Transitions

The farm has undergone many changes  since it was first started.  The young brothers were learning to farm and providing for their rapidly expanding families at the same time. Tony and Frank  lived in Belmont after they arrived in 1906.They worked on the local farms and began picking  up the techniques and skills of vegetable farming. John and Guy, who arrived in 1914, also began working at the local farms and dairies. Tony, the  most ambitious,  convinced his younger brothers to try farming in Lexington. They were all physically strong and had confidence in themselves and with their limited education and command of the language, farming offered them  opportunity for success and independence.

   There were many farms in the Boston area then. Lexington was known as Cambridge Farms before its incorporation in 1712 and farming was a main industry from the 1800's to the mid 1900's.  Before refrigerated trucking and shipping, the only available  fresh fruit and vegetables  were those grown locally.  They referred to  themselves as Market Gardeners to distinguish themselves from the chicken farmers , dairymen or pig farmers. The term implied modernity and business. The brothers grew a variety of products in dense  and successive plantings, as opposed to large acreage and slower growing crops such as onions , potatoes or corn. They sold  wholesale , but the demand was strong and the prices were usually high. 

        Farming for the wholesale market was  intense and fast paced and required months of preparation to maximize the limited acreage and overcome the short growing season. During the winter ,tools, machinery, hot bed sashes and mats were repaired  and plans were made for the coming season. The farmer had to choose  types of seeds and know how and  when to seed them  ,how much to seed , what the growing requirement for each type of  seedling was ,where to  transplant them, how to protect them from the weather and keep them strong and uniform and properly hardened-off to be planted in the field .  Celery, though frost tolerant in the fall, had to be kept growing strong  at  temperatures above fifty degrees at night in the sash houses ,because two to three weeks of cold temperatures could cause the crop to bolt (send up a seed stalk), just before harvest making it unmarketable. Tomatoes set out too early in cold ground  or  ones that are too old when planted will not yield properly for the whole season.

Decisions had to be made about where the plants would grow best ,what could be planted early , what could be seeded ,approximate harvest date, and what would follow that crop in the field. The field had to be plowed and prepared at the proper time ;  too early and re-plowing would be necessary if  heavy rains   compacted  the soil , or warm weather  caused early weed germination ;waiting too long would result in using plants that were past their prime  leading to an inferior crop and less money. Planting too much of a particular crop  would mean picking a lot in one or two week period but then have nothing to pick following that or planting too little too late would result in a smaller profit   when the price was high or  wasted space. 

The labor force had  to be  managed and synchronized with the grooming and marking of the field to plant as quickly as possible to allow for the watering in of the transplants. A field of celery could be lost or damaged on a hot or windy day if the planting dragged on or the water pipes were not in working order. The Busa brothers became adept at the important steps of growing the plants and getting them to and into the field to get the farm filled in an orderly fashion. They also knew how to manage the workers to get the planting, weeding and picking of the early crops done on time and keep up with the faster growing and labor-intensive crops like tomatoes. Tomatoes needed to be started under glass in individual pots and protected from frost .The watering , feeding ventilation of the potted tomatoes had to be controlled daily to avoid spindly weak plants .Then the thousands of clay pots needed to be transported to the field in late May and watered in immediately. A trellis system with posts and wire was constructed and each tied up  with string .Side shoots ,or suckers had to be constantly  pruned  by hand and  they had to be picked , graded and shipped  before they over-ripened .The watering and fertilization had to be carefully controlled because a fluctuation of a few ounces in size or the presence of cracks or misshapen fruit made a big difference in price. 

Growing a hundred acres of corn or potatoes was easier and required less labor but market gardening resulted in much more per acre. They were successful enough to stay out of debt, support their  large families, build houses ,buy cars and machinery ,  survive  the depression and even supply work for the local population .

They favored relatives and fellow Italians as  labor sources. There were many Italian  families moving into the Lexington, Belmont,  Arlington area after World War I so labor was plentiful and cheap and since their own   command of English was weak it was easier to communicate with them .  All the children were expected to and did work on the farm as well .  They did the lighter jobs when they were younger such as weeding and carrying plants to the field and as they got older they were more involved with the production and packing and transportation of produce to market .

