Tag: farming

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

A Bit of a Delay

Yankee Farmlands № 93 (Farm in Washington, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 93”
Washington, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Despite being bathed in the molten glow of dawn as October comes to a close, icy temperatures more befitting of winter descend upon this mowed cornfield in the hills of Western Connecticut. Snow lingers in the shadows beside a rickety cart, remnants of a recent storm that stubbornly persist despite autumn’s protests.

I originally intended for my Yankee Farmlands project to be rolled out in real-time, each new installment having been produced only a week or two before its release. For two years or so, that’s exactly what I did. But an increase in clients and a heavy shooting schedule last autumn made it prohibitive to continue such a rigorous roll-out.

The result? You’re just now seeing the project installments that I was shooting about seven months ago. But I must say, there’s something strangely satisfying (in a contrary sort of way) about rolling out imagery of a chilly autumn day just as Connecticut abruptly ticks up into the 90s.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Atop the Barndoor Hills

Yankee Farmlands № 92 (Barndoor Hills, Granby, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 92”
Granby, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Nestled in a cozy valley between the monolithic Barndoor Hills, the stables and white-fenced pastureland of a picturesque horse ranch contrast with the expansive forests of Connecticut’s northwest.

Prior to the advent of automobiles in the 20th century, horses were a ubiquitous mode of transportation throughout the United States. And, perhaps thanks to Wild West films, it’s not hard for us these days to envision an era when horses were commonplace. But when did these animals arrive in New England?

Native Americans living in New England did not possess horses prior to European contact. And although the Pilgrims were exceptionally familiar with horses in their homeland, they neglected to bring any along on their pioneering voyage to establish Plymouth on the Massachusetts coast in 1620. Explicit mention of a horse in Southern New England doesn’t appear in records until 1632, when the governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony mentions riding the “Governor’s mare” while traveling between villages.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Quiet Store in the Quiet Corner

Yankee Farmlands № 90 (Farm stand in Eastford, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 90”
Eastford, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

A scattering of pumpkins and bushels of fresh squash and gourds sit by the roadside beckoning to passersby to visit this farm store in Connecticut’s Quiet Corner. Potted chrysanthemums sit in arrangement beside the store’s corrugated walls, enjoying some mid-day sunlight as October wanes.

There’s good reason that Eastford and surrounding towns in Northeastern Connecticut have come to be referred to affectionately as the “The Quiet Corner”. With only about 60 people per square mile, Eastford is among the most sparsely populated towns in the entire state, and that trend towards being a quiet, out-of-the-way hamlet stretches back well over a century.

Even in the late 1800s, at a time when a great deal of Connecticut was booming with industrial might, Eastford was arguably languishing. The town was “touched by no railroad”, according to an 1881 state agricultural report. The account went on, noting that Eastford had actually “lost population since… 1870” and lacked any significant manufacturing or markets.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

In the Hills of Salisbury

Yankee Farmlands № 89 (farm in Salisbury, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 89”
Salisbury, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Barns nestle into the shadowy foot of a steep hill in Connecticut’s rugged northwest. The forest canopy has noticeably thinned as the latter days of October grip the landscape, only evergreens and a few stubborn broadleaves retaining their foliage.

In the 1830s, J. W. Barber described Salisbury not only as a farming community, but also as being “much celebrated for its very rich and productive iron mines”. The first forge had been constructed there in 1732 and was followed in time by several dozen more that came to dot the Housatonic Valley in the 19th century. Barber reported that thousands of tons of ore were being extracted each year from Salisbury alone at a site referred to as “Old Ore Hill”.

But, as was the story with so many of New England’s early industrial pursuits, the burgeoning population centers further west gradually made it less practical to have iron operations centered in the hills of the Housatonic Valley. In 1923, not quite a century after Barber swooned over Connecticut’s mighty iron mines, the last of the state’s blast furnaces was extinguished. Today, the sparsely-settled forests of Salisbury offer little trace of its illustrious industrial past.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Pumpkins by the Thousands

"Yankee Farmlands № 88" (Pumpkin patch in Enfield, Connecticut)

 “Yankee Farmlands № 88”
Enfield, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

With the color-rich forests of Northern Connecticut having reached a kaleidoscopic peak in mid-October, pumpkin patches yield the year’s final crop amidst a tangle of withering vines.

