Farm

Dr. Milton C. Sernett is a historian who grew up in the tall corn state of Iowa. He taught at Syracuse University for three decades and then retired to pursue a lifelong interest in agricultural history. He has authored fifteen books, including ones on the transition from horse to tractor farming, the history of cheesemaking in New York State, and the origin of the Holstein breed of dairy cattle in the United States. Known as "the Sage of Lawyersville," Jared van Wagenen, Jr. (1871-1960) lived at Hillside Farm in Schoharie County in eastern New York State. A graduate of Cornell University (Class of 1891), he witnessed the advance of mechanized farming and the eventual dominance of corporate agriculture. A self-proclaimed "dirt farmer" with the gifts of a philosopher, he championed the family farm and an agricultural civilization where humane values were prized over profit. Van Wagenen's book THE GOLDEN AGE OF HOMESPUN is an American classic. In this book, Sernett takes a walk thorough the changing landscape of American agriculture with Jared van Wagenen, Jr. as his guide and mentor. Van Wagenen was a insightful historian as well as a expert farmer and lived by a creed expressed in an essay written for THE AMERICAN AGRICULTURALIST shortly before his death: "Looking Back is One of the Best Ways of Looking Forward"