    This type of farming was practiced by all four brothers into the nineteen-fifties with varying degrees of success. Tony  had more family help and was the first to build a proper greenhouse.  He had more acreage, with fields on what is now Lillian and Anthony and Farm roads. He was a tall ,energetic  forceful man who usually got his way and liked being the leader of the clan but was very protective of his brothers. He retired from farming in 1959 but rented his land to his nephew Joe Romano who farmed it for almost forty years. Tony died in 1973 after being hit by a car passing too close to him while he was fertilizing his lawn. 

Frank , a year younger, was charming and handsome and the most intellectual of the bunch. Unlike the others he was an avid reader and interested in the science of farming, as well as philosophy and history. He had the best piece of land, though it was only three acres, and grew excellent celery and tomatoes . He died suddenly of a stroke in 1949.His wife Rose and their three children carried on for many years . 

John was nine years younger than Tony and quieter but always surprised his brothers with his production and knack for anticipating the market and always having something to sell of high quality. Consequently he usually had money saved and was able to buy out his brother Guy when he wanted to move to Woburn in 1933, as well as to build his own house when Tony asked for  the one he and Frank were staying in. He won several awards at the Waltham Field Station Trials in the 1930's  for the quality of his tomatoes and celery .His family is the only one of the five brothers' still farming.

   This growing for market reached its peak in the nineteen forties and early fifties. The nation was  out of the depression and the upswing in the economy benefited them all. They all bought tractors and new trucks and parcels of land to increase production. By the mid fifties though, California and Florida with their vast acreage and modern farming methods and refrigerated trucking began overwhelming the local farmers. Though there was still a demand for native tomatoes , the demand for celery dwindled and the prices started coming down for all native produce. The supermarket chains arising at that time preferred the steadier flow and dependability of the imported items. The hydro-cooled lettuce and indestructible tomatoes lasted longer on the shelf and could be had for  cheaper prices year round. The cost of living started going up as well as the cost of labor and production. There were new things to buy, televisions, cars ,clothes and it got harder to last through the winter months on last years' savings. 

The children were growing up and getting married and realizing their future on the farm was limited. John's oldest son Joseph noticed the change early and following his Uncle Angelo's example and the new found popularity of businesses like Lexington Gardens ,opened  a small roadside stand in 1959 and began growing cut flowers and bedding plants in the greenhouse and hot beds as well as continuing with the vegetable business. Sweet corn started to become popular in early sixties and people would go out of their way to find this item that the supermarkets couldn't match. Tomatoes and celery were still grown for market but on a smaller scale. 

The emphasis shifted to types of vegetables that the consumer wanted rather than what the market broker needed. A wider range of vegetables were grown like peppers , eggplant , carrots , cucumbers ,squash and beans which were marginal market items in the past but soon became necessities for the roadside stand trade. Along with the housing boom of the fifties and sixties came the demand for landscape and garden items like geraniums , petunias, marigolds and other  flowers  and vegetables offered as starter plants for retail. So in place of the thousands of plants of celery and beets in the greenhouses came thousands of plants of flowers and vegetable seedlings planted in little boxes and pots  for the home owner. Not all could be sold retail so the overflow was taken to Quincy Market as well and the brokers in town became centers of distribution of these items for other roadside stands in the Boston area.

     Joe left in 1964 to establish a florist business in nearby Concord. John  was almost 70 and his children by his second marriage were too young to run the farm, so he turned to his brother-in-law Joseph Romano for help. Joseph dramatically increased the flower business to include  greenhouse chrysanthemums in the fall and produced truckloads of bedding plants and memorial pots for the booming wholesale plant industry of the late sixties .The price of heating oil was low and local markets had not yet been affected by out-of-state shipping or the energy crisis which was to arise in the mid seventies . John's wife Rosina and her sister-in-law Lucretzia ran the stand and worked in the greenhouses along with Joseph until 1971.