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- From: "Lawrence F. London, Jr." <llondon@bellsouth.net>
- To: permanet@sunsite.unc.edu
- Subject: Hancock Shaker Village Farm and Gardens
- Date: Wed, 24 Sep 1997 11:00:00 -0400
http://www.hancockshakervillage.org/farm.html
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Lawrence F. London, Jr. - Dragonfly Market Gardens
mailto:london@sunSITE.unc.edu - mailto:llondon@bellsouth.net
http://sunSITE.unc.edu/InterGarden
http://sunSITE.unc.edu/InterGarden/permaculture.html
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Title: Hancock Shaker Village Farm and Gardens
Hancock Shaker Village Farm and GardensThe Hancock Shakers maintained dairy herds well into the twentieth-century. The Round Stone Barn was built to stable more than fifty cows, and additions and new barns were constructed as farming operations and business increased. Today the Village raises a variety of the historic breeds of livestock once found on the Shaker farm--shorthorn cattle, Merino sheep, and Silver-laced Wyandotte and Dominique chickens. The farm staff uses oxen and period equipment and methods to work the farmland and gardens. The Shakers were well known for their 19th- and early 20th-century medicinal herb and garden seed industries. Shaker communities devoted many acres to herb cultivation and raising vegetables for seed. They processed herbs and prepared tonics, tablets and other medicinal preparations for sale to the World. They are credited with originating seed packets, which they peddled to farmers and gardners, earning a reputation for high quality and honesty. The Villages specimen herb garden contains ninety of the more than 300 varieties of plants listed by the Shakers in the 1873 Druggists Handbook of Pure Botanic Preparations. Hollyhocks, belladonna, asparagus, hops, native ginger, chicory, dandelions, wormseed, black cohosh, basil, poppies, horseradish and pennyroyal are among the plants once grown by the Shakers for the pharmaceutical industry and for home remedies. Two heirloom vegetable gardens contain plant varieties on Shaker seed lists from the 1830s and 1890s, respectively. Some are quite rare. Documented Shaker cultivation techniques, many from the 1843 Shaker Gardeners Manual, are used in Hancocks garden and are applicable to organic gardening today. Seed saving is practiced by the Villages gardeners, and the museum participates in the international Seed Savers Exchange and other sharing of unusual or endangered varieties of 19th-century vegetables.
Junction, Rts 20 and 41, P.O. Box 927, Pittsfield, Massachusetts 01202 Voice (413) 443-0188, Fax (413) 447-9357 (800) 817-1137 "Hancock Shaker Village-Autumn", Leonard Weber, © Copyright 1992. Comments to: HSV Webmaster This WebSite created by WebWorks and hosted by T-Net . |
- Hancock Shaker Village Farm and Gardens, Lawrence F. London, Jr., 09/24/1997
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