Old Farm: A History

By Jerry Apps
Photographs by Steve Apps

One of the Midwest’s best-loved authors 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. In this quiet but epic tale, 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 settlers who tilled its sandy acres, ploughing 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, not success.