USA > New York > A short history of New York State > Part 29
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Yet wheat remained the most important cash crop and did not yield first place to dairying until after 1850. The great increase in wheat pro- duction in the Genesee Valley after 1825 more than offset the rapid de- cline in the eastern part of the state. The rich fresh soils of the western counties yielded more than twice as much wheat per acre as the worn- out and infested fields in the Hudson and Mohawk valleys. The heyday of the Genesee Valley as one of the nation's major grain centers came to an end in the late 1850's when the midge ruined the crop.
Corn, oats, barley, rye, and hay became more important as wheat de- clined. Corn, used by farmers to feed their growing herds of cows and hogs, remained the most useful crop, as it had been during the pioneer days. Oats were useful on the farm and also brought in cash from op- erators of stagecoach lines and contractors building railroads and canals. These businessmen owned many horses. New York farmers in 1840 raised over half of all the barley grown in the United States and sold much of it to the breweries. Distilleries also took a large part of the rye crop, which was grown chiefly in the Hudson Valley counties.
New York had become the leading potato-producing state by 1840. The blight cut output in half within the next ten years, but farmers continued to plant potatoes for the growing city market.
Certain localities became well known for special crops. The Hoosic Valley in Rensselaer and Washington counties was the center of flax production. Otsego County raised over one-third of the state production of hops, and New York State accounted for more than 90 per cent of the nation's total production in 1860. Hopgrowing fitted in well with dairying but it was a highly speculative undertaking. "Hop money" built many imposing farmhouses, some of which can still be seen in the vicinity of Waterville and Cooperstown.
The average farmer of this period gave his orchard practically no care. Since most apples and other fruit went into cider or fermented drinks, it made little difference what variety he raised. Farmers often made from twenty-five to fifty barrels of cider for family use. By 1850 the owners of extensive orchards in the Hudson and Mohawk valleys were selling their apples to buyers from the seaboard cities.
Horticulture as such did not gain any real support until after the Revo- lution. European-trained gardeners employed by gentlemen farmers such as the Livingstons of Columbia County first introduced new and improved varieties of vegetables and fruit. Later the Downing family of Newburgh established a famous nursery, and Rochester during the 1850's claimed
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the title "The Flower City." The Mount Hope Nursery of Ellwanger and Barry, covering 440 acres, was the largest in Rochester-indeed, in the world. The extension of the Erie and the Harlem River railroads greatly expanded the region in which vegetables and perishable fruits could be profitably grown for marketing.
The insistent demands for wool and dairy products, the expansion of canals, railroads, and highways, the excellent pastures, and the decline of wheat culture turned a majority of farmers to animal husbandry. By 1850 the wheat crop yielded first place to dairy products in terms of value.
The high point of the sheep industry came between 1830 and 1845, when some upland counties, such as Washington, boasted as many as six sheep per capita. During the 1840's the western growers, especially in Ohio, began to ship their wool to the New York and the New England wool manufacturers. They could undersell the New York sheep raiser be- cause their costs were lower. The Walker Tariff of 1846 repealing the duty on the higher grades of wool caused a panic among the woolgrowers of New York. Between 1845 and 1855 the number of sheep pastured in most counties dropped by more than 50 per cent. The stimulus given to sheep raising during the Civil War could not halt the steady decline of this industry.
New York ranked first in beef production between 1840 and 1850. Many of the farmers in the lower Hudson Valley raised beef cattle, which they bought as two- or three-year-olds from drovers coming from the north or west. The farmers fattened the cattle through the winter and the follow- ing summer, and then drove them to market. Daniel Drew, the Wall Street plunger, began his career driving cattle from the Mohawk and Cherry valleys to Manhattan slaughterhouses. Just before he marketed his cattle, the wily Drew fed them large amounts of salt which caused them to drink heavily, thus increasing their weight. This trick gave rise to the term "watered stock," now used in connection with the sale of securities. Other drovers picked up animals in the Genesee country and drove them to Albany, a leading beef-packing center. During the 1850's the railroads began to flood the East with cattle raised on the prairies, pushing New York down to third place in beef production by 1860. After the Civil War the refrigerator car greatly simplified the shipment of fresh meat from the West to the eastern markets. Western competition was also responsible for the decline of hog raising in New York during this period.
The rise of the dairy industry was by far the most significant develop- ment in the agricultural history of the state between 1825 and 1860. Farm- ers discovered that cows were their most reliable money-makers, since both the domestic and foreign market kept demanding more dairy
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products. Dairying had several advantages. Manure helped restore soil fertility, and butter-making and milking utilized the labor of women and children, which the decline of home manufacture of cloth had released. Farmers found it easy to store cheese and butter and to carry them to market.
