America's Heartland is made possible by....

The American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture dedicated to building greater awareness and understanding of agriculture through education and engagement.

More information at agfoundation.org Hi, I'm Rob Stewart in Vermont.

We're here in the cold of winter.

Some of America's sweetest farms are making maple syrup for those warm pancakes on your table.

We'll take you sugar making in New England coming up.

Hi, I'm Sarah Gardner.

We're heading for a famous farm in Central Ohio that has long been an experiment in sustainability.

And Malabar Farm has also been a spot that welcomed Hollywood's biggest stars.

I'm John Lobertini.

We all know about cattle drives, but how about driving a herd of 4000 sheep to the high desert for summer pasture?

For here in Arizona, it's a yearly trip that one family's been making for generations.

That's coming up next on America's Heartland!

♪ You can see it in the eyes of every woman and man ♪ ♪ in America's Heartland living close to the land.

♪ ♪ There's a love for the country ♪ ♪ and a pride in the brand ♪ ♪ in America's Heartland living close, close to the land.

♪ ♪ in America's Heartland living close, close to the land.

♪ Is breakfast your favorite meal?

Well, it is for a lot of people when it's pancakes and delicious maple syrup.

So how do you get that great maple flavor?

Well, it all begins far away from the breakfast table.

It's a late winter ritual older than America itself.

As these snow covered New England mountains begin to thaw.... "....Ah man, nice and full...." ....the farmstead hills and valleys of Vermont come alive with the annual sound of maple syrup being made.

That sound there is music to a sugar maker's ear, that drip, drip, drip .

Arnold Coombs' family has been sugar making ...as they call it.... for 7 generations.

Today he's tapping a tree that was planted decades before the Declaration of Independence.

Well, this is the method that's been used for well over 100 years.

Where you drill a hole into the tree, it's a little bit bigger than the plastic one.

Drive a metal spout into the tree, and just hang a bucket on it with a cover.

This sugar house is where Arnold's cousins boil the sap down into maple syrup.

It's a slow process as water in the sap evaporates over a wood burning fire.

As outside temperatures warm, maple sap will flow for several weeks.

It takes about ten gallons of sap to make just one quart of syrup.

How long did this take to fill up?

On a perfect day, you can fill it in one day.

That's 4 gallons of sap.

So that would be 40% of your crop in one day.

Just across the Vermont border in New Hampshire, syrup runs in the family for Bruce Bascom as well.

My great-grandfather moved to part of this property in 1853.

He was tapping probably 500 trees, probably in wooden buckets.

But times have changed, and maple means money.

Bascom Maple Farms is one of the biggest producers of maple syrup in the world!

They take a more modern approach.

Everywhere you look, there is a sea of taps and tubes.

Today they are filled with flowing sap.

You see the bubbles here?

Oh yeah!

You usually have about a half a dozen of these hooked together into a larger pipe.

Sap is flowing right now!

Bruce has 24 hundred acres, 63 thousand trees, woven together by a plastic tubbing system that makes maple mountain farming high tech.

And you can see here with the newer technology and the plastic tubing, you can consolidate it all into one spot so one person can actually obtain sap from trees that are in remote hill sides like there.

You'd never gather buckets with a pail.

Yeah, on an acre of land, usually you only make about 25 total gallons over a 6 week period.

Wow!

Takes a lot of area to make much production.

Right across from the crop, Bruce can boil 4,000 gallons of sap an hour.

Bottle after bottle, barrel after barrel, and box after box, is filled with syrup and shipped for sale worldwide.

The push for the product is on.

What's happened is the demand in Asia (like Japan, Korea, China, all through Europe) demand in the United States is way up, because it's a specialty crop.

They can't make it in the other countries.

The sweet success has us in the mood for some tasting!

This is my official grading.

Man, that is delicious!

Bruce grades each barrel with this device he calls his color comparitor .

But Bruce can even walk into a room and smell the grade of syrup!

I imagine you've had quite a few sugar highs.

Well, you can taste several hundred barrels in a day, but you don't want to break for lunch.

It feels good to sit down after about 15 minutes and have a glass of water, have a pickle, something that's sour.

It all began with a tree, something Arnold Coombs never forgets.

As a sugar maker, do you feel a connection with these trees?

Oh I do!

There's a older tree out back, and every time I tap it, I just kind of give it a pat.

And every time I gather, I say thank you.

You know they're giving up some sap for us, so I do appreciate that.

Although maple trees grow in Europe, Europeans were unaware of the potential uses of the sweet sap until colonists learned how to tap the trees from Native Americans.

When Britain imposed heavy taxes on sugar, the maple sweetener became even more popular.

If I say ranching , it probably brings to mind cattle.

