The Old Stone House of Butler County
Agriculture in Pennsylvania
Farming in Pennsylvania had always been very important to the people, but by the twentieth century it was bigger than ever. In the early 1900’s the Old Stone House was being used for tenant farmers for subsistence farming. After the 1920’s the Old Stone House was abandoned because nobody was able to make a good living farming there. I believe that railroads which now made it more possible for commercial to grow, made it harder for subsistence farmers to survive.
Before the twentieth century, women made milk into butter and cheese on the family farm. The rise of technology changed the whole future for farming. Machine milking, refrigeration, disease control, pasteurization and other new inventions gave rise to the milk industry which obtained forty percent of the state’s farm income. Pennsylvania farmers were within traveling distance to over thirty million farmers at the time. During the Great Depression, the state had built and paved twenty thousand miles of roads for farmers to connect them with the people.
I believe that although the early twentieth century can be credited to the rise of agriculture in Pennsylvania with new technologies, the Great Depression had also hindered its future. The economy was getting worse at this time, and farming was in a decline as well. Pennsylvania farms had decreased from 250,000 to 59,000. With rise of suburbanization more and more roads were being constructed over hundreds of thousands of acres of land.
Pennsylvania was running out of land at the turn of the twentieth century, and in 1989 the state created a State Agricultural Land Preservation Board that in recent years had preserved more than 250,000 acres of farmland. All of these issues over reasons for the downfall of the Old Stone House and its tenant farmers. The Great Depression as well as suburbanization is the two main reasons for why this house was abandoned and forgotten throughout these years.
Before the twentieth century, women made milk into butter and cheese on the family farm. The rise of technology changed the whole future for farming. Machine milking, refrigeration, disease control, pasteurization and other new inventions gave rise to the milk industry which obtained forty percent of the state’s farm income. Pennsylvania farmers were within traveling distance to over thirty million farmers at the time. During the Great Depression, the state had built and paved twenty thousand miles of roads for farmers to connect them with the people.
I believe that although the early twentieth century can be credited to the rise of agriculture in Pennsylvania with new technologies, the Great Depression had also hindered its future. The economy was getting worse at this time, and farming was in a decline as well. Pennsylvania farms had decreased from 250,000 to 59,000. With rise of suburbanization more and more roads were being constructed over hundreds of thousands of acres of land.
Pennsylvania was running out of land at the turn of the twentieth century, and in 1989 the state created a State Agricultural Land Preservation Board that in recent years had preserved more than 250,000 acres of farmland. All of these issues over reasons for the downfall of the Old Stone House and its tenant farmers. The Great Depression as well as suburbanization is the two main reasons for why this house was abandoned and forgotten throughout these years.
