TAGS:<\/strong> Howard Burdine ;\u00a0farm managers ; PMSS students ; Berea (KY) College ; agricultural degrees ; Glyn Morris ; Burdine Family ; William Hayes ; Edrye (Wilson) Burdine) ; hogs ; Sol Day ; lime kilns ; root cellars ; county agents ; U.S. Department of Agriculture ; vegetable growing ; organic gardening ; soil conservation ;<\/p>\n One of the early farm managers at Pine Mountain Settlement School, Howard Burdine was a graduate of Pine Mountain Settlement School as were many of his seven siblings.<\/p>\n Following his graduation from Pine Mountain in 1925, Howard attended Berea (KY) College and\u00a0completed an agricultural degree in 1935. He was then\u00a0recruited by Director Glyn Morris<\/a>\u00a0to work as a farm manager at the School.\u00a0Burdine accepted Morris’ offer, which was urgent following the injury of the previous farmer,\u00a0Oscar Kneller<\/a>, in a dynamite explosion at the campus. Howard proved to be a good choice.<\/p>\n Howard was born c. 1910 in Kentucky where his father worked as a foreman on the railroad. His father, John W. Burdine, was born in Tennessee and his mother Josie (Josephine) was born in Virginia.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Howard\u00a0was\u00a0the first in the family to attend PMSS. His siblings attended in the following order:\u00a0Hubert 1932-1934 ;\u00a0Irene 1925, 1930 ;\u00a0Mary 1936 ; and\u00a0Ruth in 1923. The family was a large one and included in total the following children: Ada, Irvine, Hubert G., Mary Lu, John Jr., Carson, and Winfred.\u00a0<\/span>Howard and his siblings were living in Cumberland, Harlan County, when they were admitted to Pine Mountain. <\/span><\/p>\n Howard was the oldest of the children and like many other students at Pine Mountain saw to it that his siblings were supported when they later came to Pine Mountain. He also was a mentor and a model for other boys recruited from the coal camps of Harlan County, including William Hayes<\/a> whose first farming experiences were with Howard. William “Bill” Hayes learned his job well and followed Howard Burdine directly out of school at Pine Mountain. By 1939, after a short\u00a0period of\u00a0training at Berea College, Bill Hayes assumed the position of lead farmer at Pine Mountain School.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n When Morris invited Burdine to Pine Mountain, he was able to also recruit a much-needed housemother in the person of Edrye\u00a0(Wilson) Burdine,<\/a> who was Howard’s new wife. She also served as a teacher at Pine Mountain.<\/span><\/p>\n Burdine was a very social and active student both at Pine Mountain and at Berea and an inventive and quick-witted farmer. Shortly after returning\u00a0to Pine Mountain, Burdine reported the following incident to Glyn Morris, regarding the trouble he had been having with free-ranging hogs in the area of Pine Mountain:<\/p>\n I saw Sol Day <\/a>at Putney and was telling him about his hogs tearing down the corn. I told him that we would shoot the hog and eat it and pay him for it what it was worth\u00a0— no price was made but he said he would be reasonable about it. I told him also about the pig that was shot the other night which belonged to the sow and I told him we caught another last night. He said Ludie wanted two pigs to keep but I told him there would be only one because there were only two including the one we shot. He said go ahead and let justice take its course, or words to that effect.<\/em> Howard Burdine [Personnel file, August 31, 1935].<\/p>\n Another example of Burdine’s contribution to Pine Mountain’s farming practice can be found in the following description of his work to use local natural resources to bolster the soil on the farm at the School. The February 1936<\/a> Pine Cone\u00a0<\/em>describes how Burdine and his crew constructed a lime kiln.<\/p>\n Howard Burdine: LIME KILN CONSTRUCTION<\/strong><\/p>\n FIRE RAGES SAFELY IN KILN From the two front fire channels other passages carry the heat to the parts of the kiln. A wood fire is kept in the two channels for seven days at the least…. By that time, all the limestone that has been white hot all the way through should slake when water is poured on it.<\/em><\/p>\n In making lime, the stone, in chemical terms, is calcium carbonate. This is burned, leaving calcium oxide and giving off carbon dioxide gas. When we put water on the oxide we get calcium hydroxide or slaked lime. This slaked lime is then used on the fields to prevent acid soil.<\/em><\/p>\n At first a tent and later a metal shelter was set up in front of the two fire channels which makes tending the fire a very comfortable job. Moreover, the farm boys know that, in producing the slaked lime, they are indirectly setting the tables for meals during the coming year. [<\/em>PINE CONE, February 1936, page two.]