But ranchers in the heartland these days do more than raise beef on the hoof.

In fact if you go to the open spaces of Eastern Arizona, ranching is just as likely to mean sheep, some of whom take a very long walk to take a summer vacation.

Driving sheep from the desert floor to the mountains of Arizona is a yearly ritual for Duane Dobson and his family.

The 220-mile journey will take months along the rough and winding Haber-Reno sheep trail.

I'm 3rd generation in this business.

My grandpa bought the operation in 1929.

Duane Dobson knows a lot about raising sheep.

And he carries on that family legacy with unflinching devotion.

Like I say, it's tradition for all of Arizona.

These driveways were established in the 1880's before Arizona was even a state.

Twice a year the Dobson clan move 4-thousand sheep to-and-from higher elevations.

The cooler temperatures are more favorable to the stock.

And summering in the mountains provides access to better grazing land.

Arizona sheep ranchers raise more than 150 thousand animals each year, a small segment of the more than 6 million plus sheep on ranches across the country.

Mark Pedersen took over the job for his father-in-law 15-years ago.

It's a unique equation.

We're able to spend that time transferring from the lower elevations up to the higher elevations.

We actually follow the temperature climate up the hill.

It's more like staying a step ahead of the heat.

These sheep will travel anywhere from 6 to 10 miles a day!

And in some cases, they will do it over very rugged terrain.

But they will take every bit of 45-days to make this pilgrimage to higher ground.

Used to be more than a dozen ranchers guided their sheep into the mountains for mating season.

But the Dobsons are the last of a dying breed.

And word is spreading.

Oh, look at them!

So on this late April morning, crowds gathered east of mesa to watch the flock cross the salt river at the blue point bridge.

It's a carefully choreographed move.

Mark, Duane and their crew bring half the herd down to a staging area, wait overnight, and then race them across the bridge at sunrise.

It's a fading glimpse of ranching history.

Jan Stasiak has been waiting for 2 days.

Oh, I'm very excited.

Kent Miller and his grandson are playing hooky from school.

I didn't want to not experience it.

It was an historic event for me.

I took my grandson, and I wanted him to experience it.

The flock moves carefully across the asphalt then kicks into high gear with the surge of a bigger herd.

The sheep almost instinctively know the way.

How's it going?

Wonderful so far!

It can change in a heart beat, though.

On this day, everything goes just as planned: cross the bridge, make a sharp left, and a cloud of dust !

It's a spectacle seen in few other places in modern America, and one that leaves a lasting impression.

It was very interesting.

The sheep knew where they were going.

The leaders came right down and knew right where they were going to come through the gate.

Retired school teacher Cindy Shanks has been following the Dobson's sheep for 10-months.

Fifteen hundred photographs later, Shanks says she wants to write a book titled The Great Arizona Sheep Drive.

It's history!

And Arizona kids don't have a lot of history, because we're such a young state.

And this is important history.

Some of this land is a short drive from urban areas.

And development is slowly choking off access to these coveted trials.

We were actually able to graze our sheep on different ranchers farm ground all the way 'til we got to our own property.

Now you cross about 15 Home Depots, some malls, grocery stores.... How long these annual treks can go on will depend on forces outside the flock.

Encroaching civilization and redefined land use may shut down these pathways to the past.

But Duane Dobson says for now, the migrations will continue.

The way the economics are, we're the only ones left.

I don't intend to quit unless the pressure gets too great.

There are more breeds of sheep than any other livestock species: more than a thousand worldwide!

Their wooly coats are categorized by fiber length and thickness.

So some sheep are great for soft sweaters, some for your winter overcoat, and some for that carpet on your living room floor.

Hi, I'm Jason Shoultz.

Coming up, I'll tell you how a farm and feed store is being preserved after being in the same family for 150 years.

I'm Sarah Gardner.

Still ahead, you might not think that Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall were ever interested in a farm-stay visit.

But we'll take you to an Ohio farm that welcomed them on their honeymoon.

♪ Hi, I'm Paul Robins.

And here's something you may not have known about agriculture.

Apples are one of the most popular fruits around today.

They have vitamin C, they help reduce cholesterol, and they're low in calories.

So who do you have to thank for what the French call le pomme ?

Well, render unto Caesar's what is Caesar's.

Apples may have first been harvested in Asia, but it was the Romans who began major cultivation.

And by 23 AD, Roman farmers were growing more than 30 varieties of apples.

Fast forward 16 hundred years, and colonists in the New World were growing apples big time .

In fact in 1635, one farmer in Connecticut was producing 31 thousand gallons of apple cider a year!

That'll quench your thirst.

