Trevor Grams, 2, sat in quiet wonder as a monstrous orange machine vibrated and chattered, chewing up wheat stalks and spewing out hay.
“He?s got a 30-second attention span, but when it comes to tractors and farm equipment, he?ll watch them for hours,” said Trevor?s father Scott Grams, both of Ellicott City.
Trevor then watched a smaller red machine called a baler take that hay and fashion it into neat cubes. The two machines, which have no combustion engines, predate Trevor?s grandfather.
What were tools of necessity in the 1920s are now antiques at a fledgling museum hoping to capture Howard County?s fading agricultural heritage.
“Farming back then wasn?t a job, it was a lifestyle,” said John Frank, president of the Howard County Antique Farming Machinery Club Inc., as he worked a 90-year-old saw mill.
The group held a three-day festival in West Friendship that showcased antique tractors, early 20th-century farming methods and agricultural fare to raise funds for the museum, which opened in 2005.
Children climbed on 50-year-old tractors, vendors sold crafts and antiques, and museum workers and farmers demonstrated decades-old farming techniques that are still used today.
The money raised will help in expanding the museum to include a large building with displays and antique vehicles.
“The number of farms in Howard County are dwindling, and we want to preserve the agricultural history of this county so generations from now people will know what it was like,” Frank said.
Donald Fleming, 74, of Mount Airy, recently retired from farming, and brought his orange Allis-Chalmers tractors to display. One of the tractors was bought by his father in 1944 and served the Fleming family until a few years ago.
As land in western Howard succumbs to development, Frank said he hopes the museum will show people what farmers like Fleming used to help feed the area for so many years.
ON THE NET
For more information, visit www.farmheritage.org.
