Agriculture from Beers History of Warren County, Ohio

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The History of Warren County, Ohio

Agriculture

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Transcription contributed by Martie Callihan 21 December 2004

Sources:
The History of Warren County Ohio
Part III. The History of Warren County by Josiah Morrow
Chapter VI. General Progress
(Chicago, IL: W. H. Beers Co, 1882; reprint, Mt. Vernon, IN: Windmill Publications, 1992)
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Notwithstanding the wonderful fertility of the rich, virgin soil when the old forests were out away and the genial and vivifying rays of the sun shone upon the first crops planted by the hand of man, agriculture was not the road to wealth with the early settlers of the Miami Valley. The great embarrassment under which the pioneer farmer labored was the difficulty of getting the products of his soil to a market. In spite, of roots and stumps, sprouts and bushes, the newly cleared land brought forth bountiful harvests; but the wagon roads were imperfect, canals and railroads unthought of, and the distance by the Ohio River to the principal markets so great, the navigation so difficult, tedious and hazardous, that the early farmer had little encouragement to increase the products of his fields beyond the wants of his family and the supply of the limited home market created by the wants of the inhabitants of the neighboring towns and the newly-arrived emigrants. The average time required for a journey by a flat-boat propelled by oars and poles, from Cincinnati to New Orleans and return, was six months. The cargoes taken in these boats were necessarily light; the boats could not be easily brought back, and were generally abandoned at New Orleans and the crew returned by land, generally on foot, through a wilderness of hundreds of miles. A large part of the proceeds of the cargo was necessarily consumed in the cost of taking it to market. Beeswax, skins and feathers were the principal articles that could profitably be transported by wagons to distant markets. Hogs and cattle were driven afoot over the mountains, and, after a journey of a month or six weeks, found an uncertain market in Baltimore. Corn rarely commanded more than 10 or 12 cents per bushel; wheat, 30 or 40 cents; hay was from $3 to $4 per ton; flour from $1.50 to $2 per hundred; pork from $1 to $2 per hundred; the average price of good beef was $1.50 per hundred, while oats, potatoes, butter and eggs scarcely had a market value, and the sale of cabbage and turnips was almost

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unheard of. But the early farmers supplied their homes liberally with the comforts of pioneer life; they lived independently, and, perhaps, were as happy and contented as those who have the luxuries brought by wealth and commerce.

The proximity of a spring, rather than the claims of taste or sanitary considerations, usually determined the location of the first residence of the pioneer farmer; and the log stable and the corn-crib, made of rails or poles, were apt to be in close proximity to the residence. The first fences, both for the fields and the door-yard, were made of rails in the form of the Virginia, or worm, fence. This, in a new country, where timber, readily split with the wedge and maul, was abundant, was the cheapest and the most durable fence. Unsightly as it is, it is yet superseded to a limited extent only by post-and-rail, board or wire fences, or hedges.

Agricultural implements were at an early period necessarily few in number and rude and simple in construction. The plow first used was of rude construction—often made on the farm with the assistance of the neighboring blacksmith. It had a wooden mold-board and a clumsy iron share. It took a strong man to hold it and twice the strength of team now requisite for the same amount of work. The cast-iron plow was slowly introduced. The early harrows were made of bars of wood and wooden teeth, and were rude and homely in construction. Sometimes, in place of the harrow, a brush, weighted down with a piece of timber, was dragged over the ground. The sickle was in universal use for harvesting grain until about 1825, when it was gradually superseded by the cradle. The sickle is one of the most ancient of farming implements; but reaping with the sickle was always slow and laborious. For the twenty years succeeding 1830, there were few farmers who did not know how to sawing the cradle and scythe, but during the next twenty years reapers and mowers, drawn by horses, became almost the only harvesters of grain and grass. The first reaping machines merely cut the grain; a raker was necessary to gather the grain into sheaves ready for the binders. Self-raking reaping machines soon followed, and, about 1878, self-binding machines were introduced. Of the two old-fashioned methods of separating the grain from the straw—the flail and tramping with horses—the latter was the most common in this county. To-day, instead of this slow and wasteful method, a horse or steam-power thresher not only separates the grain, but winnows it and carries the straw to the stack, all at the same time.

