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because of over-production in the late 1870s, and indebtedness forced many farmers to
<br /> take jobs in newly- established tobacco factories and cotton mills. The agricultural
<br /> census of 1880 showed that Addison Holden had forty-five acres under cultivation, with
<br /> the remainder of the land fallow or in woods . The value of the farm was given as $600.
<br /> Farming implements and machinery were valued at seventy-five dollars, and livestock,
<br /> including one horse, two milk cows, two other cows, two calves, and two cattle
<br /> slaughtered for meat, at $ 100 . The total farm production was worth $710 . Though this
<br /> included 200 lbs . of butter, 200 bushels of Indian corn, 200 bushels of oats, 40 bushels of
<br /> wheat, and 100 bushels of apples, the Holdens' main cash crop was 1700 lbs . of tobacco
<br /> which was, no doubt, sold profitably at the sales warehouses recently opened in
<br /> Durham. But 1880 brought losses, too, for seven cattle strayed, were stolen, or died,
<br /> and the entire peach orchard of seventy . trees bore no fruit.
<br /> Around 1900, Addison Holden enlarged the house, constructing a kitchen
<br /> addition on the east facade that contained a wood burning stove to replace a large
<br /> cooking fireplace in an outbuilding . The old kitchen is said to have served as a wash
<br /> house until it was destroyed in the 1950s . 29
<br /> North Carolina remained a state of diversified small farms into the early years of
<br /> the twentieth century, but fewer acres per farmer were under cultivation and profits
<br /> continued to decline . Whether for this reason, or because the rigors of farming were
<br /> increasingly strenuous for Addison and Bettie, now in their later years, the property
<br /> was sold to George Cain Roberts for the sum of $2000 in 1908 . Cain Roberts * built five
<br /> chicken houses on the farm ca. 1910 where he raised White Leghorns as layers . 30
<br /> Cain and his wife, Carrie Bacon Roberts are remembered by neighbors as being
<br /> generous hard-working people and successful farmers . 31 In 1917, when his father' s
<br /> estate was settled, Cain purchased an additional thirty- eight acres of land adjoining the
<br /> northwest border of the farm for $716 .25, thus countering the trend toward decreasing
<br /> farm size in North Carolina at the time . 32 The couple had no children, but took Edrie
<br /> Martin, aged eight; Aubrey Martin, seven; and Vance Martin, four, to live with them
<br /> after Virginia, their mother and Cain' s sister, died *n 1926 . 33 In 1930, Aubrey Martin
<br /> helped his uncle remodel the kitchen and add a one- story wing to the north facade of
<br /> the farmhouse, making a bedroom and bath for Vesta Bacon, Came' s sister, who came
<br /> to live with them also. Diversified farming was continued during the period of
<br /> significance as the Martin children assisted their uncle with gathering eggs; milking six
<br /> or eight cows daily; and planting and harvesting 300 bushels of wheat, oats, and barley,
<br /> and two to 300 bushels of corn annually . 34 Tobacco, North Carolina' s major crop of the
<br /> early twentieth century, was grown on an allotment of four acres, and the family
<br /> traveled to Durham each fall to the markets . 35
<br /> When Cain Roberts died in 1943, his will directed that "my entire estate of real
<br /> 29 Martin, interviews.
<br /> 30 Martin, interviews.
<br /> 31 Mary Lena Bacon, personal interview, 16 May, 1995,
<br /> 32 Orange County Deed Books 72 and 73, pp . 543 and 396.
<br /> 33 Bacon, M. L., interview.
<br /> 34 Martin, interviews.
<br /> 35 Lefler and Newsome, p . 545 and Martin, interviews.
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