]Derr Report, 1925, 8.

[201]Derr Report, 1921, 1.

[202]National Rural Electric Cooperative Association,Proceedings of Long Range Study Committee I-III, November 1967-March 1968, (Washington, D.C., 1969); andRural Electric Fact Book(Washington, D.C., 1960).

[203]Ellmore/Middleton/Pryor, March 8, 1979.

[204]Beard/Netherton/Reed, November, 1974.

[205]SeeIbid., Derr Reports, 1926 and 1928; and Schaefer,The Social History of American Agriculture, 162.

[206]Virginia Agricultural Advisory Council,A Five Year Program for Development of Virginia Agriculture(Richmond, 1923), 17; and Fairfax County Land Record Books, 1930-1931, in Virginiana.

[207]"Tax Rate," editorial inFairfax Herald, April 23, 1926.

[208]Hawkes, "Harry Flood Byrd," 281.

[209]Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 6, 1979.

[210]Editorial inFairfax Herald, September 6, 1935.

One of the most important changes to influence farming in the years between the two world wars was the new interest the government took in agriculture and its problems. For many years the nation had considered agriculture to be not just the fundamental, but the ideal way of life. It was with a start, therefore, that people began to realize, soon after the turn of the century, that rural population was in fact decreasing, and that farm life fell short of the rosy dream of pastoral independence so cherished by Americans. A survey of farm conditions undertaken during the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt revealed that many rural areas lacked the most basic amenities offered in cities and that low farm prices retarded the agriculturist's efforts to better his condition. Farm conditions improved during the World War I years when the cries of "Feed the World" expanded markets and expectations. Inevitably, though, this increased agricultural production became a liability, for when the European and domestic markets shrunk at the close of the war farm prices fell drastically. Many farmers, hoping to offset the low prices with higher yields, took advantage of the new technology to produce bumper crops; the result was an additional surplus and even lower prices. Throughout the 1920s, the farm situation remained critical.[211]

The stock market crash of 1929 marked an extension and exacerbation of the grim farm conditions rather than a sudden decline. It rocked the farmer's market, of course, by further decreasing the amount of raw products being sold; unemployed workers bought less of everything, and often kept gardens themselves. More crucial than the crash of 1929 to the farmer's well-being in northern Virginia were two severe droughts, one in the late 1920s and the other in 1931. The latter was particularly harsh. Wheat planted in October did not come up until April, and one woman recalled that the cherry trees failed to blossom until the late fall.[212]Thousands of tons of hay and grain feeds had to be brought in from other parts of the country to feed the livestock, at enormous cost to the farmers. The combination of these unfortunate elements meant more mortgaged farms and tighter belts for the county's farmers.[213]

Relief came in the form of the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) which went into effect in the spring of 1933. One of the earliest of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal policies, it offered a radically new approach to farm recovery. Whereas earlier governmental policieshad relied on tariffs or half-hearted attempts to buy up surpluses to protect farm profits, the AAA promoted a scheme of "artificial scarcity." This was accomplished by price supports and through elimination of price-depressing surpluses by paying the growers to cut down their crop acreage. Payments were financed by taxing food processors, such as millers, who in turn shifted the burden to the consumer.[214]

Many of the AAA provisions were aimed at the large producers of the lower south and midwest, but they also had their effect in areas of smaller farms such as Fairfax County. Few county citizens were in absolute want during the Depression, in part because the effective work of the Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers Association insured steady milk prices. Yet these and later policies were embraced as being the only available hope for turning around the farm situation. "They were distressed enough so that they were willing to cooperate in a considerable degree with anything that would help them out."[215]