Pumpkins are a crop which is uniquely associated with autumn in the United States, whether it’s being called upon to fill pies or serve as decoration. Given that the treasured Connecticut Field Pumpkin is America’s traditional variety, it’s only fitting that they would enjoy a strong foothold in the Nutmeg State.

In fact, upwards of a million pumpkins are grown across Connecticut each year, an impressive annual haul which keeps the state well-stocked as leaves change and Halloween gives way to Thanksgiving. But when it comes to growing pumpkins on a massive scale, Illinois is the undisputed leader, producing over 300 million pounds of pumpkins on 15,000 acres of farmland in 2015 alone!

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

The Broadleaf Harvest

"Yankee Farmlands № 87" (Tobacco shed in Windsor, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 87”
Windsor, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Beside radiant autumn forests flush with an October palette, shadows embrace a rickety old tobacco shed freshly divested of its cured crop. Bare tobacco stalks, having been stripped of their leaves, lay piled upon a trailer ready to be carted away.

“Connecticut broadleaf tobacco is the Dangerfield of the cigar industry, a rumpled everyman tobacco that gets little respect,” wrote one journalist, kicking off a piece in a Cigar Aficionado magazine. And there’s truth to that assessment: broadleaf lives in the proverbial shadow of world-famous Connecticut shade tobacco, the two varieties forever vying for turf in the same fertile soils of the Connecticut Valley.

But while Connecticut broadleaf may not enjoy the same mystique as its shade-grown counterpart, its bold taste –described as a “heavy, muscular flavor” in the same Aficionado article– nonetheless earns it a spot in everything from machine-made Backwoods cigars to premium, hand-crafted maduros.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Corn & The Litchfield Hills

Yankee Farmlands № 86 (Roxbury, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 86”
Roxbury, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Crowded stalks of corn reach skyward from a humid field, the crops abruptly giving way to misty woodlands and the dreamy silhouettes of Connecticut’s Litchfield Hills.

While the crops grown throughout New England these days span a broad range from apples and blueberries to green beans and pumpkins, there’s no question that corn still reigns supreme. Whether for grain or silage, corn occupies tens of thousands of acres throughout the state. The only crop more common is one that would never make it to our dinner plates: hay and other forage crops that generally feed farm animals.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Bloomfield’s Farm Fresh Eggplant

Yankee Farmlands № 84 (Field of eggplant and produce box, Bloomfield, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 84”
Field of eggplant and produce box, Bloomfield, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

As the final days of September approach, this leafy field of eggplant rears its final crop of ripened vegetables. A waxy produce box, honest in its “farm fresh” claim, lays beside the field in wait for the harvest.

It’s not uncommon that farm fields might be planted with dramatically different crops from one season or year to the next. For one thing, this practice ensures that the nutrients important to a given type of crop aren’t exhausted from the soil disproportionately. Sometimes, the motivation may be purely monetary: the old crop just isn’t fetching the same profit as it once did.

This particular field had been dedicated to shade tobacco for years before being planted with eggplant instead. And, although it surely had no bearing on the decision to switch crops, it’s interesting to note that eggplant contains more nicotine than any other vegetable. Strange, right? But no worries, you’d need to eat nearly 30 pounds of eggplant parmesan to consume the same amount of nicotine found in just one cigarette.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Simsbury Blossoming

Yankee Farmlands № 83 (Field of decorative flowers, Simsbury, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 83”
Field of decorative flowers, Simsbury, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Exotic blossoms invite vivid color into a dusty farm field in Northern Connecticut where decorative flowers have reached maturity. Blue skies and a leaf-dense woodline embody the warmth and vitality of late summer in New England.

I’ve recently finished shooting for my Yankee Farmlands project, an endeavor which I thought would require roughly a year of work. Well, here we are now… nearly two and half years after I shot Yankee Farmlands № 1 at a hayfield in East Granby. It’s been a far longer, and far more rewarding, journey than I could’ve anticipated.

