This is the homelot of the Pliny Freeman Farm, with dwelling house, barn, and other outbuildings, kitchen garden, and farm fields.
The Freeman family's house was moved here from its original location just a few miles away.
A typical farm was about 80 acres. About a third was pasture — grazing land for animals. Another third was "mowing" or hay fields. Farmers cut grasses for hay in the summer and fed livestock with it through the winter. About 10% was planted with field crops — corn, rye, oats, potatoes, and sometimes barley or buckwheat. Most farms included an orchard that produced apples for eating and for cider. Some land was kept as a woodlot, where trees were harvested for firewood, fencing, and lumber.
Fences
At the Freeman Farm you can see post and rail fences to control livestock and a much tighter board fence around the garden to keep out smaller animals. Surrounded by an ornamental picket fence at the front of the house is the dooryard, where roses or lilacs were often planted. Freeman family letters reveal that they built a dooryard fence for the first time in 1840.
[Photo captions read]
· (LEFT) Plowing with two yokes of oxen
· (LEFT MIDDLE) Harvesting corn at the Freeman Farm
· (LEFT RIGHT) Most New England farmers raised pigs, feeding them on kitchen
scraps and the skim milk and whey left over from making butter and cheese.
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