Our country’s oldest continually operating family farm is up for sale.
New Hampshire’s Tuttle Farm was founded by English settler John Tuttle with a 1632 land grant from King Charles II. The landmark property has passed from father to son for 11 generations.
“A lot of people won’t drive a few extra miles for fresh vegetables. They are going to Wal-Mart and Target and trying to save whatever they can, and we don’t have the buying power to compete.’’
“Our bodies are just basically worn out. It’s hard to conduct a farm and a business at the same time. It’s more than we can handle at this time.”
The farm was turning a small profit until the recession.
There’s 4 million acres of family farmland in use between 2002 and 2007, an area roughly the size of Massachusetts. After 1982 the nation has lost more than 41 million acres of rural land.