Wilton Rocks and Rolling Out a Garden

Stone walls, Route 7, organic gardens... past, present, and future.

The Wilton Historical Society partnered with Millstone Farm to host a discussion of the town's agrarian roots and agricultural aspirations on Wednesday. The evening included presentations from Susan Allport, a published expert on New England's stone walls, and Jim Hunter, an AP Science teacher at Wilton High School, to just under 50 attendees in the Society's main Route 7 History Exhibit showroom.

"This is a bit of a departure from our previous lecture series," said Board of Trustees President Greg Chan in his introduction. "We are here tonight to show how the lessons of the past can guide us in the present and on into the future."

Allport began the evening with a slideshow and lecture on her area of expertise, the ubiquitous lines of rocky demarcation that run throughout the Northeast's fields and forests. By her well-researched count (she was quoting from her widely regarded work, 'Sermons in Stone: The Stone Walls of New England and New York'), there are 252,000 miles of walls in the area, what she said is enough to circle the earth ten times.

To put the figure into better perspective, Allport said that it would typically take two men and a pair of oxen a day to lay 10 feet of stone walls during the peak of their construction, or 243 years to account for all the structures in the region. According to her, the walls came into existence to replace worm fences (land-consuming structures that were easy to build but led to widespread deforestation) and saved farmers the trouble of having to dig post holes through the bedrock-laden soil.

Allport's talk lent great historical perspective and depth to a slice of Wilton life that most encounter simply by looking out their windows and showed how labor-intensive the agrarian life of the town's forefathers was. It also served as a good basis for Hunter to build off of.

Hunter conducted the evening's second lecture, a presentation on his novel idea to construct and maintain an organic garden at Wilton High School.

"I've been an environmental educator for over 20 years and I've felt there has been something missing in our curriculum," Hunter said. "And that was sustainable farming. Wilton has been an agrarian town for a long time and we should pay attention to that history and use it to help us in the future... as the saying goes, if you don't learn from the past, you're doomed to repeat it."

His point was that much of contemporary culture has become too far-removed from the food that sustains it. Building an organic garden for teachers, students, and residents to use would not only help bring Wiltonians closer to the land they live on, but also to one another, allowing them to work side-by-side and hand-in-hand.

"We need to impart in our gardens the way Wilton used to farm," he said, "and bring the past to life there."

Hunter extolled the virtues of eating sustainable, locally grown foods, including higher nutritional values and awareness, less impact on the environment, and, most importantly for the students, a chance to gain hands-on experience for their classroom studies. He mentioned, as well, that children used to consume roughly one to three pounds of sugar annually a hundred years ago. That number, he said, has sky-rocketed to 120 to 140 pounds of sugar annually in the present day.

The proposed garden would be set up at the southern end of the school, adjacent to the greenhouse. It would cover 2,000 square feet and only displace a few donated trees that currently reside there, which would be transplanted elsewhere on the property.

Using an eight-foot fence to keep deer out, and boxed raised beds filled with $1,500-worth of donated soil, the garden could be integrated into the school's curriculum to teach students about everything from organics to nutrition to soil sampling. Most importantly, perhaps, to town officials, the costs would be entirely mitigated by various grants, benefactors, and fundraisers.

"I am 100 percent positive that this project will not cost the town of Wilton any money in any way," Hunter said emphatically.

He estimated the total cost of the project at $26,000 and said half of this has already been provided for by a foundation grant. WHS students have also raised $7,000 toward the goal since May, much of which came from a fruitful tomato sale they held at the facility this summer.

While the audience seemed pleasantly attentive during his presentation, Hunter seemed to grab their attention and set them astir with his mention that he originally intended the garden to be the first of its kind in lower Fairfield County, truly groundbreaking stuff. However, trouble in gaining support from various boards and governing bodies led to other area towns, like Westport (who had originally sought his advice), to get their own gardens up and running before the idea seeds he planted in Wilton ever sprouted.

"I've had to jump through a lot more bureaucratic hoops than most other towns," he said.

Still, Hunter envisions the project as a unique and cutting-edge addition to town life and stressed that, in order to come to fruition, it will need a wide range of support. He encouraged all in attendance to spread the word and assist by donating any equipment, funds, and manpower they could spare.

Hunter mentioned he is currently recovering from a bout of pneumonia, which has left him sifting through work that piled up during his absence. But the Wilton Patch has plans to interview him next week in greater depth and will provide tangible means and avenues of assisting him in his efforts at that time.