The production of butter was the backbone of the dairy industry, both in the value of the product and in the number of farmers engaged. Orange County led all other counties in butter-making from colonial days until 1845, when it turned to selling fluid milk to New York City. In the fall of the year buyers visited the farms and, after testing the butter, made their offers. Having accepted an offer, the farmers loaded their firkins of butter on their wagons and delivered them to depots along the canal and railroad.
Butter-making was more evenly distributed throughout the state than cheese production, which was concentrated in central New York. The fame of Herkimer County cheese has come down to us from this period, when this county produced almost one-fourth of the state's supply. To meet the growing demand for cheese, especially by English importers, New York farmers made several improvements and changes. More atten- tion was paid to testing cows to determine the quantity and quality of output. Better breeds such as Durhams, Ayrshires, and Herefords were imported to improve the degenerate "native cattle." The introduction of English grasses and the provision for better shelter and forage in the winter also increased milk production. Farmers gave increased attention to the improved cheese presses and techniques of dairying recommended by county agricultural societies and farm journals.
Perhaps the outstanding development was the rise of the cheese factory. In 1851 Jessie Williams, a farmer near Rome, began to take in the milk from his neighbors to make into cheese. His success in finding a ready market prompted other farmers to follow his example. During the 1860's the cheese factory movement spread to many sections of New York, and thereafter to Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Factories could use large presses, relieving the family of the drudgery of churning and pressing. Skilled managers could produce a uniform product of superior quality at lower cost than the housewife.
The spread of cheese factories facilitated the organization of market- ing. In 1858 producers in Herkimer County set up a marketing society, which led to the establishment, in 1871, of the state-wide Dairymen's Board of Trade.
The influence of the urban market and the railroad is clearly illus- trated in the growth of the milk industry. Before the construction of the railroads enabled farmers to send fresh country milk to market, a great deal of the milk drunk in New York City came from the immediate vicinity. An unusual source was so-called distillery milk, that is, milk from
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THE RISE OF THE DAIRY STATE
cows drinking the swill of distilleries. This milk was widely sold. The barns attached to the distilleries were incredibly dirty, since the cows never left their filthy pens. Their only food was the thirty to forty gallons of hot mash they drank each day. The diseased animals produced a "blue, watery, insipid, unhealthy secretion" whose food value was questionable. Sometimes the dairyman put in chalk, sugar, flour, molasses, starch, and coloring matter in order to conceal the water which they had added in generous amounts. Physicians kept up a running warfare against this milk, blaming it largely for the alarmingly high infant mortality. One out of two children failed to reach his fifth birthday. Little was done before the Civil War to clean up this source of malnutrition and disease.
Country milk gradually took command of the New York City market after railroads were built. Shipments over the Erie Railroad rose from 385,505 quarts in 1842 to 24,414,608 quarts in 1861. Many dairy farmers made handsome profits, averaging, according to one estimate, over thirty dollars a year on each cow.
Farm management practices of the ordinary farmer continued to be soil-depleting and slovenly. In 1852 one observer estimated that one- twelfth of the farmers improved their lands, one-fourth cultivated their lands in such a way as to prevent deterioration, and the rest "skinned" the land. Almost every county reported serious soil exhaustion and falling crop yields. Tenant-operated farms were particularly neglected. The Cul- tivator in 1838 described the native cattle as "small, short-bodied, thin and coarse haired, steep rumped, slab sided, and have little aptitude to fatten."
Substantial advances, however, took place both in the spread of agri- cultural knowledge and in its application. No figure contributed more to this advance than Jesse Buel, who transformed a brier-covered, sterile piece of land west of Albany into a farm famous for its productivity and beauty. In 1834 Buel founded the Cultivator, a journal which preached the benefits of scientific agriculture. His own profitable experience added weight to his arguments for manuring, draining, deep plowing, crop al- ternation, and the substitution of fallow crops for naked fallows. After Buel's death the Cultivator was merged with the Genesee Farmer, which Luther Tucker had founded in 1831. Later, in 1853, Tucker brought out the first issues of the Country Gentleman.
Other journals helped to spread the advantages of improved farm management. The New Genesee Farmer, established in 1839, rivaled the influence of its namesake. In 1865 it was merged with the American Agri- culturist. Another important journal was Moore's Rural New Yorker, founded in Rochester in 1850, and offering its readers a broader coverage than purely agricultural articles. The New York State Agricultural Society contributed to the advance of scientific agriculture by publishing an an-
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A SHORT HISTORY OF NEW YORK STATE
nual volume of Transactions starting in 1841, which included reports from county societies, reprints from foreign journals, and general informa- tion about agriculture in New York.