Over the coming weeks, I’ll be rolling out all of the final installments of the project, picking things back up where I left off in late summer, transitioning through this past autumn and concluding with pieces I produced recently this winter. I sincerely hope that you enjoy the visual story I’ve sought to tell about Connecticut’s agricultural landscapes; it’s certainly been a pleasure to create the final chapters.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Texas Longhorns in New England

Yankee Farmlands № 72 by J. G. Coleman (Texas Longhorns on feedlot, Watertown, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 72”
Texas Longhorns on feedlot, Watertown, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Enclosed by a mesh of chain-links, distinctive Texas Longhorns laze away the early morning on a feed lot in Connecticut’s Naugatuck Valley. Overnight rains have left droplets clinging to the gate and the humid air imparts a lingering haze to the sky and nearby grove of shade trees.

Not all of Connecticut’s livestock farms are situated on grassy, rolling hills and sprawling countryside. Feedlots such this one in Western Connecticut are able to fatten up cattle more quickly than could be achieved if they were grazing on open pastures. The faster they pack on the pounds, the faster they can be sent off to market to turn a profit. Not to mention that, for a given herd, a feedlot can be much more compact than a comparable pasture.

Indeed, the economic advantage of using feedlots over pastures is indisputable and this model has proven useful for some Connecticut farmers. All of that increased productivity translates to more affordable meat for you and I. On the opposite side of the coin, purveyors of more expensive, grass-fed beef are quick to extoll the culinary virtues of raising livestock on pastureland. Older, grass-fed cattle produce more flavorful meat, they insist.

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Be sure to check out all of the work from my on-going Yankee Farmlands project, a journey throughout the Connecticut countryside in celebration of New England’s agricultural heritage.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Making Hay While the Sun Shines

Yankee Farmlands № 69 (Windrows in hayfield, Bloomfield, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 69”
Windrows in hayfield, Bloomfield, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Windrows of freshly-cut hay snake through the corner of a quiet field bounded by woodlands as hazy morning clouds drift over the humid landscape.

Although hay may seem like a rather simple farm product, there’s a fairly involved series of steps and machinery that go into producing those tidy bales. Hay must first be cut and raked, usually with a tractor, into long piles known as “windrows” which are left to sun-dry in the field. Fair weather is a necessity, as excessive rains at this stage could drench the hay crop, causing it to spoil before it’s even gathered.

Once the windrows have sufficiently dried, a tractor equipped with a baler scoops up the hay, compressing it into round or rectangular forms before firmly tying the bundle. Finished bales are dropped upon the field so the next bale can be started. Thus, the final step in the process involves gathering the bales from the field for storage.

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All Things Connecticut New Print Releases The American Northeast

Empty Barns & Fields of Daisies

Yankee Farmlands № 68 (Tobacco sheds & wildflowers, Windsor, Connecticut)
“Yankee Farmlands № 68”
Tobacco sheds & wildflowers, Windsor, Connecticut
© 2016 J. G. Coleman

Beside creaky, derelict tobacco sheds besieged by prying vines, a brilliant mosaic of ox-eye daises, cow vetch, wheat and field grasses blankets an overgrown field in Central Connecticut’s waning Tobacco Valley.

By the mid-1800s, Connecticut had reached its peak level of deforestation in human history. As much as 70% to 80% of the state had been clear-cut, with a good deal of that acreage ultimately finding use as pastures, hayfields and croplands. But agriculture began a steady a decline from that point forward. Enormous swaths of farmland were abandoned as folks sought work in flourishing industrial cities or headed out west in search of new opportunities. Many towns throughout Connecticut had lost half of their population before 1900.

It’s no surprise that scenes such as this one, with fields and pastures growing wild and barns left to decay, would have been a familiar sight to folks living in Southern New England during the latter half of the 1800s. Most all of Connecticut’s modern forests, which now cover more than half the state, grew upon the deserted soil of those long-vanished farms.

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