Running a dairy farm has never been easy. My great-grandfather Albert Williams was farming in Osceola, New York in the late 1800s, turning his milk into cheese, an equally labor-intensive process. He was matched by my Hilton great-grandfather, Lafayette Hilton, who farmed near Orwell, N.Y. and wrote “Made cheese” day after day in his 1875 diary which also marked his wedding by his laconic “Was married this afternoon.”
On the Tubbs side, another great-grandfather, Ambie Savage Tubbs, had a farm on Tubbs Road just outside Mexico, New York and his son, Earl Obadiah Tubbs, married into the Potter family who lived near Orwell and ran a dairy farm with 20 to 25 cows. Great-grandfather Adin Milford Potter across the road had a large barn and probably milked 40 or so cows by hand with the help of hired hands. And then there was my father, Earl Hilton Williams, part of Dean A. Williams & Sons logging and sawmill operations in Redfield, New York, who had two Jersey cows that he milked every morning and night. Along with the hen house filled with chickens, they enabled Mother and Daddy to get through the Depression by selling milk, butter, dressed chickens and eggs.
When we first came to Wake Forest the Holding dairy farm with a manager and several hired hands, all of them living on the farm, was down the dirt road beside our house. We saw the Pine State Dairy truck go in and out every day, we could hear the whoosh-whoosh of the vacuum milking machines, big green tractors came by on their way to more distant corn or soybean fields and occasionally a cow or two wandered up the road. Our children thought the farm was their big playground.
In 1970 there were still dairy farms ringing Wake Forest. The Holding farm was nearest, followed by the Marshall farm (later Marshall-Stroud), Jones farm was out on the east side, the Forbes farm was a memory as was the Caveness farm, but the Lee farm on the west and the Darch farm out in the Harricane were doing well.
But there was trouble in the offing. In August of 1977 The Wake Weekly reported: “Area dairy farmers are in trouble. One farmer, Emmitt Marshall, says that due to the cold conditions last winter and the current drought, his corn and barley crops have been damaged so much that he’s struggling to feed his cattle.
“Marshall and 32 other dairy farmers in Wake County are anxiously awaiting a response from Washington regarding their applications for emergency assistance feeding their cows. In bad years, if the farmers don’t receive financial assistance they lose money because it’s so expensive to keep cattle fed.
“They got to eat every day, six times a day,” he said.
“Marshall said it was costing him about $500 a day to keep his 900 cows fed. Ordinarily he spends about $150-200 a day on soybean meal to supplement the feed he raises.
“The emergency cattle feed program approved by President Jimmy Carter last week for 17 North Carolina counties would pay Marshall about $180 a day, he figures.
“The largest dairyman in the area, Marshall grosses about $2,000 a day from the sale of milk.”
Ten years later, in 1987, Phil and Linda Stroud of the Marshall-Stroud Dairy were selling the last of their cows. They and Marshall had already sold 1,100 acres of the farm to Judd Ammons, who with his sons would plant thousands of pine trees on those acres until the time was right to begin Heritage Wake Forest.
The last Marshall-Stroud cows, 122 of them, were sold to a federal buyout program. They were shipped to Carolina Stockyards in Siler City, bought and slaughtered.
“It’s all I’ve ever known, it’s all Phil’s known for 21 years,” Linda said. “I think it’s going to be hard.”
At one time the farm had 900 cows, but the Strouds had been gearing down since April of 1986. They used to plant 500 acres of corn to feed their livestock. In 1987 they planted just two acres.
Even though they sold most of the farm, they planned to stay in farming with 250 head of livestock, mostly beef cattle. The Strouds were able to get out of the dairy business without losing money because of the buyout program, but they had mixed feelings.
“I feel bad,” Linda said, “but there is nothing I can do about it.”
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