The last few weeks I've been reading books by Louis Bromfield, an American novelist who wrote in the 1930's-1950's. He wrote around 30 books, mostly novels (Pulitzer Prize for Early Autumn in 1926), but also books on farming and the rural life. It is the latter group I am collecting and reading.
Bromfield grew up in an Ohio farming family, studied agriculture for two years at Cornell, then transferred to Columbia to study journalism, but dropped out after a year to join the American army and fight in WW I. After decorated service he returned to New York, took a job as a reporter, and began writing novels. Almost all of his books, novels as well memoirs, were bestsellers in their day, a couple having been made into motion pictures.
He then lived in France, then India, for a decade before returning to Ohio -- his beloved Pleasant Valley region -- to live and write on the land. His novels had made him wealthy, and he bought three worn-out (contiguous) farms in Pleasant Valley, the region of his roots, in northern Ohio where he had grown up. He soon added a fourth farm, bringing his total holdings to a thousand acres.
He moved his family into the most suitable of the four farmsteads and began rebuilding the house and buildings and establishing a plan to renovate and restore the farms to what they could be. He named his main farm "Malabar" after a region on the southwest coast of India where he lived for a time, and it exists today as an historical agricultural site in Ohio, open to the public.
Bromfield and his family lived out their years at Malabar where he developed an international reputation for advances in sustainable agriculture. When he returned to Ohio after being away for several decades (and after being exposed to French intensive gardening techniques for sustaining the land) he was shocked at how the lush, mineral-rich Ohio farmland had been ravaged by poor, unsustainable practices. He seems to have had an intuitive sense of how to re-enrich the land so that it would hold rainfall and produce nutritious food for humans and animals.
He wrote a series of books about life at Malabar Farm -- these are the books I am collecting and reading. And I have to say, I have never had such pleasure in reading as I have had in these volumes. I think Bromfield must have lived at a genius level of intelligence. It seems that most of what he touched turned to gold -- and not by his own account only. Thousands of visitors from around the world streamed to Malabar Farm during its glory years of operation to learn Bromfield's secrets of farming. Not only is he a beautiful writer, but his descriptions of everyday life at Malabar Farm are both instructive, philosophical, and delightful all at the same time.
I have read Pleasant Valley (1943), am almost finished with Malabar Farm (1947), and have waiting The Farm (1933), From My Experience (1955), and The Heritage—A Daughter's Memories of Louis Bromfield (1962), written by his daugher Ellen who established a Malabar-like farm in Brazil. I believe there may be one or two more that he wrote about Malabar, but I have yet to track them down. Some of these books are available in paperback only so I've slowly tracked down used hardbacks for a few dollars here and there. What a treasure these books are!
How, one might ask, could someone write a half-dozen books about life on a farm without repeating himself over and over? Therein lies Bromfield's genius as a writer -- or as a thinker. First, life at Malabar was a constant crossroads of activity. The "big house" was always filled with visitors coming and going (common people as well as dignitaries and luminaries and government officials -- Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were married at Malabar in 1945). The stories of keeping fields, animals, springs and ponds, buildings on four farms, employees, and food crops all humming harmoniously along makes for page-turning reading. Yet it is his love for the land and the natural processes that underlie the point of all his storytelling. The books almost read like novels, yet history attests to the reality of what he described.
Second, his prose is beautifully descriptive and thoughtful. He surely must be ranked with the likes of today's Wendell Berry, Gene Logsdon, and Lynn Miller for his combination of literary skill and passion for the indispensable task of developing and sustaining agricultural systems that will continue to fulfill humanity's need for biological fuel as well as for soulish satisfaction.
And third, there was never a dull moment over the two decades in which he ran Malabar. He was continually experimenting and developing new techniques, hosting new and different guests, and having new adventures and experiences. The richness of his memoirs of daily life stand in STARK contrast to the shallow posts that pass as descriptions of life in the Facebook/Twitter era ("I'm having lunch now."). I never tire of reading about life at Malabar, so rich and diverse were the days he describes.
Bromfield was the kind of person who attracted others and who (apparently) commanded respect because of his successes at Malabar. Within a few years the farms he purchased were gully-free and resplendent with grains and grasses on which livestock grazed and with food crops that sustained Bromfield's family, permanent and part-time employees, and the perpetual house-full of visitors. The 18 springs on the four farms flowed strong and clear again because the land was soaking up water after years of being parched and barren -- like parking lots off which the rain drains. The ponds on the farm teemed with life and were a constant laboratory for the cycles of biology and botany on which all of nature depends.
I could go on and on about these books and the life they describe. They have been the latest source of stimulation and inspiration for thinking that "the faster we go, the behinder we get" in our modern culture and economy. I don't see anything around me in my metropolitan environment that moves me like what I have read about in Bromfield's books. I know -- I'm probably idealizing something that was human to the core and therefore was probably replete with problems -- i.e., Bromfield the man and Malabar the experience. But I'm enjoying it nonetheless. And trying to store up as many images and lessons as I can.
You may not want to track down and purchase these books, but look in your local library for the titles I've mentioned. Given that one of his novels won a Pulitzer and others were turned into movies, I'm sure they must be worth a read as well. Perhaps you'll find "Bromfield, Louis" in your library's catalog.
A professional photographer named Ted White, in conjunction with the Malabar Farm Foundation, offers beautiful pictures of Malabar for sale on his web site. You can view the pictures starting on this page -- then click on "Next Page" at the bottom of each page to view more pix. Well worth the time.
(For pure pleasure of this sort, but from a less agricultural and more modern perspective, I would also recommend Michael Korda's Country Matters—The Pleasure and Tribulation of Moving from a Big City to an Old Country Farmhouse (2001). Korda was (is still?) the editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster, the venerable New York City publisher. He writes beautifully and hilariously as he tells the story of his and his wife's establishing a new home in an old, upstate New York rural homestead.)
