History of Farming in the Laytonsville Area

Here are some helpful links.

The Montgomery County Agricultural Farm Park - a short history

The most important division in the history of local farming is the division during the 1800s between farmers who stuck with the old, traditonal ways of doing things and the other farmers who moved on to the new methods of "scientific farming" for their land. This was true for Montgomery County as well as the rest of Maryland.

The old methods would gradually reduce the fertility of the land. As the farmland became less and less productive, families in the 1800s often left for new land, usually in Ohio or Kentucky. Tobacco is usually blamed for wearing out the fertility of the soil, but corn is another crop which has the same effect.

That web page mentions the Sandy Spring Farmers Society. The Sandy Spring Museum web page offers a little more information about the new methods of scientific farming as well as some photos of farm life.

If reading the Sandy Spring page makes you curious about guano and its history, head to guano.com for more information.

Tobacco farming continued in the Laytonsville area into the 20th century. The type of tobacco usually grown in this area was called Burleigh or Burley. Tobacco farmers needed much more labor than wheat farmers. Growing tobacco is more like gardening -- the plants need care and pruning all season. The flower buds have to be pruned off or the leaves will not grow to a marketable size. Here's a link to a Florida web page showing that even in modern times, it is still a lot of trouble and effort to get tobacco leaves to grow well. After the harvest, the leaves have to be carefully dried in special barns until ready for the market.

There are many web pages about tobacco agriculture on the Internet. Here is one about a Calvert County, Maryland, family which gives a more up-to-date look at tobacco farming in this state.

Around the time of the American Revolution, wheat farming became important in central Maryland. By 1806 Montgomery County had 38 grist mills to grind wheat. If you look at the maps of the Laytonsville area on this web site, follow the streams to find where the nearby mills were located. Think of all the roads in this area which have "mill" in the name. Here's an old photo of the Duvall Mill in Frederick County which shows what the old mills would have looked like.

Farming in Laytonsville Today

Farming has changed over the centuries everywhere, and Montgomery County reflects those changes. There are crops and animals on local farms which would amaze the farmers of 200 years ago.

Here is a Montgomery County web page about current farming statistics for this area.

Here's another article from the Washington Post about the pressures that development places on farmers.

Are you headed to the fair in Gaithersburg this summer?

For more information and specific details about the history of farming in the Laytonsville area,

call or, better yet, visit the Montgomery County Agricultural Park near Laytonsville.