The Midland Agrarian: Why The midland Agrarian?

Thursday, February 14, 2008

Why The midland Agrarian?

Cultural geographers and students of dilalect call the great area of the Ohio valley, upper South and lower Midwest the midlands of the US. There have been many great southern agrarians, like Thomas Jefferson,Richard Weaver,and Wendell Berry. There were some great Northern Agrarians like Russell Kirk and Eric Sloane. The great middle area sometimes get overlooked (though we do have Louis Bromfield, Conrad Richter, and Gene Logsdon). I thought it would be fun to blog about some of my agrarian interests and life---besides, granny miller didn't want me hacking into her blog anymore.

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Why the Midland Agrarian?

Cultural geographers and students of dialect call the great area of the Ohio valley, upper South and lower Midwest the "midlands of the US". The midland dialect around here includes words such as "redding" for cleaning up our rooms, the "Crick" where we get fish or swim, "youns" for plural "you" and "warshing" for the laundry. Cultural artifacts from the midlands include forebay barns.

Western Pennsylvania was also once a part of the "middle ground" between the Great Lakes and the main portion of the Ohio Valley.

I chose the name "midland" agrarian to distinguish between the many fine southern agrarian writers (Like Wendell Berry), and the truly northern agrarian writers, like Russell Kirk and Eric Sloane. This was not an attempt to place myself in their company, but to recognize the unique aspects of my home country, which I love.