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You’re invited to open a time capsule from the early 1980s

Two trends were underway in New England agriculture in the early 1980s. The second wave of the back-to-the-land movement was cresting and, meanwhile, small family-run dairy farms were putting up a brave fight against the “Get Big or Get Out” program of the federal government.

The first wave, in the late 1960s, was commonly referred to as the “hippie invasion” but it definitely had an agricultural aspect. Communes were established in many places in rural New England and they tried to farm, but not very successfully. One commune, near Brattleboro, Vermont gave all their fruits and vegetables away and a book was written about it called Total Loss Farm.

The people who came in the second wave, however, were serious about farming and willing to put in the hard work needed to make a living on the land. None of them were more serious and hard working than Jack and Ann Lazor who settled in Westfield, Vermont, where they started a successful small farm and became leaders of an effort to build a New England agriculture based on small, diversified family farms.

The second wave people had little interest in “Get Big Or Get Out” farming. In fact, some of them were interested in going back to the farming practices of the 1800s.

The mantra of the second wavers was “diversified agriculture” and it really took off. Probably the most visible aspect of the diversification was the introduction of goats. So many goats were arriving, seemingly all at once, that they caused a backlash. In 1983 Frank Bryan and Bill Mares published their humorous book titled Real Vermonters Don’t Milk Goats and it sold 45,000 copies in four months. The tee shirts soon followed.

Meanwhile, in the early 1980s there were thousands of small family-run dairy farms in New England, some of them nearly self-sufficient. It was still possible to support a family by milking 40 cows. There were even some dairy farms still using horses and had never switched to tractors.

In the early ’80s “big ag” U.S. government pressure was increasing on the small dairy farms, many of them hill farms with wooden barns built 100 to 150 years earlier. What happened was a war between cement and wood. Some wanted wood floor stalls banned and all cows to be milked on cement floors. Others wanted to continue milking cows on wood floors as had been done for hundreds of years.

This issue was a big deal in the early 1980s because it didn’t seem to make any sense to move away from wood when no scientific evidence was ever provided to prove that concrete was better, and the wood floor milk was passing all the same milk quality tests as cement floor milk, often with higher scores.

During the war, the agriculture departments of the New England states stood with their farmers and dragged their feet enforcing anti-small-farm federal regulations — that is, all except for Connecticut, as you will see.

The New England Farmer was on top of the story and we are providing enough information here so readers can see the whole story of what the small farmers were up against. In this collection you will find two different overviews written by different reporters using different sources. Located close to the overviews on the menu are several articles which tell, among other things, how individual farms were effected by the situation and/or how they responded. And even more articles touch on the problem in some way or other.

These two agricultural trends, along with many other subjects, were captured by The New England Farmer, a monthly magazine that may itself have been part of the second wave of the back-to-the-land movement. Publication had started in 1977 and by the early 1980’s, The Farmer was running 48 to 60 pages, had a growing circulation, carried lots of advertising and had a barn full of freelance writers who could string a few decent sentences together and knew something about what they were writing.

The Farmer was co-founded by Francis Carlet, publisher; Dan Hurley, editor; and Thomas Gilson, managing editor; and was located in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Francis saved copies of all the editions of The Farmer from 1982, 1983 and 1984, and what you will find in this time capsule are selected stories from those years re-published onto this website.

Included in this collection, you will find a story about Jack and Ann Lazor full of optimism, building a new barn and just starting their adventure in farming. Tom Gilson’s superb photography accompanies the story. You will find many other of his photos throughout this collection, including some of his cover photos. Also, Tom published in 1984 a wonderful book of photos titled The New England Farm, which can be found online. The story about the 18 cows in a two-car garage caused something of a sensation 40 plus years ago among dairy farmers.

Two stories, now almost 50 years old, are featured as the fifth and sixth articles on the menu at the right of this page. They appeared on facing pages of the very first edition of Vermont Farm, the predecessor to The New England Farmer. These are tender, revealing interviews of a 24-year-old farmer just starting out and 74-year-old Norman Bone enjoying the sweet spot of his career.

The article “Never be afraid of Charging” contains some excellent, timeless information and advice for today’s farmers marketing their products. And don’t forget the “Letters to the editor” at the bottom of the menu. Some little jewels are in there.

This time capsule is the result of a collaboration between Charlie Calley, one of those 1980s freelance writers, and Steve Bass, who was The Farmer‘s production manager in the early 1980s. He was responsible for the graphic design and layout of the magazine and designed the masthead. Steve has since mastered modern web applications and is responsible for all the technical aspects of moving these stories from paper to “the web.” He also made the gallery of Tom Gilson’s photos that graced the Farmer’s covers.

Although the Farmer circulated through all New England and ran articles from all the states we are concentrating on just Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. We didn’t want to bite off more than we could chew. However, there are plenty of interesting stories left to be published later if we ever have the energy to add more stories to this collection or publish another one.

We think this historical time capsule provides a good sense of what farming in New England was like 40 plus years ago. Sometimes a look back helps to see ahead.

Charlie Calley
Chascall3@gmail.com
August 29, 2025

PS — If you enjoyed this collection of 40 year old stories, there is a time capsule of 50 year old stories from New Hampshire available at www.verhamp.com.