The soil of Warren County is well adapted to a miscellaneous agriculture, and all its branches are pursued, the cultivation of grains and the raising of stock. Corn is the leading grain crop, and of stock, hogs are more generally raised than any other. The first crop usually raised by the early farmers on newly-cleared land was corn. Most of the county has been found well adapted to wheat, and this crop is seldom a total failure. Barley has been, for many years, one of the leading and most profitable crops in large areas, and the county has long stood among the first in the State in the production of this grain. Nearly all the large breweries in the State are found in the Miami Valley.

HORSES.

The capital invested in domestic animals constitutes a large item in the wealth of the county. Improvements in breeds of all the farm animals have kept pace with the improvements in agricultural implements and methods of tilling the soil. After the land had been generally cleared of the forests, the necessity of oxen ceased, and interest in the improvement of the horse commenced. The possession of good horses—elegant, strong and speedy—became a matter of pride with the farmer. Speed was not considered of special value in the horse until the improvements in the public roads rendered possible the use

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of the modern light carriage. The improvements in the horse are doubtless largely due to the infusion of the blood of the thoroughbred, which was early introduced into Warren County. The Morgan, the Cadmus, the Bellfounder, the C. M. Clay and the Hambletonian stock, were also common at different periods, but whatever breed has been introduced, the tendency has always been to amalgamate it with the stocks already in use. The strains of blood have not therefore been kept distinct. The farm horses, or horses for general purposes, found throughout the county, are of a most uncertain blood, but it is certain that they have been greatly improved within thirty years in style, action, form, temper and endurance, and no county in the State can now exhibit a greater number of fine horses for the purposes of the farm, the road and the carriage.

CATTLE.

The cattle of the early settlers were introduced from various quarters, immigrants from Pennsylvania, Virginia and Kentucky bringing many with them; and it is believed by some that cattle raised by the Indians previous to the first settlements by the whites, were an element in the original or common herds in the West. Of course; they were a heterogeneous collection, yet, in process of time, the stock was assimilated to the locality, acquiring local characteristics, by which the experienced cattle-dealer determined from their general appearance the region in which they were reared. The early farmers suffered their cattle to wander through the woods and uncultivated grounds, browsing for their living, and thus some of the native grasses and shrubs were extirpated by being cropped off early in the spring before their flowers and seeds were formed. In winter, the cows were not housed nor sheltered, but found their subsistence at a stack of wheat-straw, or in the corn-field, after husking time; or, at best, were fed twice a day in an open lot with fodder and unhusked com. The practice, which is still common, of securing the corn before it is fully matured by cutting off the stocks near the ground and stacking it in the field, is said to have originated with the cattle-feeders of Virginia.

Warren County early felt the effects of the interest manifested in different parts of Kentucky and Ohio for the improvement of the stock of cattle. The Shakers, at Union Village, having large landed estates, and more abundant means at their command than any single farmer, took the lead in the introduction of improved breeds in all kinds of farm animals. The Patton stock of English cattle, early in this century, doubtless found their way from Kentucky to the Miami Valley, and were crossed with the common cattle. Some of the early descendants of the Kentucky importation of English cattle, made in 1817, were brought to Warren County; the long-horns first; afterward, the short-horns. Excellent short-horn cattle continued to be introduced until there is hardly a neighborhood in the county in which more or less of their cross is not found. In 1854, Robert G. Corwin, in connection with the Society of Shakers, made an importation direct from Scotland of fine herds of thoroughbred short-horn cattle. Of late years, the Jersey cows are coming into favor, on account of the richness of their milk, especially in the towns and on farms adjoining the towns.

SHEEP.

Sheep were raised by the early settlers before the wolves had disappeared, and old men still living remember to have seen wolves in pursuit of sheep. The journals of the Shakers show that Merino sheep were introduced on their premises August 2,1812. Jeremiah Morrow, then a Member of Congress, soon after introduced them into Deerfield Township. The number of sheep in the county continued to increase until about 1850, since which time they have decreased in numbers.

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SWINE.

The raising of hogs has proved so well adapted to the agriculture of the county that on almost every farm it has been carried on, and the animal has been made to serve both as a popular and cheap article of food, and a means of condensing for the market a large part of the extensive crops of Indian corn. Of all domestic animals, the hog comes to maturity quickest, requires least skill and care to handle, and has been most generally relied on in the regions around Cincinnati for domestic consumption and for profit. The fact that the celebrated Poland-China breed of hogs originated in Warren County and attained the development which has given it so high a reputation in the two counties of Warren and Butler, renders a full history of Warren County hogs desirable. The principal authorities which have been followed in the preparation of the following historic account, are the report of Hon. John M. Millikin, of Hamilton, Ohio, to the National Convention of Swine Breeders, held at Indianapolis in 1872, and a paper published in the Western Farmer by Cephas Holloway, the venerable business manager of the Shaker Society at Union Village.

