Rural Roots

Capturing the Bygone Days of Montgomery County Dairy Farming

By Heidi Schlag

Most peoPLE assume the cow is the integral figure in the dairy process . No cow ? No milk , no cheese , no ice cream . But the real hero of the dairy is the farmer . Without the dairy farmer , we ’ d all still be out back with our pails , milking our own herds before breakfast . In the 1800s , that is exactly how people got their milk — they had to milk their own cow at least twice a day .

It wasn ’ t until the second half of the nineteenth century that things began to change . Montgomery County was largely agricultural in the 1700s and early 1800s , growing mostly tobacco , a crop that wore out the soil . The arrival of the railroad to the county in the 1880s and the inventions of both refrigeration and pasteurization made dairy farming a popular option for farmers who could no longer grow tobacco in their tired fields and needed a new source of income . By the beginning of the twentieth century , Montgomery County was experiencing something of a dairy boom .

Into this growing economy stepped James and Macie King . They purchased a 350-acre farm west of Germantown in 1913 , and by 1930 were milking a herd of over 70 cows in a 72-stanchion state-ofthe-art dairy barn .

The Kings were the grandparents of Bill Duvall , who was born on a dairy farm himself . Duvall volunteers with The King Barn Dairy MOOseum in Boyds , which is located on his grandparents ’ former

Guernsey cows are a popular breed of dairy cattle shown at the annual Montgomery County Agricultural Fair .

38 plenty I spring sowing 2024