Implementing the programs created some initial problems. A system of acreage allotment had to be devised for each farmer, and this involved setting up an intricate bureaucracy which included a county committee (made up of three local farmers), new responsibilities for the county agent, and close association with representatives of the new federal programs. Confusion existed about the allowances made in the act for home consumption and the process by which allotments were decided. To arrive at the allowances for wheat, for example, the farmer had to complete two forms, on which it was necessary to compute his average yield for a three-year period (1930-1932) then adjust it to relate to a five-year nationwide average; this figure, reduced by 15 to 20 percent was his allowed production. The ultimate decision was made by the members of the county committee who had been elected by the taxpayers. "I've often wondered whether our judgment was accurate enough to really be used, but it was used," commented Holden Harrison who sat on the board.[216]The AAA county committee sought to be equitable in its determinations, but as in any process which tries to fit a series of requirements to individual cases, the decisions sometimes seemed arbitrary or unfair. Derr cited a case resulting from the Potato Act (which required a farmer to pay a penalty for yields exceeding his allotment) in which an older couple had "had poor luck with their potatoes for the base years; [they] almost wept when they learned that their future lease would be only forty bushels and they would have to pay a tax on what they sold over that amount."[217]Snags also occurred in the administration of the farm loan program, designed by the government to aid farmers in the purchase of seed and fertilizer. Not only were elaborate accounts of mortgage, store and personal debts, unpaid taxes and notes required (sometimes for a loan of $25.00), but repayment of the loan was set for dates such as July 1, when the crops were not yet harvested andready cash was scarce. As a result, much of the money designated for aid to Fairfax County was never applied for.[218]To the farmer, accustomed to deciding for himself what and when he would plant, and unfamiliar with the niceties of bureaucratic finagling, the government sometimes seemed more geared to interference than assistance.

In reality, the programs affected Fairfax County less than other parts of northern Virginia. Statistics from the Virginia Department of Agriculture and the USDA show that only 71 wheat adjustment contracts were taken out in Fairfax County in 1935, compared to 233 for Fauquier County and 351 for Loudoun County. As each of these neighboring counties contained over 2,000 farms, these are small figures indeed.[219]

The federal government set few limits on milk or poultry production, the county's two main economic sources, so the benefits of the AAA programs were often indirect. The principal effect was to force farmers to set aside about 15% of their land from wheat or corn production. Because Fairfax County farmers marketed little of their grain production, the outcome was that they received a bounty for planting another crop on this acreage, or allowing it to lie fallow and be fertilized. The policy resulted in a strong soil improvement program in the county, which was additionally aided by the cooperative buying power of the county committee. This meant, for instance, that purchases of lime needed to improve Fairfax County's acidic soil could be had for $3.50 a ton, the cost at the quarry, plus handling charges.[220]

Of even greater benefit to Fairfax County farmers was the moratorium on mortgage and even interest payments during the Depression's most severe period. Individual banks, such as the National Bank of Leesburg, which held many farm mortgages, also voluntarily followed the government's policy of leniency on collection of farm debts. This relieved much of the stress on the area's producers, allowing them to retain their land and, in some cases, even improve their holdings.[221]

The Depression years saw the advent of a radical new policy of government influence in farm affairs. Where laissez-faire had been the federal rule (and the farmers' desire), a control was now exercised over production, marketing and farm improvement. Though the farmer might believe this mitigated his independence and tied his judgment to that of an impersonal bureaucracy, he was forced to accept Uncle Sam's interference. The role of the government in designing agricultural policy proved to be a lasting one, still felt by the farmer of the 1970s.

PART IV—NOTES

The New Deal

[211]Barger and Lansburg,American Agriculture, 1899-1949, 72-112.

[212]Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 6, 1979; Rogers/Corbat, et al., June 12, 1970.

[213]Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 6, 1979.

[214]Bailey,The American Pageant, 842-43.

[215]Rogers, Corbat, et al., June 12, 1970; Ellmore/Middleton/Pryor, March 8, 1979; Joseph Beard quoted in Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 6, 1979.

[216]"Wheat Production Control Plan,"Herndon News-Observer, July 27, 1933; "Wheat Allotment Based on Averages,"Ibid., August 17, 1933; Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 6, 1979.

[217]Derr Report, 1936, 4. The Potato Act, which would in fact have been disasterous for small farmers, was actually before any crop was harvested. However, its effect was still to create some hostility to government programs among farmers.

