Sowing Seeds and Reclaiming the Commons: Possibilities and Pathways for the Future of Appalachian Agricultural History

Abstract

Sowing Seeds and Reclaiming the Commons:Possibilities and Pathways for the Future of Appalachian Agricultural History Cody Miller (bio) Reflecting on the importance of the American chestnut tree to the Appalachian region, western North Carolinian Bill Brinkley explained that on one stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway in Watauga County, "you really didn't realize how many chestnut trees there were til they all died … I'd say three-quarters of the trees were chestnut trees."1 Mollie Combs, also from western North Carolina, explained there would have "been a lot of kids [who] couldn't have a pair of shoes if it wasn't for them chestnuts."2 Yet another western North Carolinian, Sam Jones of Todd, remembered how raising hogs was integrally linked to the American chestnut tree and proclaimed "well, I don't believe there was any a fat[ter] hog, unless they got fat on mash, they [End Page 443] used to get awful fat on mash. Chestnuts and acorns, Lord, there used to be worlds of them." After discussing raising hogs and how they used to forage in the forest, Jones recalled just how ubiquitous chestnuts were: I picked one day, part of a day after a big snow, about ninety pounds of chestnuts … they'd take damp, you know, to bring them out … boy I got all I could carry and I never got started on them.3 As I write this essay, I am sitting no more than ten miles from the spot on the Blue Ridge Parkway where Bill Brinkley saw all those chestnut trees decades ago, and depending on the day, I am no more than twenty miles away from the areas where Sam Jones watched hogs forage for chestnuts in the forest and Mollie Combs remarked how vital the chestnut economy was to mountain families. Appalachian agroforestry histories can help us develop the region's agricultural history, but featuring powerful place-based stories like these can also help us be better agricultural historians in general. Like Appalachian environmental history, Appalachian agricultural history is still in need of greater development.4 Agricultural historians like Tom Lee have argued that "much about agricultural choices and rural life in the region remains unexplored, and our understanding remains incomplete."5 Yet for a subfield in need of greater exploration, perhaps we can find initial inspiration in our immediate surroundings. Despite gaps in scholarship, historians have made many important thematic contributions to the field. This essay is by no means [End Page 444] exhaustive, and a longer piece would mention other crucial themes like industrialization, economic hegemony, and agricultural change.6 Ultimately, this essay is meant to give brief shape, form, and synthesis to the field of Appalachian agricultural history by identifying important themes like agroecological change, crop industries, the small farmer, and foodways. My focus is primarily on two important areas Appalachian agricultural historians might develop: the history of seeds and the commons. One important way forward is to further explore agroecological change, which will allow Appalachian agricultural historians to contribute to the region's environmental history. To begin, one must first look to scholars like the geographer J. Russell Smith, who studied early twentieth-century Appalachia. His seminal work, Tree Crops: A Permanent Agriculture (1929), called attention to the crisis of soil erosion in the region and how tree cropping could serve as a stable alternative for future agricultural systems. Smith covered a variety of countries in his treatise on proper soil management such as Italy and China, but he was also concerned about the soil health of southern Appalachia and even proposed an institute for mountain agriculture in the United States. He identified the root cause of the problem as carrying "to the hills the agriculture of the flat plain. In hilly places man has planted crops that need the plow; and when a plow does its work at an angle instead of on flat lands, we may look for trouble when rain falls."7 Smith had almost a utopian view that could only be realized once farmers acknowledged the serious topographical and ecological differences of mountainous areas. "When we develop an agriculture that fits this land," Smith said, "it will become...