Potato harvest at the Garrett Farm

How it got started

The museum has evolved out of a life-long love of collecting farm related items.It started when I was a young boy growing up on a small rural farm in the upstate. Some of my earliest memories are coming home from elementary school and having to walk behind a tractor guiding a one row planter or cultivator while my father drove.Our implements were left-overs from the days of mule farming. I was barely able to see over the planter handles but was fascinated at watching either my father or grandfather set up the planter wth the proper plates for the kind of seeds to be planted. The plates were carefully arranged on nails on grandfathers back porch. As the planter was pulled along behind the tractor the plates would rotate dropping a seed down a chute and then would be covered up by the wheel in back. It was my job to hold on to the handles and keep the planter upright and guide it properly in the furrow. My father liked straight, even rows, he always said you could tell alot about a man by how even his rows were. At seven or eight years old your mind has a tendency to wander but a quick "Pay attention." or "Watch what your're doing." can snap you back quickly.The sweet smell of freshly plowed fertile soil takes me back even now to my childhood on the farm. the feel of It on the bottoms of my barefeet, the quiet evening sounds, the playing in the creek and swimming in the pond were all apart of growing up in the country.That is an experience more and more people are missing. Having never been on a hay ride or never picked a ripe watermelon or tasted a juicey tomato right off the vine is something that is becoming more rare everyday. That is why it is important to preserve that part of our past and present for us and future generations.

      The South Carolina Farm and Rural Museum is a collection of antique farm equipment and items that were used on the farm and farmsted.One of its near goals is to provide permanent housing for the ever growing collection. This will enable the Museum to provide educational opportunities to the public through exhibits and demonstrations.

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