[218]Derr Reports, 1930, 1931, 1934.

[219]Virginia Farm Statistics(Richmond, 1926, 1930, 1936).

[220]Beard/Harrison/Pryor, March 6, 1979.

[221]Ibid.

Beyond the family, with its special working relationship, the neighborhood community was the chief social unit for the farmer. It made available services the family could not provide for itself and added sociability and security to the farmer's life. It also had some influence on the tenor of his work because a dynamic community spirit prompts individual enterprise. The Floris neighborhood on which this study is focused was such a vigorous community. Fairfax County was filled with similar crossroads which gave an identity to each farming area and, with post office, blacksmith and general store, fulfilled the farmer's simple requirements. Floris seems to have shown an outstandingly progressive impulse, however, and a social interaction which made it an area of particular cohesiveness and community longevity.[222]

The root of community interaction is neighborliness—an interest in and concern for other people. Villages contain the same variety of human relations and personality as large cities, with the advantage that the smaller number of people are more easily known and understood. There could be irritating aspects to this (privacy was not always available in abundance) but also a warm familiarity. The people of Floris were so well acquainted that each man's favorite kind of pie was community knowledge.[223]Lottie Schneider, who grew up near Herndon, gave a charming description of village life in her book,Memoirs of Herndon, Virginia:

Everyone was interested in his neighbor. We shared our joys and sorrows, were sympathetic to each other. When we went down the street we knew everybody and would stop to greet each other. There was a village atmosphere of friendliness and kindness. How often I pause over every memory and savor again the charm of the friendly neighbors, the school and church relationships, the simple everyday happenings which like a weaver's shuttle steadily wove the lights and shadows into the tapestry of life.[224]

Neighborliness went beyond social interaction; it was also the basis for mutual aid and cooperation. Work on hauling projects, barn raisings and emergency assistance was readily available. "If somebody got sick and couldn't milk his cows, why the neighbors would go over and help him," related Joseph Beard.

I remember the neighbor next door to me had the flu, and everybody thought he was going to die and the snow was about twenty inches deep.... There was a wife left there with three ... small children, not of school age. My father not only did our work, but he went over and did their work too.[225]

Mutual assistance, concern and hospitality were the bedrock of community relations.

Larger Image

A map of the Floris community, c. 1930, drawn from memory by Joseph Beard.

Rapid communications made information on everyone's activities neighborhood knowledge. County agent Derr noted that it was "remarkable how rapidly news travels, whether good or bad," and that this was in fact an asset to his work.[226]The postal agent and telephone operator were two other information catalysts. The postmaster, Thomas Walker, was notorious for reading the postcards which passed his way, and often called the recipients to inform them of impending visits by relatives, or tidings of birth or death.[227]Telephone lines were put up in 1916, "strung on trees, just old poles up and down the road"[228]and this greatly speeded channels of gossip and necessary information. The telephone operator worked from her own bedroom and was the source for all the latest news. "If you didn't know what was going on in the neighborhood, all you had to do was ask the telephone operator," one Floris resident observed. "She knew everything."[229]In a more pragmatic sense the operator was depended upon for help during emergencies. The fear of isolation, a chief liability of rural areas, was much reduced by the improved roads and telecommunications of the first decade of the 20th century.

The telephone operator was particularly helpful in locating rural doctors when they were needed in an emergency. Like the veterinarians, doctors were not relied on for minor illnesses but were called on in extreme cases. Jack Day and William Robey were among the doctors who travelled by horse and buggy (and later in early model Fords) to make housecalls. They were loved and accepted by the community: "We thought of a family doctor about like we did our minister."[230]Fees were usually $1.00 for a housecall though farmers would sometimes offer a bushel of corn or a chicken in payment for their treatment.[231]

The doctors contributed a great deal to the well-being of the community. Rural families, however, were resourceful in finding home remedies for many ailments. Some of these were long-respected herbal preparations, but others were used more because of tradition than effectiveness. Frances Simpson described the special folk medicines of her family near Herndon:

Back to Index Next