Historically, the house has sometimes been known as ‘Esperanza Farm’. Today this title is not used, as the hayfield (as decent a crop as it is by Connecticut hay standards) is hardly a central point and certainly not an economic one, though its existence does save us around a thousand dollars annually.
However, time that was… During the late nineteenth century and through WWI, the farm made a decent income for itself. Morris states in an 1874 letter that he has just instructed Mr Beaney, then the winter caretaker, to sell the potatoes…all hundred odd bushels of them. While again, not much by modern standards, a hundred bushels is a respectable amount to have produced on a hilltop farm. Unfortunately, he doesn’t record the price. But it is safe to say that a fair number of people in New Hartford ate potatoes from Esperanza Farm. Potatoes are mentioned other years, as are the sales of pigeons, vegetables, and later dairy products.*
Esperanza Farm fit into a class of farm to which modern agriculture owes a certain debt. These were farms run by people whose wealth came from other areas, but who had a deep interest in farming. Today we tend to call them ‘hobby farms’, but in this turn of the century era, that title is incorrect. For one thing, they added substantially to the local food chain and made actual money doing so. More importantly, in the overall scheme, they could afford to take risks and to experiment. They were interested in the science of it. It was this type of farm that supported, especially politically, the rise of science in agriculture. The nineteenth century subsistence farmer, amongst whom I include those whose entire capital got sown annually, could not risk an entirely new concept nor did he have the time, money and stock to selectively breed for improvement. In many cases he wanted to, but could not afford to until the risk of the unproven had dropped.
Esperanza Farm was not, as far as I currently know, ever closely connected to any of the cutting edge developments; but it was definitely a part of that movement. Were such farms those of hobbyists, dilettantes, dedicated amateurs, foolish risk takers, capitalist innovators? Depends…
*Project: dig through the odd ledgers hanging about for more info…
Acair Fearann 
In a very real way the farming at Esperanza lives on at Amistad, as our Aunt Helen was very interested in farming herself, and I like to think that her influence was very important in getting Amistad running and keeping it running, as it is to this day.
It would be very difficult for a Connecticut farm of our size to make a go of it today — although Eddie Barden, just down the road, probably comes close (but even there, I believe that his wife works out). But even our small vegetable garden goes a long way in the summer!
What do we know about the dairy operation? The creamery? The chicken flock? And the experiments Brad undertook both with the percherons and with Intervale’s herd while possibly poorly thought out surely come under the catagory of attempts at scientific advancement.