Hugh Romney. The Hog Farm and Friends by Wavy Gravy. Foreword by Ken Kesey. New York: Links Books,1974.

Dedicated to Further, the Merry Pranksters’s psychedelic school bus, this history of the Hog Farm shows the combination of civil rights protest and power to the people for which the group was known. In one memorable scene, the Farmers gather on the steps of the Department of Agriculture where, seeking back-to-the-earth agriculture, they light up marijuana joints and pass them among themselves in full view of the guards. “All ate their roaches at the moment of capture, when a divine clap of thunder intervened.” Suddenly, Pete Seeger appears, Black Panthers behind him, all singing “This land is my land, this land is your land.”

HOG FARM
Hog Farm began as a communal pig farm in California in 1966 but it moved to New Mexico, near Taos. Hugh Romney, known as the comic Wavy Gravy, a veteran of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters and their psychedelic school bus, served as leader and guru. By 1969, Hog Farmers gave their attention to aiding freaked-out youngsters, raising money for relief efforts, and bringing their message to college students. As the Yale Daily News reported in February, 1969, Romney and friends entertained with “huge group games” trying to get the audience to understand that “we are not our brother’s keeper, we are our brothers.” The they repeated their hippie ideal a schools, hospitals, SDS meetings: “May all beings be peaceful!”

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