Memoirs of Lloyd Moss: 1910 - 1914
I think that a description of the farm is important as it figures so much in the memories of both Virginia and me. Father seemed to have acquired the place with wagons, farm machinery etc., included. It was poor farm land to begin with, mostly clay soil that baked with a hard crust on top that made it difficult for seeds to grow through and, in addition, it had been overworked for generations with very little put back into it - typical of Tidewater Virginia in those days. It was pretty level everywhere and subject to some dry, hot spells in summer, and an occasional one-inch snowfall in winter that melted the same day it fell. I'm quite hazy about the size of the place as I don't remember anyone's mentioning the number of acres. Perhaps there were twenty or thirty, not including the pastures which I'm not sure belonged to the farm anyway. The Chesapeake and Ohio railroad ran along the north and the back, the county road to Newport News ran along the front, and the Wicker's farm formed the south border.
It was certainly a general farm in every way. Father tried everything from horses to potatoes, including cotton, peanuts and sorghum. He wanted to be progressive and listened to the government agricultural agent's advice much more than the average farmer, but it was a bad time economically and he had the worst kind of market to work with. Williamsburg was just a poor little southern town in those days and nobody had any money. I remember riding into town with him with a wagon load of potatoes to sell. He tried the stores, then peddling them house to house without much success. On the way home he dropped the price to One Dollar a barrel and still brought half the load back to the farm for hog feed. One year he raised peanuts and at harvest time a steam threshing machine came to the farm. Father had hired a crew of men to plow up the peanuts and bring them to the thresher where they were separated from the plants and bagged. It was quite a "do" for us children what with all the activity, noise of machinery and dust clouds everywhere.
The finished product went away with the machinery and I don't suppose father made much since he didn't plant peanuts the following year. The same sorts of things happened the year he raised cotton, except that there was more white lint around than dust. He raised field corn, sorghum and buckwheat, and, in the field in front of the house between the railroad and our driveway in the worst clay area on the place he planted soybeans. They're supposed to be pretty tough, but they surely had a rough time pushing their first leaves through the crust on that spot. He had cows so that he could sell milk and cream. He also had hogs, and even tried to breed horses.
The man who kept stallions lived over beyond the college grounds and I remember him as a rowdy sort of fellow who came to our place driving a fancy two-wheeled gig pulled by a prancy horse. Father opened the gate so the man could drive right into the barnyard, then he went into the stable and brought out a mare. I was just over the fence by the windmill and saw the whole interesting operation. I thought of it years later in the navy when I saw my first broadside battery gun being loaded. This stallion fellow had a reputation around town. He was a bachelor who know all the girls, and it was said that he drank mare's milk, as though there was something scandalous about it. Well, the horse business blew up when several of the horses died. I heard some mention of musty hay, but never knew for sure what was wrong. So father bought two big red oxen to do the plowing and harrowing and other heavy farm work, and I learned that a team can be controlled by the words "gee" and "haw" and the use of a bullwhip.