The Collins Farm: Grassland Management, Shepherding, and Textile Production in Nova Scotia, 1767-1829
Abstract
Louisa Collins, the daughter of a farmer living in rural Nova Scotia at the turn of the 19th-century, kept a diary during the summer, fall and winter of 1815 to 1816, which gives a window into the world of pre-industrial, colonial sheep farmers and wool workers in the region. Specifically, the analysis of Louisa’s diary provides ample data to assess the regenerative nature of past agricultural practices. Farm profiling of the selected historical sites, including the Collins farm, amplifies the work of rural women in the domestic sphere and the fluidity between indoor and outdoor farmstead boundaries within site-specific ecologies.