The Wild Blueberry is the State Berry of Maine | Post 4 | Maine

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Across the USA

4 min readFeb 21, 2015

For someone who grew up in Boston it is easy to associate the state of Maine with lobster and little else. Maybe the scenic rocky coast and summer camps too. Or perhaps a conversation will trigger mention of the expanse of rugged interior Maine, or rural poverty and decay, or the paper and lumber industries — which are all visible on today’s route between Machias and Harrington, even though we are just miles from the coast:

In fact, it is surprising just how much this short stretch of U.S. Route 1 — only 20 miles — reveals about Maine. Especially about the land. Here is one huge insight:

This is Wild Blueberry Land. From the roadside one can see a mini-golf course, and the comments on TripAdvisor speak of “a bakery with muffins, pies, and other baked blueberry treats” and “everything blueberry”. It makes sense. The state berry of Maine is the wild blueberry, and Maine grows 25 percent of North America’s blueberries.

Also en route we pass at least two wreath companies, including Worcester Wreath, which started the Wreaths Across America project to honor veterans.

From blueberries to wreaths, the products of Maine’s land clearly touch the nation as a whole, and while there were no signs of Maine potatoes along this short bit of Route 1, tiny Jonesboro did just as much to connect Maine agriculture to American agriculture:

Jonesboro Grange #357 is the local hall of The National Grange of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry — or, simply, the Grange. Founded in 1867, the Grange was the brainchild of Oliver Hudson Kelley, a Boston native and later Minnesota farmer who imagined a kind of Masons-for-farmers fraternity while surveying the South for the Department of Agriculture after the Civil War.

Kelley and seven others — including Caroline Hall, who ensured women would be as welcome as men into the “brotherhood” — comprised the original membership of the Order of Patrons of Husbandry, and by 1875 the Grange had over 850,000 members. In 2005, 130 years later, it was down to 180,000, but that membership spans 36 states and the Grange still runs a serious advocacy operation out of its D.C. headquarters near the White House.

The Grange’s lobbying efforts in fact date to its founding and the Granger Laws of the 1860s and ’70s, which several Midwestern states passed to regulate railroad and grain elevator rates in defense of small rural farmers. Illinois’s version of the Granger Laws would be struck down as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court (since the regulation of interstate commerce had been deemed a federal, not state, affair), but that outcome prompted Congress to pass the 1887 Interstate Commerce Act, which targeted railroads and was effectively the first federal law regulating private business in the U.S.

Despite this legislative pedigree — the Grange is also credited with critical campaigning for rural mail delivery — Dennis Sven Nordin argues in Rich Harvest (1974) that the “order was primarily a social and educational fraternity for farmers and their families rather than a medium for political and economic activities.” Indeed, a recent newsletter from the 2014 (and 148th) National Grange Convention in Ohio shares a recipe for cheesey potato soup, raves about an Evening of Excellence talent show, and documents Hopewell Grange #1747’s assistance to victims of a central Illinois tornado.

Similarly, though the Jonesboro hall may post-date the late 19th-century Grange heyday, the Maine Historic Preservation Commission reminds that the building has “served the community of Jonesboro for over 100 years” and that the local Grange has sponsored “Fourth of July celebrations, town-wide potluck dinners, dances, concerts and many more activities. The annual lighting of the community Christmas tree and caroling while waiting for the Jonesboro fire truck to transport Santa Claus are events that still occur today.”