Nestled between Jewett Lane and Ashefield
Lane is a place of mystery. First years are
said not to believe it until they see it and
even then some still remain skeptical that
the field isn’t one big practical joke.
Today the field has been covered by houses, but
one professor who has a house on the now developed
land has found over a thousand buttons on his
property. (3)
But how did all these buttons end up concentrated
in this one field in South Hadley and nowhere
else? This question was answered in an article
written on October, 27, 1918 and published in
the Republican, a newspaper out of Springfield,
Massachusetts. Back before the college owned
the land it belonged to a man named Andrew
McElwain. He was one of the many people who
farmed the South Hadley area. Also at this
time the Holyoke Paper Mill used rags to make
their paper. (3)
An Ingenious Idea: Due to the fact that soil around the South
Hadley area tends to be sandy the farmers where
always looking for new ways to fertilize their
crops. McElwain’s thinking was in line
with advocates for sustainability today when
he decided to try using the waste from the
Holyoke Paper Mill as fertilizer. Instead of
the waste from the mill being thrown out it
was reused which was also economical for both
the mill and McElwain. (3)
McElwain turned out to be a genius. The waste
from the paper mill did indeed make the soil
more fertile and it was reported that he grew
great crops. For every ton of fertilizer, waste
from the paper mill, there was about a pound
of buttons mixed in. The buttons were on the
rags when they were brought in to be processed
at the mill and were cast off and added to
the waste. So when McElwain used the waste
as fertilizer he added more and more buttons
to his field over the years until he finally
sold it to Mount Holyoke College. (3)
Ecological Implications: Ecologically McElwain’s ingenuity had
both positive and negative consequences. On
the positive side he reused the waste of the
paper mill which prevented it from being dumped
somewhere. If it had just been left as waste
it may have taken up quite a lot of room and
possibly kill off the native life wherever
it was dumped (due to smothering or lack of
sunlight). Also unsuspecting animals may have
tried to eat it which could have been detrimental
to the populations who made South Hadley there
home. But even though McElwain prevented the
waste from being “wasted” his practices
may have had some detrimental effects on the
surrounding area. The biggest problem would
be the fact that there may have been chemicals
or other toxic substances in the waste that
could have leached into the water table, poisoned
the wild life or tainted his crops. Also eventually
if he had kept farming and using the waste
as fertilizer the buttons would
have started to have detrimental effects on
the growth of his crops. Lastly, as mentioned
above the buttons may have done harm to the
hungry wildlife that populated South Hadley.
Back
Start a new journey:
1. The Creation of the Mount Holyoke College Landscape
2. The Ever-Changing Lakes
