Old Farm

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A History

Written by Jerry Apps
Photography by Steve Apps

A beloved rural historian and author tells the story of his land, from the last great glacier that dug out its valleys and formed its hills, to his own family’s forty-year relationship with the beloved farm they call Roshara.

240 pages, 8 x 9, 116 b&w photos
Paperback: $24.95 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-636-8
Ebook: $19.99 | ISBN: 978-0-87020-542-2
Publication Date: 3/29/2013

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Description

Wisconsin’s farmland has been shaped by ecological, climatic, environmental, and human forces over the course of millions of years. This book explores that long history through the farm operated by the family of one of the Midwest’s most respected agricultural historians and storytellers. In this quiet but epic tale, Jerry Apps describes the Native Americans who lived on the land for hundreds of years, tapping the maple trees and fishing the streams and lakes, as well as the first white residents who tilled its sandy acres, plowing the native grasses that grew taller than their teams of oxen. For all their work, the farm proved tough to tame. Hardscrabble farming methods and hard luck often brought failure. “From land that provided only a marginal living for its early owners,” Apps writes, “this place we call Roshara has provided much for my family and me.”

Apps and his wife and their children have cared for the farm not so much to make a living as to enhance their lives. Apps chronicles the family’s efforts—always earnest, if sometimes ill-advised—to restore an old granary into living space, develop a productive vegetable garden, manage the woodlots, reestablish a prairie, and enjoy nature’s sounds and silences. Breathtakingly beautiful color photographs by Apps’s son Steve (a professional photographer) highlight the ever-changing beauty of the land in every season and hint at the spiritual gifts that are the true bounty this family reaps from Roshara. Central to Apps’s work is his belief that the land is something to cherish and revere. Like Aldo Leopold before him, Apps sounds an inspirational call to readers to preserve wild and rural places, leaving them in better condition than we found them for future generations.

Author Bio

Celebrated storyteller and rural historian Jerry Apps was born and raised on a central Wisconsin farm. He was a former county extension agent and professor at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Apps authored more than fifty fiction, nonfiction, and children’s books, including Every Farm Tells a Story: A Tale of Farm Family Values, The Quiet Season: Remembering Country Winters, When the White Pine Was King, and Barns of Wisconsin, all published by the Wisconsin Historical Society Press.

What Aldo Leopold did for Sand County, Jerry Apps has done for Roshara.

LaMoine McLaughlin

Executive Director, Northern Lakes Center for the Arts

“Part stewardship manual, part memoir, and above all a consideration of the intangible power of a few buildings on a patch of land, Old Farm blends instruction, reflection, and whimsy (giant zucchini, anyone?) to give us a record of the past that is vital to the future. Jerry Apps has a historian’s eye and a storyteller’s heart—count me among his legion of grateful readers.”

—Michael Perry, author of Population 485: Meeting Your Neighbors One Siren at a Time and Roughneck Grace

“Jerry Apps reminds us that an appreciation for the outdoors contributes to a richer life; his Old Farm is a heartfelt call for stewardship.”

—Tia Nelson, Executive Secretary, Wisconsin Board of Commissioners of Public Lands

“[Old Farm] isn’t merely the story of a family farm; it’s a story of farming, and of family. Lavishly illustrated with photographs—both contemporary and historical—the book explores the bond between people and their land. Apps writes about his family farm lovingly, describing its flora and fauna and telling us about it the way we might tell a friend about some special and essential part of our lives. A beautiful blending of words and pictures.”

—Booklist

“A wise and wonderful book. Read it. Listen to the voices you will find here—a remarkable combination of farmstead nostalgia, Leopold-like descriptions of ecology, and the clear message that the land can speak to you if you are wise enough to listen.”

—Ben Logan, author of The Land Remembers

“Old Farm neatly fits more of rural Wisconsin between its covers than a whole shelf full of books. Its message of honoring the land and passing it on in better condition to those who follow is more important today than ever.”

—Bill Berry, author of Future of Farming and Rural Life in Wisconsin

“Jerry has cultivated a sense of connectedness with the land—the ultimate human experience: enjoying and learning one’s place in the natural community.”

—Nina Leopold Bradley, founder and director, Aldo Leopold Foundation