Maine usually is not thought of as a farm state, but farming has characterized many communities and much of the state's history.
Changes in markets, the economy, transportation, and opportunities available to Maine youth all have affected the numbers of farms in the state.
Commercial farming became dominant by 1940, marked by specialized crops and larger -- but fewer -- farms in the state. Since then, the number of acres devoted to farming in Maine has been cut in half.
By the late twentieth century, potatoes, dairy products, broilers and eggs, apples and blueberries represented the great majority of Maine's farm output.
Sources: Day, Clarence. Farming in Maine 1860-1940, University of Maine Studies, Second Series, No. 78, 1963
Frederic, Paul B. Canning Gold: Northern New England's Sweet Corn Industry: a Historical Geography. Lanham, Md.: University Press of America, 2002.
Maine Historical Society Quarterly, v. 21 (4), Spring 1982, 179-226.
Wescott, Richard and David Vail. "The Transformation of Farming in Maine, 1940-1985, in Maine Historical Society Quarterly, v. 28 (2), Fall 1988, 66-84.
