11 minute read
STICKING TOGETHER
In back, from left: Michael Ratliff, Steve and Beth Fulton’s son-in-law; Hadley Ratliff, 2; Andrew Fulton; Cory Fulton; Herb and Grace Erhmann; Steve and Beth Fulton. In front, from left: Clayton Fulton, 9, and Cody Fulton, 6 photo by Allison Waltz-Boebel
by Amy Barnes
In some ways, time has stood still at Maple Valley Farm in Seville, also known as Fulton Farm.
Calves call in the background and steam billows from the closely watched vats of maple sap, while more sap is gathered and brought in for processing, as it has since 1903 when Isaac Fulton signed the first deed for the founding of what was to become his legacy.
In other ways, time has marched on, and while the products produced have remained the same, the farm’s name and the manner of production have seen changes over the farm’s 118 years.
It was in 1978 that the farm became known as Maple Valley Farm.
Maple syrup used to be produced completely in the woods, with buckets hanging on the trees to collect the sap, and vats over fires to boil the sap down into syrup, said Grace Fulton Erhmann.
Grace, whose family, the Kreiders, had a farm next to the Fulton Farm, joined the Fulton family in 1955, when she married Gene Fulton. After Gene’s death in 2008, Grace married Herb Erhmann.
Gene and Grace are the parents of the fourth generation of Fultons: Cheryl Bock, Brenda Bartlett, Kelly Manley, and Steve Fulton.
Steve said the sap buckets were replaced in 1989 by tubing that snakes its way around the trees and into partially buried tanks.
The sap is then pumped from the holding tanks into smaller tanks pulled by tractors to the sugar camp. The sugar camp is where the sap is put into a reverse-osmosis machine to remove water from the
Pancakes need some syrup?
Call ahead to arrange a visit or look for the Maple Valley Farm stand at the Farmers Market of Medina County starting May 1 at the Medina photo by Allison Waltz-Boebel sap. Next, the VFW Post 5137, 3916 Pearl Road, Medina. wider area on the tree’s concentrated sap is Maple Valley Farm/Fulton Farm trunk. As long as a new boiled to finally 8701 Hubbard Valley Road, Seville tap can be placed at become syrup. 330-769-2936 least 2 inches away While the taps are from any old tap spots, removed at the end of each season, the tubing the tree can still be tapped, said Steve. remains in place year round. The acres of tubing “You can’t kill a tree unless you put a crazy amount must be inspected each year for squirrel nibbles and of taps on it,” he said. deer chomps on the lines to ensure the sap will flow A combination of gravity and a gas-powered uninterrupted. vacuum helps to pull the sap down the lines into the The first tubing the farm used lasted 15 years, the holding tanks from this year’s approximate 1,600 current tubing already has surpassed that and will taps. last much longer, Steve said. In the 1970s, the family had 3,500 bucket taps. That
Besides making sap collection much more efficient, has dropped to a top capacity of 2,500 taps now, but, another advantage to the tubing over the sap even with the help of Steve and Beth’s sons, 34-yearbuckets is that it increases the production life of a old Andrew and 26-year-old Cory, there is a shortage tree. of labor to place the taps and check the lines.
Sap taps are inserted anew into the trees each year, Steve and Beth’s daughters are busy with careers but must be at least 2 inches away from any previous off the farm. Rebecca Ratliff, 33, is a vet technician in tap. Each tap causes the tree to develop a kind of Medina, and Kimberly Fulton, 31, is a milk tester with scar, similar to a knothole, called brown wood. Since the Dairy Farmers of America. buckets are hung about waist high to a human, that For syrup production, a good sap flow is considered means that once the taps have been placed all the 180 gallons an hour. Steve said it takes 40 to 50 way around the tree, the tree can no longer be used. gallons to make 1 gallon of syrup. The family watches
The tubing system allows for taps to be placed in a the weather to determine when to start sap
continued from Page 5
photo by Allison Waltz-Boebel
collection.
During early spring, when it still freezes at night, the trees take up more water from the ground, which increases the amount of sap available to tap. He said that a shorter tree, one with a lot of branches, is the best for syrup production.
The Fultons watch the colors of the fall leaves to get an idea of how high the sugar content will be in the following spring’s sap. More reds and oranges in the fall mean a better sugar content, Steve said, however, as with everything else to do with farming, there are no guarantees.
“Until you start making it (syrup), you don’t know what you’re going to get,” said Steve. 1961 was the only year since 1903 that syrup was not made on the farm, Steve and Grace said. That was because Steve’s father, Gene, was injured in a farm accident.
A more recent blow to the farm’s income was the event shutdowns caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Fultons depend heavily on local events, such as farmers markets, to sell their syrup. Unlike other businesses that found online selling was a way to still reach their customers, there is no Fulton Farm or Maple Valley Farm website or social media presence.