Today, the U.S. is one of the major apple producing nations in the world with the majority of the red globes coming from Washington, Michigan and New York.

Two tidbits on apple lore!

We know the rhyme as an apple a day keeps the doctor away.

But linguists say the original quote was, eat an apple on going to bed, and you'll keep the doctor from earning his bread .

While apples are mentioned later in the Bible, some historians say it was not an apple but biting into a quince or pomegranate that got Adam and Eve tossed from the Garden of Eden.

If you like apples, there are more than 7000 varieties.

That's something to sink your teeth into!

Oregon's Union Mills feed mill got its start grinding grain with a water wheel.

It has a lot of history, and it's been in the same family for generations.

And today as that family faces new challenges, they are finding new opportunities.

Down time is hard to come by at the Union Mills Feed Store in Mulino, Oregon.

It's been that way for five generations.

We've been in the business for 130 years.

And not many companies can say they've been in business, especially the same family, same area, doing pretty much the same thing we've been doing all these years.

And at the center of the activity is Bob Friedrich.

This is the old homestead isn't it?

Yeah, I've been here since I was about two.

Which is about 1942 is when my folks moved here.

It was Bob's great-great grandparents whose trip on the Oregon trail brought them to this property in 1848.

From sawmill, feed store to family farm, the family has changed with the times.

Chickens, I see.

Yeah, my wife and I both like chickens.

There's some guineas in there.

Got some peacocks in the other one, ducks in the next pen, you know, just a little bit of everything.

So it must be pretty humbling to be here, how many years later after?

You know, your ancestors built this farm to still have it going, to still have the livestock.

Oh yeah, it's, it's nice.

I always think about it, you know?

I wonder what it was like back in the 1850's when they got here and cleared this ground.

In 1877 the flour mill was built.

It was converted to a livestock feed mill in the 1930's.

Today Bob's daughter Connie is the mill's general manager.

And Connie's husband does construction projects.

And the nice thing is we don't have to have 2 bags five deep!

His daughter Heather spends her weekends working at the mill and farm and is planning to return full time to the mill soon.

I think that we're born with that passion, you know, of our ancestors.

We have the work ethic.

I know it was born into us.

You know, we were raised working.

We were raised to be very supportive and faithful to the family.

I don't know how old we were at that age.

As Bob's generation has a smaller role in the day-to-day operation, there's more talk now of handing off to the next generation.

And even my kids who are young enough, they come down here and help after school.

Sometimes they'll help on the weekends.

When we have events going on, they'll come and help do whatever they can.... ....maybe you know some day, eventually take over the business.

Like many agricultural endeavors, the Friedrichs face land value pressures, growth challenges, and change in demands at their store.

They adapt to meet new consumer demands.

Two of their biggest areas now are horse products and pet food.

What's the lesson you're trying to share, you're going to pass onto the next generation when they take this thing over?

What are going to tell them in terms of managing something like this?

That's a good question.

You don't ever, well one thing, you never make a lot of money.

Your money's invested in what you have.

But you get a satisfaction.

I don't know what it is.

It's just a satisfaction that's down in here somewhere that's look what I've done .

I've kept this going another generation.

Family, land and the house and the business... That's our life.

That's our life.

It will stay.

We will never sell our property.

You will, you would have to come and get it.

Yeah.

Dad, is that you behind me?

Say cheese!

Many early farmers who arrived in Oregon came west on the Oregon Trail, the longest of the overland routes used in America's westward expansion.

By the way, many states have official state trees or flowers.

Well, Oregon also has an official state nut.

It's the hazelnut.

♪ I'm Randy Oliver.

I'm a small commercial beekeeper.

And by small, I mean I run about 500 colonies which is kind of the minimum which you can make a living off honeybees with.

The larger beekeepers run 10's of thousands of colonies.

What I'm doing here is lighting the smoker.

The value of bees, I can tell you for the United States which is the most recent study some years ago, calculated that if honeybees were to disappear, we'd lose about 20 billion dollars worth of agriculture production a year, 20 billion with a B.

You can taste the honey anytime.

Mmm.

About a third of all the food you put on your table comes from bee-pollinated crops.

We wouldn't starve.

We'd still have food.

But the food on your plate would be pretty bland.

You'd have the grains, you'd have wheat, you'd have rice, you'd have corn, you'd have potatoes, but you wouldn't have the green vegetables!

You wouldn't have the bright colored fruits.

Essentially, the things that are good for you on the plate are the things that bees pollinate.

There's the queen bee.

She's the mother of every bee in this hive.

But the good thing about all this is it brought to the public's attention the connection between nature and your food supply.

If you move slowly here, you can scoop up a handful of bees.

They call beekeeping the gentle art.

