Farming and Farmers

The Essential Occupation

When Henry Hussey arrived in Hyde County, North Carolina the area was densely forested in long leaf or yellow pine trees. The soil was generally poor except in river bottoms and along streams. While these conditions were ideal for pine trees, the land was not fertile enough to sustain crop farming. The early settlers used the farming technique practiced by the native Indians that is often referred to as "slash and burn" agriculture. They would cut and burn the forest, grow crops for a few years until the soil was totally exhausted of nutrients and then abandon the land.

Better farming practices began to take hold in the United States in the mid-1800's, when it is said that the industrial revolution reached the farm. Farmers began to rotate crops and to add manure and Guano to the soil. New farm implements such as the self-cleaning plow invented by John Deere and Jethro Tull's seed drill began to come into common usage. However, on a broad scale, sustainable farming became possible only after commercial fertilizers were introduced in the late 1800's.

Until after the Civil War, all the Hussey generations were full or part-time farmers. Many continued to farm well into the 1900's, but other occupations and town life was becoming more the norm. Even so, early photographs of Tarboro show houses with front yards dedicated to growing corn and other vegetables.