Two miles upstream from the High Falls of Philmont, a 150-foot cascade that powered textile mills a hundred years ago, there's an experimental garden of Chinese herbs.

Our three-acre field is leased from the Wright family. About one acre is established in a permaculture(1) bedding arrangement that was designed by Steve Gilman, a senior organic farmer who advises HFG. Steve calls it "a biostrip insectary intercropping system." He also designed the low-tech irrigation system with water pumped from the creek.

The bedding area at the field was plowed and planted in May of 1997. About a thousand herbs were transplanted from our previous location on another farm 20 miles to the south, which was too far away. All the plants survived the transplant and have withstood severe weed pressure over the years. Best practices dictate sowing a series of cover crops(2) for one year after plowing and before planting the medicinal herbs. This would break the cycle of the meadow plants and result in less weed pressure. However, at that time we could not afford to wait a year. We continue to use a variety of mulches and covers in an ongoing search for optimum ecological weed control.

The collection consists of mostly perennial(3) medicinal plants. The number of annuals planted in any given year depends on labor available, with the total number of species varying from 100-150. There are wild medicinals in the hedgerows(4) and near the creek (bloodroot, coltsfoot). We are intentionally planting other native woodland species to use as comparisons for the Asian and North American analogs(5). Most of the cultivated analogs are under shade cloth while the trees are in leaf.

The majority of the plants are grown out from seed sourced in China by Robert Newman, L.Ac., based in Los Angeles. Besides HFG, several other seed conservators have been working in the "Newman Network" since the early 1990s to build stocks of Asian medicinal plants in North America. Certain botanical gardens also have significant collections. Some of the material has been purchased through the ornamental trade.

This field, certified Farmer's Pledge by the Northeast Organic Farming Association of New York, is a research area for specimen plants and not necessarily a production area. Seeds harvested in the fall are used for the Botanical Studies program and to supply farmers in our growers associations. Five certified organic farms in New York state established test plots using HFG material in 2003. On the national level, five medicinal plant growers associations in different states are cooperating to study and market domestically-grown Asian herbs directly to Oriental Medicine practitioners.

Agriculture in Columbia County

This land belonged to the Mahicans (Mohegans), who still exist as a tribe but relocated to Wisconsin long ago. Their sacred sites include the Taconic Hills, along the eastern edge of the County, remnants of ancient mountains higher than the present-day Alps. (The Berkshires of Massachusetts are part of the Taconics.) The western edge of the County is the Hudson River. A panoramic view of the Hudson Valley can be seen from the Taconic Parkway.

Agriculture has been, and remains, the most economically significant industry in this area since the Europeans arrived. The Ostrander farm, just northwest of the Village of Philmont, is still owned by descendants of the 17th-century Dutch yeoman granted the land by the King of England. A line separating the free farmers of New England and the tenant farmers of the Dutch feudal system goes through this County. The feudal system was oppressive; violent tenant rebellions in the 19th century were suppressed by New York state troops.

This land was logged off repeatedly; 19th-century photos show bare hills. Today, the forests are coming back as elsewhere throughout the eastern U.S. In this County you can see fields where gradual forest succession is taking place as the native plants re-establish themselves. Last to return, in this pattern, are the medicinal plant species.

The County shelters fragments of an earlier period and has escaped the worst depredations of urban and residential development. The farming infrastructure still exists; farmers from surrounding states come here for suppliers that have vanished in other parts of the Northeast.

With only about 60,000 people, the County supports hundreds of working farms, mostly fruit and dairy operations. Many of the hereditary farms, however, have at least one family member working off-farm for supplemental income. This has been the case since 1950 and, as a result, most of the farms did not become industrialized, and the land has been spared extensive treatment with chemicals.

Fertility was maintained with traditional practices; for example, to spread fresh manure on the fields in autumn and let it break down over the winter. The ecological advance guard considers this less than desirable, as the manure should be composted first to provide a balanced diet of benefits to the soil. When you drive past a farm that smells bad, you know they are storing manure in lagoons or containers and it's been colonized by anaerobic bacteria. Fresh and/or composted manure smells good.

Farming practices in the County span the full range. We have a few monocropped fields of genetically-engineered soybeans but also are a recognized national "node" for biodynamic agriculture. The Hawthorne Valley Farm, The Healing Plant, Turtle Tree Seeds and several other major innovators are located in Columbia County. At least six community-supported agriculture (CSA) farms including Roxbury Farm are here.

People can eat very well in Columbia County without spending much money. However, most of them don't, and that's an aspect of perhaps the biggest health scandal in the U.S. Another prime reason for practitioners to understand what's happening in agriculture!

1. Permaculture = "permanent agriculture," a worldwide movement within ecological agriculture that follows practices advocated by Bill Mollison and others. The practices emphasize perennial plants, multi-purpose use of farm elements and an array of nature-mimicking design principles.
2. Cover crops: used to build soil fertility and in the fallow cycle, plants (usually legumes such as clovers or grains like rye and buckwheat) that add nitrogen and other nutrients to the soil when plowed under.
3. Perennials: plants that live for more than one year, even though the aboveground parts may die back in the winter.
4. Hedgerow: a strip of trees, shrubs and other plants that separates cultivated fields. A traditional practice now recognized as ecological for its provision of shelter for beneficial organisms, enhancing biodiversity.
5. Analogs: closely-related species indigenous to eastern Asia and eastern North America, i.e. ginseng.