Existing comment:
Market Farm:
The tenant farms at Hampton played an important role in feeding the growing population of Baltimore City and surrounding towns such as Towson. Chief products included butter, milk, wheat and grains. Customers included commercial buyers, other dairies, hospitals, religious institutions and even Ridgely employees. Hay and corn are among the most commonly sold crops. Pigs, chickens, and pullets (hens that are less than a year old) were also frequently sold.
Tenant farming yielded few profits during the 1870s. Hiring a farm manage, costs of seed and replacing tools took their toll from profits. JM Anderson, farm manager to the Ridgelys reported that hte net profit for the first few months of 1871 was $7.00.
Farming at Hampton continued into the Twentieth Century. A recession after World War I drove prices for wheat and corn to new lows, forcing many Marylanders to diversify. Between 1900 and 1940, the amount of land farmed to Maryland decreased from 82% to 66%. Rising farm costs, decreasing crop prices and demand for land by development companies signaled the end of farming at Hampton in the 1940s.
Sometimes, the Ridgelys expressed exasperation with their workers. "Prince has lost his foreman, Sam Bayne," Helen Ridgely wrote on Saturday, June 16th, 1906. Bayne left without warning, "after living on the place for fifteen or twenty years." Tenant farmers often complained about high rent rates. One tenant named Todd, stated: "no man could make an honest living on them." ... |