"Normal Agriculture" in New Jersey: Stahrland Farm

Alden and Ruth Stahr of New Jersey promoted organic farming in their 1950s newsletter, Normal Agriculture.

Thank you again to NOFA-NJ for welcoming me to your 2025 winter conference, and congratulations to Marley, who won the drawing for a free copy of Malabar Farm! As a special thank-you to everyone who signed up for my email list, today’s article is about one of the earliest organic farmer couples in New Jersey—Alden and Ruth Stahr.

Back in 1945, Alden Stahr “abandoned the ulcers and ululations of the advertising business in New York City and fled with my wife to start our 99-acre farm, Stahrland, in Barnards Township, New Jersey.” In the description of the farm that Stahr wrote for the Summer 1951 issue of The Land, he explained that the soil on this farm was “exhausted” when they bought it. Following the advice of neighboring farmers, government bulletins, and farm magazines, Alden and Ruth started out by applying chemical fertilizers to their land. “There seemed to be a momentary surge of life in the tired soil, which had experienced many another hypodermic like this, but that first year ended in failure,” Alden recalled.

While doing some research on composting for an article for Farm Quarterly, Alden ran across Sir Albert Howard’s books An Agricultural Testament and Soil and Health. It was a revelation. Now he knew what his soils were lacking—organic matter and trace minerals. He immediately started collecting manure from local farms and applying it to his land, along with greensand, rock phosphate, limestone, and granite dust.

The results were impressive. “First, the health of our plants improved and we no longer found it necessary to use poison sprays or dusts,” Alden wrote. “Second, the health of our animals and poultry improved….Third, the family’s health has definitely improved.” The children stopped getting colds and had no new cavities in their teeth. “My wife and I are products of the great American deficiency diet so we have plenty of fillings in our teeth,” Alden admitted. “But our naturally-raised foods have stopped all new decay and our dentist is thinking of closing up shop.”

Organic farming was so successful at Stahrland Farm that soon the Stahr family started selling their whole wheat and rye flour by mail order. Visitors started coming to the farm, too. “Well, things were rather quiet until we ‘went organic’ several years ago, and then the fun began,” Ruth wrote for the August 1951 issue of Organic Farmer. “Hardly a day goes by that we don’t have carloads of visitors, some from as far as Oregon and California…All kinds of interesting people stop by to see us and we find that all of them are seeking the same thing—better nutrition through natural restoration of the soil.”

In July 1951, the Stahrs began publishing a newsletter titled Normal Agriculture: Newsletter of Farming and Gardening in Accordance with Natural Laws. “Normal, then, may be taken to mean healthy, and in a nation where it is virtually impossible to find a healthy human being, it is imperative that we discard our “experimental treatments” with chemicals and poisons and adopt a healthy, normal agriculture,” Alden explained. I’ve yet to find a full collection of Normal Agriculture, but based on the handful of copies I’ve seen in various archives, I think Stahr eventually merged it into the Natural Food Associates magazine Natural Food and Farming, which was second only to Rodale’s Organic Gardening magazine in promoting organic farming in the 1950s. While Stahrland Farm no longer exists, the Stahr family played a very important role in promoting and spreading organic farming in the 1950s.