It comes down to a matter of time, Steve said. Producing the syrup, milking the cows, raising beef cattle, and growing corn and hay to feed the cows is very time consuming, leaving little time or energy for much else.
Even though selling syrup at events also is time consuming and a lot of work, Steve said it is worth it.
“It’s a lot of work but yet, you do make sales,” said Steve.
Visitors to the farm tend to be a high percentage of hobby syrup producers instead of paying customers, said Steve, shrugging. He is well aware that it is all part of the business.
On the other side of the farmyard are the milk and beef production.
Cody Fulton, 6, practices balancing while his father, Andrew, herds cattle into a trailer to move them to a different barn. Cows are separated depending on age and if they are producing milk. photo by Allison Waltz-Boebel
The farm’s dairy herd once was 40 cows. Today, approximately 150 cows make up the dairy herd and produce 1,200 gallons a day.
Steve said that although they once used the rbST growth hormone in an effort to increase milk production, they no longer do. He said that if cows are taken care of and fed properly, milk production is the same as it would be using rbST.
As members of the Dairy Farmers of America, the Fultons sell their milk to the co-op, which acquired a substantial part of Dean Foods, once the country’s largest milk processor, in May 2020.
Cows are milked at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. each day, and the milk is picked up daily. The milking is done in the milking parlor that was built in approximately 1979, Steve said. He added that they used to milk the cows three times a day but decreased it to two times a day.
They can milk 12 cows at a time, 48 cows an hour. The entire milking is completed in four-and-a-half hours. Steve said that they have a girl who comes in three times a week to do the milking, which can be done by one person, although he admits it is easier with two to help with moving the cows around.
The milk tank has a capacity of 18,000 pounds or approximately 2,000 gallons of milk, so they are at the mercy of when the milk truck can come pick up the milk as to when they milk the cows. The milk tank has to be washed out every other day.
“All of us like riding the tractors, but none of us like milking,” Steve said.
Because of that, they have been examining the option of installing robotic milkers, which come with the hefty price tag of $250,000, but have only a 12year lifespan.
There are 144 stalls in the dairy barn. The stalls are elevated off of the barn floor, and each stall has a waterbed to keep the cows from lying directly on the concrete. Waste from the cows is pumped into a storage tank with a 960,000-gallon capacity. The liquid manure is then spread on fields as fertilizer for
continued from Page 7 the feed crops for the cows.
Steve said that while there are currently more cows than stalls for them lay in, he keeps the percentages of cows to stalls close because otherwise milk production decreases.
He said happy cows make more milk and that for the highest amount of milk production, the cows should be either lying down or eating. He said dairy farming can be tough. “It ain’t fun, you never know when a cow is going to go down,” said Steve, adding that the cow then cannot be slaughtered to sell for human consumption.
A cow can collapse from such things as milk fever, which is when a cow is low in phosphorus or calcium after calving; infection; or injury. According to Farmers Weekly, if a cow fails to rise within 24 hours, muscle and nerve damage can result.
Adding to the cost of dairy and beef production is the cost of raising the calves. It costs $2,000 to raise one calf to full grown, Steve said. Currently, there are
photo by Allison Waltz-Boebel
continued from Page 9 Jars of maple syrup ready for sale. photo by Allison Waltz-Boebel
approximately 350 cows on the farm, including calves and beef cattle.
Steve said it has been suggested to him a few times to pay other farmers to raise his calves as a costcutting measure, but it is not an option he is comfortable with. There is no guarantee that he would get back the exact calves he sent out. Plus, he wants to know with certainty what the calves are fed.
The farm is a combination of owned acres and rented acres, coming to a total of approximately 700, down from 1,000 acres.
“Eventually, there won’t be enough land,” Steve said.
Various parts and parcels have been added to the farm’s actual acreage so much over the years that Steve has a doctor’s bag full of deeds that he found stashed in the farmhouse.
By 1928, 25 years after Isaac signed the first deed establishing the farm, 700 acres had been added to the farm. Another 50 acres were added in the 1960s when I-76 went through Seville, and it split the Fultons’ neighbor’s property in half. The Fultons purchased the section of property that was on their side of the highway.
The current farmhouse, built in 1919, is actually the second on the property. Steve said there are no pictures of the first farmhouse. The big red barn on the property is older than the farmhouse, it was built in 1917.
In the 1970s, gas wells flourished in the Seville area and gas began being provided to the farmhouse for free.
More recently, the controversial Nexxus pipeline crossed through the property, but Steve said he has only profited from the pipeline and has not seen any ill effects from its presence.
“We don’t even notice it there,” Steve said.
photo by Allison Waltz-Boebel
Cory Fulton reverses the tractor and trailer of cattle with his nephews Cody, who can be seen through the window, and Clayton riding along. photo by Allison Waltz-Boebel
A page from an early accounts ledger for Fulton Farm photo by Amy Barnes
The trail used to get to and from the sap holding tanks photo by Amy Barnes
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