The swine of the early settlers were long and slim, coarse, large boned and long-legged, with erect bristles on the neck and back. They were active and healthy and capable of making heavy hogs, but two years or more were required for them to mature. Until a short time before being butchered or driven to market, they were suffered to run at large in the woods, subsisting as foragers. They were sometimes known as "razor-backs."

Some time during the war of 1812, Col. Thomas B. Van Horne, who was in command at Fort Erie, purchased two Russia pigs, and, carrying them in a basket to Pittsburgh, brought them thence by water to Cincinnati, and raised them on his farm one mile east of Lebanon. About the same period, the Byfield breed was also introduced in the Miami Valley. These two improved breeds, the Russia and the Byfield, and, to some extent, the Bedford, were profitably crossed with the common bristle breed.

In 1816, John Wallace, then a trustee of the Shaker Society, visited Philadelphia on business, and was shown what were called the Big China hogs; he was pleased with them and purchased four hogs, and brought them the same season to Union Village. These four hogs were entirely white, except one, upon which were some sandy spots, in which appeared small black spots. They were represented to be either imported or the immediate descendants of imported stock, and are believed to have been the first China hogs in Southwestern Ohio. Subsequently, other China hogs were introduced. They were extensively raised and crossed with the best breeds then existing, and the product of these crosses constituted a breed of fine qualities, which was generally known as the "Warren County hog," sometimes as the " Shaker hog." These hogs increased in good qualities and were extensively bred in the great corn-producing regions of Warren and Butler Counties.

The Berkshires were introduced into Warren County in 1835 or 1836, by Mr. Munson Beach, who operated, in connection with his brother, Louis Beach, then a prominent merchant in the city of New York. Subsequently, they made other shipments of the same stock to Warren and Butler Counties. The Berkshires introduced by the Messrs. Beach were generally black, with occasional marks of white, either on the feet, the tip of the tail or in the face. They were muscular, active and round-bodied hogs, and, in most cases, had sharp-pointed, upright ears. Some families, however, were large in size, deep in their bodies, with ears that lopped.

The Irish Grazier breed of hogs was imported direct into Southwestern Ohio by William Neff, Esq., of Cincinnati, about 1839. The Graziers were

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white, with only an occasional sandy spot which appeared about the eyes. Mr. Neff committed some of these hogs to the care of Mr. Anthony Keever, whose farm adjoined the Shaker lands on the south. Mr. Keever was a judicious breeder, and, esteeming the Grazier highly, he bred them and crossed them liberally.

These two breeds—the Berkshires and Irish Graziers—were extensively used in making crosses by the best breeders in Warren and Butler Counties, and, to some extent, in Clinton and Hamilton Counties. Having been carefully bred and intermixed with the descendants and crosses of the Big China with other breeds, the stock thus produced constituted the true and original basis of what is now known as the Magie or Poland-China hogs.

Many of the most successful breeders of these hogs resided in the vicinity of Monroe, near the Warren and Butler County line. Since 1840, no new blood has been introduced. In 1870, the Illinois Swine Breeders' Association resolved to call these hogs the " Magie breed " (pronounced Magee), from the name of one of the most successful breeders of the stock in Butler County, but Poland-China is now the established name. The first part of this name, however, is a misnomer, as the best authorities agree that there never was a breed of hogs known as the Poland in the Miami Valley, and no Poland cross entered into the formation of the breed. The first part of the name is believed to have originated from the fact that a Polander, residing in Hamilton County, having purchased some of the Shaker or Warren County hogs many years ago, disposed of them to purchasers who named them Poland or Polander hogs. The National Convention of Swine Breeders of 1872 retained this misnomer for the reason that the great mass of breeders so called the breed, and to change a name generally used is difficult.

These celebrated hogs have been exported from the Miami Valley to many different States and foreign countries. They have been sent to Australia, and, in 1879, received the highest premium at the great stock exhibition of New South Wales.


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