New Gettysburg Look Has Fewer Cows And Crops, Lots More Grass
By Deborah Fitts
October 2004

GETTYSBURG, Pa. - The field of Pickett's Charge looks different this summer, and not everyone is happy about it.

Tall grass and weeds have replaced tidy rows of corn in some places. "We're getting questions and a few complaints," admitted John Latschar, superintendent of Gettysburg National Military Park.

The ragged look follows the park's decision to enroll in a federal and state effort to conserve fragile farmland, the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). Instead of croplands filled with orderly ranks of corn or wheat, farmers are paid to plant grasses and leave the fields alone.

The program is aimed at "marginal" land with fragile soils, Latschar explained, and is intended to reduce erosion, protect water quality and improve natural habitat. Although only 361 acres are enrolled in CREP out of 2,278 acres of agricultural land at the park, most of the acreage is on the Pickett's Charge field.

"Right now it looks different," Latschar agreed. Complaints in August focused in particular on ground in front of the North Carolina monument. Not yet planted, Latschar said, it was growing "a nice field of weeds."

The park began seeking to qualify for CREP in 2000 and the land was actively taken into the program last year and this year. It's the farmers who lease land from the park who actually join the program, signing 10-year contracts. Latschar said the 361 acres represents all the land at the park that qualifies.

He said he embraced the program because "It pretty much went hand in glove with the objectives of Gettysburg National Military Park." He said it was "a tossup" whether the fields of grass will resemble the wartime appearance of the farmland more than fields of corn or other crops.

Latschar noted that the landscape around Gettysburg in 1863 was dominated by "subsistence farming," with small herds of animals and small fields. There may not have been the relatively sterile, grassy areas like those fostered by CREP, he acknowledged, but on the other hand, "We're getting the modern machinery out of there, and modern crops. In another couple of years when we get the historic fences up, and we have nine fields instead of one, people will understand."

Meanwhile, frequent visitors to the park may have noticed that the cattle that once dotted the landscape are giving way to empty fields. Latschar said there are currently 169 animals on 357 acres of pasture, one-third or one-half the number that grazed when he arrived at the park 10 years ago.

"We've taken cattle out of areas where there were cattle-visitor conflicts," he explained. For instance, a couple of years ago the park removed some of the most prominently placed cattle, in the large pastures associated with the Codori Farm west of the High Water Mark.

There were no untoward incidents, Latschar said, "but cattle are curious. If you're halfway across a pasture with your kids and you are a city person, you have a tendency to panic." Removing cattle from stream beds also supports conservation in the Chesapeake Bay watershed, he noted.

The park currently has 16 farmers leasing land, paying the park a total of $52,100 this year. Costs are pegged at $25 per animal each year, and an average of $25 per acre per year.

As to whether removing farm animals and crops risks creating a lifeless landscape, Latschar said that may be an issue for park officials to address in the future. At present the ongoing landscape rehabilitation is all-consuming, he suggested.

"I'm still marshaling the money and history and science" to remove acres of non-historic trees from key areas of the battlefield, along with building long-absent historic fences and replanting historic orchards, he said. "I'm so pleased how the rehabilitation is going."

In their effort to recapture the 1863 landscape, park officials are removing 576 acres of woods and replanting 15 acres of missing woods,168 acres of orchards, 278 acres of historic woodlots and 685 acres of thickets They are building 39 miles of historic fences and hedgerows, and reconstructing nearly 10 miles of historic lanes and roads.

As for the weeds on the ground of Pickett's Charge, Latschar said the situation would improve when the offending growth was mowed and when permanent grasses are planted this fall.