The establishment of the New York State Agricultural Society in 1832 was another project ardently supported by Jesse Buel. After years of agitation, the state legislators finally agreed in 1841 to subsidize county societies and to authorize a state fair as well. The annual state fair drew large crowds, who inspected the specimens of fruit and vegetables, live- stock, and tools. The side shows and horse races made it an exciting day for the family when the farmer visited the fair. County societies, re- vived by the act of 1841, spent most of their energies sponsoring the local fair at the county seat.
Educating young people in agricultural principles and farm practice was another aim close to the heart of Buel and other leaders. Before 1825 Elkanah Watson had been urging the establishment of a "pattern farm" where young men could study latest methods. Buel from 1823 onward pressed for state aid for an agricultural school, but, he sadly noted, the "farmers are the principal opponents." During the 1830's and the 1840's the friends of the agricultural school attempted without success to raise funds by private subscription. Several manual labor schools got under way but soon foundered for lack of support.
During the 1850's several leading New Yorkers renewed the campaign for a state agricultural college. Dr. Amos Brown of Ovid started an agri- cultural school in 1852 and five years later received a state loan of $41,000. This school, however, failed to survive. Meanwhile, Charles Cook of Mon- tour Falls attracted to his town the People's College originally sponsored by Horace Greeley, and he succeeded in persuading the legislature to grant to his institution the proceeds of the Morrill Land Grant Act. This famous law of 1862 provided for a federal grant of public land to each of the states as an endowment for education in agriculture and in the mechanic arts. Since Cook was unable to meet the state requirements in regard to staff, buildings, and equipment, the grant was transferred to Cornell University at the time of its founding in 1865.
As the circulation of farm journals rose, as more fairs were held, and especially as new methods increased farm yields and income, more and more farmers put into practice the latest information about drainage, fertilizers, rotations, and breeding. Fertilizers such as gypsum began to be used to enrich the soils, and although few farmers realized the value of a regular rotation, many began to plan fallow crops instead of allowing the field to grow up to brush. Machinery gradually came into wider use in New York State-and throughout the nation. Americans were spurred to invent, improve, and adopt new tools and machines because land was cheap relative to labor. By 1840 the cast-iron plow had completely re-
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placed the old wooden plow, enabling the farmer to do more work with half the number of oxen and horses. Most plows were of local manu- facture, although a few brands such as the "Livingston County" were widely distributed. New soil-working implements, such as rollers, corn planters, and cultivators, came into use. The greatest improvements in the manufacture of farm machinery took place after 1840. The revolv- ing rake displaced the horse rake. Hand mowing gave way to the mowing machine on level fields, and harvesting was speeded up with the adoption of the threshing machine and the reaper.
Important as these advances were, they did not eliminate the need for much hand labor. The family, as always, continued to supply the largest part. The menfolk did the field work, and the women took care of the house, churned the butter, and made the cheese. The more prosperous farmers employed dairymaids and hired laborers. Ten dollars a month plus board and room was the average wage, although harvest hands re- ceived appreciably more. Farmers complained, then as now, how hard it was to find good workers who would not get drunk on Saturday night.
Lumbering continued to be important in rural New York. Not only did the majority of farmers rely upon the forests for their fuel, fencing, and building materials, but settlers on the northern and southern slopes of the Adirondacks, in the Catskill regions, and along the headwaters of the Susquehanna and Allegheny rivers were fully as interested in lumbering as in agriculture, and during the winter these men often set out for the lumber camps to cut timber and haul it to streams. Some observers, including Horace Greeley, complained that lumbering retarded the de- velopment of orderly agricultural life. The dangerous work tended to roughen character as well as speech. There were many complaints by absentee landowners that woodsmen were stripping their forest lands.
Lumbering became big business on the major rivers. In 1851 more than 26,000,000 feet of lumber piled up at the great boom at Glens Falls, and this figure was increased eightfold in the next twenty years. Lumber was needed for housing in the cities, for fuel for steamboats, locomotives, and homes, and for the manufacture of ships, tools, and carriages. By 1850 New York led all other states in lumber production.
