There aren’t many farms left in Stafford County. Development and the changing economy of our area has taken their toll.
Economically, farming just isn’t the best use of the land anymore. During the past 30 years I’ve seen at least a dozen farms close. Most of them are now housing developments.
However, there was a time when agriculture was a key part of our identity as a community. It sustained our development for centuries.
The Indians were the first farmers in our region. This is a surprise to some, since history, with the help of Hollywood, has left us with the image of the early native Americans as a nomadic people.
Contrary to popular belief, most of the Native Americans along the Rappahannock were farmers. Primarily they grew corn, and they were good at it.
When the first colonists arrived, their farming skills were awful. They just weren’t ready for pioneer life, and it was the Patawomack Indians of what is today Stafford who taught them the secrets of successful agriculture.
But our agricultural future, as it turned out, wasn’t in corn. Rather, it was in another crop the Indians grew: tobacco.
Before tobacco the Virginia colony was a money-losing proposition. Once the colony began exporting tobacco to England, that all changed and Virginia colonists, like the Washingtons and Masons, started getting rich.
Tobacco was our primary cash crop in Stafford for decades. However, the plant isn’t good on the soil, and the slash and burn approach the early colonists took to agriculture resulted in large scale soil erosion.
At the time of the American Revolution, tobacco growing in our region was fading into history, and Stafford’s agricultural economy began a decline.
This lasted until the 1820s when Stafford went to row crops such corn and beans. The land was under heavy cultivation. However, the Civil War ended all that, and when peace finally came, Stafford’s population relied on subsistence agriculture. People ate what they could grow and there was little left over for sale.
Though Stafford’s economy and population contracted severely after the Civil War, arguably not recovering until the mid-20th century, that’s not to say the agricultural sector was moribund.
Agriculture played a major role in our economy well into the 20th century.
Many people don’t realize this, but one of the most successful crops was wheat. Normally that’s a crop that conjures up images of the Great Plains, but wheat was a successful crop in our area well into the 1970s. However, the embargo on grain sales to the Soviet Union in 1980, following the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, pretty much put an end to the industry.
Before that, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were cucumbers and pickles. This is one of the quirky sides to Stafford’s agricultural history and the part, predictably, I enjoy the most.
Indeed, did you know that Stafford was dubbed the “Pickle Capital of America?”
Stafford was one of the nation’s largest producers of cucumbers used for making pickles. There was a large pickle brining factory near the Brooke Railway Station that opened in 1893 and another in Falmouth. There were also pickle factories in Fredericksburg. Pickle production continued on a large scale well into the 20th century.
Tomatoes were another successful agricultural product, and we grew a lot of them. There was a large tomato canning plant, a neighbor of the Brooke Pickle Plant, that was in operation from about 1900 until The Depression.
But that wasn’t all. Stafford agriculture was ahead of its time and was home to one of the first health food manufacturers in the country.
There was another factory next to the Brooke Station that manufactured a meatless product called “Nuto.”
The man behind Nuto was the famous health food pioneer and writer Jethro Kloss, who advocated a wholesome vegetarian diet and began production of Nuto in 1921.
The company was called the Brooke Health Food Company and produced a meat substitute that could be sliced and fried. Kloss’ books are still in print and though the Brooke Plant closed before World War II, Nuto is still a trade name.
Stafford’s economy isn’t agricultural anymore. Fortunately, there are a still a few small agricultural operations that, at the very least, remind of us of who we were a long time ago.
Agriculture was the basis of our county’s economy for centuries — from tobacco to wheat, pickles and even Nuto — and it was an amazing ride.
David Kerr, a former member of the Stafford County School Board, is an instructor in political science at VCU and can be reached at StaffordNews@insidenova.com.