Bromfield grew up in an Ohio farming family, studied agriculture for two years at Cornell, then transferred to Columbia to study journalism, but dropped out after a year to join the American army and fight in WW I. After decorated service he returned to New York, took a job as a reporter, and began writing novels. Almost all of his books, novels as well memoirs, were bestsellers in their day, a couple having been made into motion pictures.
He then lived in France, then India, for a decade before returning to Ohio -- his beloved Pleasant Valley region -- to live and write on the land. His novels had made him wealthy, and he bought three worn-out (contiguous) farms in Pleasant Valley, the region of his roots, in northern Ohio where he had grown up. He soon added a fourth farm, bringing his total holdings to a thousand acres.
He moved his family into the most suitable of the four farmsteads and began rebuilding the house and buildings and establishing a plan to renovate and restore the farms to what they could be. He named his main farm "Malabar" after a region on the southwest coast of India where he lived for a time, and it exists today as an historical agricultural site in Ohio, open to the public.
Bromfield and his family lived out their years at Malabar where he developed an international reputation for advances in sustainable agriculture. When he returned to Ohio after being away for several decades (and after being exposed to French intensive gardening techniques for sustaining the land) he was shocked at how the lush, mineral-rich Ohio farmland had been ravaged by poor, unsustainable practices. He seems to have had an intuitive sense of how to re-enrich the land so that it would hold rainfall and produce nutritious food for humans and animals.
He wrote a series of books about life at Malabar Farm -- these are the books I am collecting and reading. And I have to say, I have never had such pleasure in reading as I have had in these volumes. I think Bromfield must have lived at a genius level of intelligence. It seems that most of what he touched turned to gold -- and not by his own account only. Thousands of visitors from around the world streamed to Malabar Farm during its glory years of operation to learn Bromfield's secrets of farming. Not only is he a beautiful writer, but his descriptions of everyday life at Malabar Farm are both instructive, philosophical, and delightful all at the same time.
I have read Pleasant Valley (1943), am almost finished with Malabar Farm (1947), and have waiting The Farm (1933), From My Experience (1955), and The Heritage—A Daughter's Memories of Louis Bromfield (1962), written by his daugher Ellen who established a Malabar-like farm in Brazil. I believe there may be one or two more that he wrote about Malabar, but I have yet to track them down. Some of these books are available in paperback only so I've slowly tracked down used hardbacks for a few dollars here and there. What a treasure these books are!
How, one might ask, could someone write a half-dozen books about life on a farm without repeating himself over and over? Therein lies Bromfield's genius as a writer -- or as a thinker. First, life at Malabar was a constant crossroads of activity. The "big house" was always filled with visitors coming and going (common people as well as dignitaries and luminaries and government officials -- Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were married at Malabar in 1945). The stories of keeping fields, animals, springs and ponds, buildings on four farms, employees, and food crops all humming harmoniously along makes for page-turning reading. Yet it is his love for the land and the natural processes that underlie the point of all his storytelling. The books almost read like novels, yet history attests to the reality of what he described.
Second, his prose is beautifully descriptive and thoughtful. He surely must be ranked with the likes of today's Wendell Berry, Gene Logsdon, and Lynn Miller for his combination of literary skill and passion for the indispensable task of developing and sustaining agricultural systems that will continue to fulfill humanity's need for biological fuel as well as for soulish satisfaction.
And third, there was never a dull moment over the two decades in which he ran Malabar. He was continually experimenting and developing new techniques, hosting new and different guests, and having new adventures and experiences. The richness of his memoirs of daily life stand in STARK contrast to the shallow posts that pass as descriptions of life in the Facebook/Twitter era ("I'm having lunch now."). I never tire of reading about life at Malabar, so rich and diverse were the days he describes.
Bromfield was the kind of person who attracted others and who (apparently) commanded respect because of his successes at Malabar. Within a few years the farms he purchased were gully-free and resplendent with grains and grasses on which livestock grazed and with food crops that sustained Bromfield's family, permanent and part-time employees, and the perpetual house-full of visitors. The 18 springs on the four farms flowed strong and clear again because the land was soaking up water after years of being parched and barren -- like parking lots off which the rain drains. The ponds on the farm teemed with life and were a constant laboratory for the cycles of biology and botany on which all of nature depends.
I could go on and on about these books and the life they describe. They have been the latest source of stimulation and inspiration for thinking that "the faster we go, the behinder we get" in our modern culture and economy. I don't see anything around me in my metropolitan environment that moves me like what I have read about in Bromfield's books. I know -- I'm probably idealizing something that was human to the core and therefore was probably replete with problems -- i.e., Bromfield the man and Malabar the experience. But I'm enjoying it nonetheless. And trying to store up as many images and lessons as I can.
You may not want to track down and purchase these books, but look in your local library for the titles I've mentioned. Given that one of his novels won a Pulitzer and others were turned into movies, I'm sure they must be worth a read as well. Perhaps you'll find "Bromfield, Louis" in your library's catalog.
A professional photographer named Ted White, in conjunction with the Malabar Farm Foundation, offers beautiful pictures of Malabar for sale on his web site. You can view the pictures starting on this page -- then click on "Next Page" at the bottom of each page to view more pix. Well worth the time.
(For pure pleasure of this sort, but from a less agricultural and more modern perspective, I would also recommend Michael Korda's Country Matters—The Pleasure and Tribulation of Moving from a Big City to an Old Country Farmhouse (2001). Korda was (is still?) the editor-in-chief of Simon & Schuster, the venerable New York City publisher. He writes beautifully and hilariously as he tells the story of his and his wife's establishing a new home in an old, upstate New York rural homestead.)
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