<\/p>\n Howard Burdine: ROOT CELLAR<\/strong><\/p>\n The root cellar<\/a> was a major storage facility for root crops at Pine Mountain and received considerable use by the farmer and his workers. By 1937 the cellar was in disrepair. The following describes the attempt to resurrect the cellar:<\/p>\n …The current storage for winter root crops had proved to be inadequate and Morris asked <\/em>[Arthur] Dodd<\/a> to “fix the vegetable cellar.” While the supervision of a construction job may have seemed far outside the scope of a school principal, Dodd took on the challenge with the help of the School’s farmer, Howard Burdine. <\/em><\/p>\n On June 15, 1937, Dodd wrote to Glyn Morris:<\/p>\n The vegetable cellar is finished all except the bottom. A terrific amount of work has gone into that thing. I don’t believe you realized what it entailed when you said “fix the vegetable cellar” …. about 25 loads of gravel and sand, to Middlesboro for steel, all mixed by hand, walls poured in one day — 12 ft by 24 ft. But you will have a vegetable cellar that ought to pay for itself <\/em> Now, Howard <\/em>[Burdine] wants his shelves or boxes in by July 1st. We have decided that boxes are better from every\u00a0point of view (they can be made as cheaply and will stand on each other to the ceiling) so unless you have some other plan we will proceed to make them. Inter-Mountain and Nolan are bidding on <\/em>the lumber.\u00a0….<\/em><\/p>\n The two-year\u00a0stay at the School of the Burdine couple was a good one for both recent graduates, and their contributions were notable. Howard, however, had many ambitions and was, by all accounts, a social and entrepreneurial individual. He soon left Pine Mountain to become the County Agent for Martin County, Kentucky, where he promoted various programs, particularly fruit growing, that contributed to the agricultural enhancement of the community. In 1940 he was living in Inez, in Hardin County, Kentucky, where he also served as the County Agent.<\/p>\n Howard Burdine:\u00a0SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE DISTRICT WORKER 1946<\/strong><\/p>\n The following description of a meeting with Howard Burdine during a flood in Lawrence County, Ky. was published by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1946:<\/p>\n A PROSPECTIVE Soil Conservation Service cooperator and Farm Security Administration borrower was waiting beside the road with a rowboat during the January 1946 flood in Lawrence County, Ky., because he knew the SCS district workers, Howard Burdine and Richard Moore, and the FSA Supervisor, Coy M. Hibbard, would be there that day to work a farm plan. The backwater covered the road and made it necessary to ride in a boat across a big valley.<\/em><\/p>\n After the boat ride, the visitors had to take to the hills and to skirt another valley of floodwater to reach the farm. Yet, in spite of high water, the plan and loan were worked with this Big Sandy mountain farmer. Mutual respect and good cooperation were found in making a sound farm plan on the bank of the muddy Big Sandy, even though there were three pairs of wet feet and one wet seat (caused by carrying Moore, who was without boots, through a short cut of backwater, and by Burdine’s ability to sling water while trying to paddle.” \u2014<\/em> Coy M. Hibbard, FSA, Louisa, Ky. See Also:<\/strong> Title<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Howard Burdine Alt. Title<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Howard Burdine, Howard W. Burdine<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n Identifier<\/p>\n<\/td>\n \n
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\nOn the 15th of January, Mr. Burdine and his farm boys completed the construction of a lime kiln. On the mountain above the Chapel<\/a> an excavation was made for the kiln to stand. The limestone was then put together in the form of a squat, block house, with two channels open at the bottom for the fire. The kiln, on the front side where the two fire holes are, is approximately ten feet high. the rear face of the kiln, is about four feet above the ground.<\/em><\/p>\n
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\nover a period of two or three years if it works properly. <\/em><\/p>\n
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\nPublisher:<\/span> [Washington] : U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Office of Governmental and Public Affairs,<\/a> 1946,\u00a0Volume<\/span> 5.<\/span><\/p>\n
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\nEDRYE WILSON BURDINE<\/a> Biography<\/strong>
\nHOWARD BURDINE CORRESPONDENCE<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n
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