Farm with 380 years continuous operation by one family has been sold

thisnumbersdisconnected · Nov 5, 2013

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/11/05/after-380-plus-years-new-hampshire-family-sells-farm/

Three years after it was put up for sale, an 11-generation family farm in New Hampshire has been sold for a fraction of the price that was first listed.

Members of the Tuttle family owned the 135-acre farm in Dover since 1632, one of America's oldest continuously operated family farms. They put the fruit-and-vegetable farm up for sale in the summer of 2010 as they dealt with competition from supermarkets, pick-it-yourself farms and debt.
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As an ol' farm boy myself, having grown up on a north Missouri farm that grew in less than a generation from 160 acres to well over 3,000, only to fall victim in much the same way as the Tuttle farm has, I can't help but be saddened by this story. In a huge bit of irony, columnist Verlyn Klinkenborg of The New York Times gets it, in this "obituary" she wrote for the farm when it stopped production three years ago:

"It is too simple to say, as the Tuttles have, that the recession killed a farm that had survived for nearly 400 years. What killed it was the economic structure of food production. Each year it has become harder for family farms to compete with industrial scale agriculture — heavily subsidized by the government — underselling them at every turn," Klinkenborg wrote. "In a system committed to the health of farms and their integration with local communities, the result would have been different. In 1632, and for many years after, the Tuttle farm was a necessity. In 2010, it is suddenly superfluous, or so we like to pretend."
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R.I.P. Tuttle farm.

Earth Wind and Fire · Nov 5, 2013

thisnumbersdisconnected said: ↑

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/11/05/after-380-plus-years-new-hampshire-family-sells-farm/
As an ol' farm boy myself, having grown up on a north Missouri farm that grew in less than a generation from 160 acres to well over 3,000, only to fall victim in much the same way as the Tuttle farm has, I can't help but be saddened by this story. In a huge bit of irony, columnist Verlyn Klinkenborg of The New York Times gets it, in this "obituary" she wrote for the farm when it stopped production three years ago:

R.I.P. Tuttle farm.
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Thats tough tohear....we had one in Pa but that too is gone. Alas...its a new world. We have a familyhere that has around 200 acres and he just bought a new tractor that operates by itself via GPS. The thought process is to use the new technology to make furrows more efficiently. I can see my great grandfather now with his team of horses in his 80's behind the plow....what would he say I wonder?

thisnumbersdisconnected · Nov 5, 2013

Earth said: ↑

Thats tough tohear....we had one in Pa but that too is gone. Alas...its a new world. We have a familyhere that has around 200 acres and he just bought a new tractor that operates by itself via GPS. The thought process is to use the new technology to make furrows more efficiently. I can see my great grandfather now with his team of horses in his 80's behind the plow....what would he say I wonder?
Click to expand...

Same thing my granddad with his two prize Missouri mules, Jack and Jenny, would say: "What the hell ... ?" Followed by a quick prayer asking forgiveness ... his Baptist roots and all, you know.

Farm with 380 years continuous operation by one family has been sold

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