Beekeeping is something the suburbanite, the hobbyist, gets into and actually get into small-scale agriculture on their own.

If you bring a bee colony into your yard in suburbia, all neighbors benefit.

All the sudden, all their fruit trees start to produce better.

In their gardens, they can grow cucumbers and squashes and melons, things they weren't able to grow before, because there weren't enough pollinators in the neighborhood.

There's nothing better than beekeeping especially as a migratory beekeeper which is what I am, because you follow the spring.

You move your bees to where it's beautiful.

So everyday you're working in the most beautiful places there are.

It's just like there's nothing like the energy of being in a bee yard in the springtime.

And the vitality of those bees is contagious.

And you feel it throughout your body.

The history of American farming has dramatically affected not only our lifestyles but that of people around the world.

And it's history that's involved some famous people in famous places.

Take for example this farm in Ohio.

Louis Bromfield's Malabar farm is a living memorial to a man whose vision made him an early supporter of agricultural practices that have become commonplace today.

The Ohio-born Bromfield would become a Pulitzer Prize winning author of 30 best sellers.

But it was to study agriculture that took him to Cornell University in 1914.

He left college to fight in World War I, returned to become a reporter, turned out an award winning novel, Early Autumn , and used his prize money to buy this farmland near Lucas, Ohio in 1938.

He wanted to come back home.

And he set out to buy what we would call rundown farms , to build what he wanted to name Malabar Farm.

Bromfield set out to revitalize the farms taking the Malabar name from a setting in one of his novels.

He saw these 1900 acres as something special.

The farm was an experimental farm of new ways of utilizing the equipment and utilizing the ground with contour plowing, basically using the green manures, use of no-till equipment.

Bromfield's innovations paved the way for sustainable farming.

Bromfield's literary work generated friends in the arts.

His books became major motion pictures.

And Hollywood made its way to the farm.

Folks from James Cagney, Gracie Allen, people like that, came here.

Bromfield would assign a job/task to do.

Whether it was going into the chicken house and gathering eggs, nobody was immune from work.

And if they did not want to partake in the chore, Bromfield would send for a cab and ship them to a hotel in Mansfield.

There's another tie to Hollywood.

In 1945, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall decided to get married at Malabar Farm.

Humphrey Bogart was a longtime friend of Louis Bromfield.

And they had met in the 1920's and remained friends their whole lives.

But when Humphrey Bogart needed a little out-of-the-way place to get married, he called his friend Bromfield.

He had been out here.

He knew what a great place this was and how far away from everything it was.

So this was the perfect spot.

They did arrive the day before the wedding and had the wedding in the front hallway of the big house.

After Bromfield's death in 1956, the farm went through some tough economic times.

The state of Ohio assumed ownership in 1972.

Today, Malabar is once again a working farm welcoming visitors who want to know more about crops and livestock.

We have a cow/calf operation.

We have pigs, goats, chickens, sheep, draft horses, ponies.... And when it comes to, for instance, the crops that you grow, the cattle you raise, the pigs, the pork you raise, tell me about where all of this goes.

We produce a quality beef or pork item.

And it's sold to our restaurant that is located inside Malabar Farm State Park.

We sell retail cuts to our gift shop here at the farm.

We try to give the park visitor, the tourist, a total farm experience.

Bromfield's legacy is also a draw.

The farm teaches visitors about his sustainable approach to agriculture.... ....what a pretty, pretty spot.... ....and also has tours of the 32 room country home where Bromfield and his wife threw lavish parties for farm folks and celebrities alike.

There are over 4,000 books in the house.

A lot of the books were given to Bromfield by the authors who wrote them.

Some have inscriptions inside.

The chance to tell visitors the Bromfield story makes Malabar farm unique as a state park and tourist attraction.

It's a blend of agri-tourism, literary history, and working agriculture.

It causes us to wear multiple hats.

We are a state park system.

We're one of the Ohio State Parks.

There are 74 state parks in the system.

But we're the only state park that is a working farm.

And that's going to do it this time.

Thanks for travelling the country with us on this edition of America's Heartland .

And we're always pleased that you can join us.

And remember, there's much more on America's Heartland at our website including video on the stories from today's show.

Just log onto americasheartland.org.

See you next time on America's Heartland .

♪ You can see it in the eyes of every woman and man ♪ ♪ in America's Heartland living close to the land.

♪ ♪ There's a love for the country ♪ ♪ and a pride in the brand ♪ ♪ in America's Heartland living close, close to the land.

♪ America's Heartland is made possible by....

The American Farm Bureau Foundation for Agriculture dedicated to building greater awareness and understanding of agriculture through education and engagement.

More information at agfoundation.org ♪♪♪