Maine’s Future in Mind

SOON LMC BECAME DEEPLY INVOLVED AND much more than an administrative assistant. As the Smiths’ pioneering work became known, he would be quoted in the daily press and agricultural publications making the case that after the war, two-thirds of Maine farmland was going back to forest, and that beef farming was a way to bring that land back and build the state economy. Farmland at the time was inexpensive, he pointed out—about $50 an acre in Maine rather than $500 in Pennsylvania or Colorado. Charming old farmhouses and barns were available at little cost. Interstate highways and airfreight made it affordable to ship the product to the cities of New England and beyond. The soil was good for grass and grass-fed, lean beef was the product of the future. In the largest context, he saw farming as a strategy to save Maine’s precious open spaces and environmental treasures.

LMC threw himself into detailed research and experimentation. He made some of the first inquiries about the exact chemicals in stone dust that had the most nutrient value. He mixed it with other natural fertilizers—phosphate rock, limestone, and heavy applications of hen and cow manure. He built his trench silos, common in the area, out of railroad ties with fiberglass linings instead of the usual concrete. They were less expensive, and he could build them inside his barns out of the rain.

The farm was known for mechanizing wherever possible to save labor costs, and in the most affordable way. The tires on the wagons that brought the heavy chop to the cows were blowing out with the weight. LMC bought used airplane tires from military bases to replace them; they would serve for decades. He brought in Henry Gross, the nationally known expert on dowsing (finding water with a forked rod or stick), to successfully find the wells the farm needed. Always an innovator, he paid to pasture cattle on a series of satellite farms that were lying idle, enabling older farmers to keep their land productive.

Mr. Smith was also ahead of his time as a leading public advocate for the potential of aquaculture to feed cattle as well as people on saltwater farms. He supported an early trial to show that farmed oysters could survive Maine winters. His mentors and colleagues in this effort were Robert L. Dow, the Marine Research Director in the Maine Department of Sea and Shore Fisheries, and John Cole, the editor of the Maine Times as well as the chairman of the Brunswick Shellfish Commission.

Horace Mann on the tractor and LMC check out the Angus cattle at the bunker feeder in 1968. LMC created a system of satellite farms, one of which Mr. Mann owned just down the road. He was the father of the first farm manager, James T. Mann.