By Joe Kertzman, managing editor, Badger Common’Tater
History and heritage are embraced at James Burns & Sons Farms of Almond, Wisconsin, and that’s not lost on the youngest generation.
Fourteen thousand years ago, “Glacial Lake Wisconsin” was formed by the Green Bay lobe of the last glacier in the area, which broke through an ice dam at Baraboo, the rushing waters creating what is now the Wisconsin Dells.
The land where James Burns & Sons Farms Inc. raises crops lies on the eastern shore, or beach, of that long-extinct prehistoric glacial lake, with the sandy soil and abundant water supply left behind ideal for raising potatoes.
The area is where the Burns family settled shortly after the Civil War, in 1867, with the original parcel of land still owned and being farmed by the family today.
The farm has grown from a couple quarter sections (with a quarter section equaling 160 acres) at the turn of the century to now more than 70 quarter sections, or 11,000 acres of owned and rented land.