Rural decline, as evidenced by worn-out fields, abandoned farms, and population decline, was in evidence in much of the hill country by the time of the Civil War. The census of 1860 showed that scores of town- ships had actually lost population during the previous quarter century. This was for a variety of reasons. Sheep raising and dairying, which required large acreage, crowded out small farmers. Those farmers who had enough capital to buy machinery found it profitable to cultivate more land. Small villages, which had grown up around the meetinghouses or taverns, were also losing population. Country storekeepers complained
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that farmers would drive twenty to thirty miles to find bargains in the city. Small gristmills and sawmills began to disappear, partly because of the lack of raw material in the vicinity, partly because the larger com- mercial mills could offer better services at lower prices.
Fresh lands to the west and the lure of jobs in the cities caused thou- sands of young people to leave the old homestead. The desire to migrate was hard to repress in persons accustomed to moving from one frontier to another. The newspapers and farm journals carried enticing stories of cheap and fertile lands in Michigan and other western states. The west- ern "fever" was contagious, and the success of former neighbors who had gone west made those who remained behind restless. By 1850 there were 385,954 former New Yorkers living in the Old Northwest (Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin). Emigration was so extensive that public officials and editors predicted a deserted countryside. They warned farm- ers of the perils and disappointments faced by the frontiersmen.
The city rivaled the western prairies as the magnet for ambitious youth. The monotonous round of field labor and chores, enlivened only by ser- mons and an occasional social gathering or county fair, offered little hope of prosperity and no chance for fame. Furthermore, the financial opportunities in cities had great appeal. Did not a Staten Island farmer, Cornelius Vanderbilt, amass a tremendous fortune in shipping and later in railroads? The list of upstate farmboys who made good in the city is impressive: John D. Rockefeller, Daniel Drew, Jay Gould, Russell Sage. The educational system also tended to divert young people from the farm. The colleges, with their classical curriculum, ignored agriculture and trained graduates for the law, ministry, and teaching. Those graduates of the academies who did not go on to college drifted into clerical posi- tions, business, and elementary-school teaching. Not without reason did one farm leader exclaim: "Educate them! Why the moment you educate them they will leave the business."
The extension of the railroads into the Middle West and the rate wars arising from the competition for the control of the meat and grain shipped from Chicago to the seaboard robbed eastern farmers of their geographi- cal advantage. For example, in 1857 the New York Central and the Erie railroads carried cattle and sheep from Chicago to New York for thirty- five dollars a carload, while noncompetitive points in the Genesee Valley had to pay as much as eighty-five dollars a carload to transport their stock to the metropolitan market. New York farmers were to complain again and again throughout the century that the railroads were over- charging them and subsidizing their western rivals.
Lack of capital prevented some farmers from buying improved live- stock and farm machinery and from making permanent improvements. Credit was not easily secured for such purposes, since many farmers
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already owed money either to the landed proprietors or to the trust and insurance companies. During the 1830's many farmers in the western part of the state tried to secure the deeds to their farms by becoming mortgag- ors, rather than remaining as purchasers under contracts. The New York Life Insurance and Trust Company and the Farmers' Loan and Trust Company lent money at 7 per cent on improved real property. Few farm- ers were able to discharge their mortgages within the time limit, but the trust companies avoided foreclosures wherever possible. The ex- perience of these companies confirms the general complaint that money was scarce.
The majority of farmers continued to make a living by readjusting their activities to the demands of the market. They won national leadership in all phases of the dairy industry and in such minor crops as potatoes, flax, and hops. As late as 1850 New York's cattle growers, sheep raisers, and wheat farmers kept the state among the top producers of these products. Jesse Buel and his associates were pace setters in the national movement for scientific agriculture and agricultural education. In every county were progressive farmers who rotated their crops, used fertilizers and drain tiles, and purchased better livestock and machinery. By 1860 New York farmers on the whole had made a successful transition to com- mercial farming.
Chapter 23
Immigration and Labor
Yet we have our Five Points, our emigrant quarters, our swarms of seamstresses to whom their utmost toil in monoto- nous daily drudgery give only bare subsistence, a life barren of hope and of enjoyment; our hordes of dock thieves, and of children who live in the streets and by them. No one can walk the length of Broadway without meeting some hideous troop of ragged girls, from twelve years down, brutalized already almost beyond redemption by premature vice, clad in the filthy refuse of the rag-picker's collections, obscene of speech, the stamp of childhood gone from their faces, hurrying along with harsh laughter and foulness on their lips . .. ;. with thief written in their cunning eyes and whore on their de- praved faces .- GEORGE TEMPLETON STRONG, 1851
NEW YORK maintained, in fact, increased, its lead in population after 1825. The state's population doubled between 1825 and 1855; this was approximately the same rate as that for the nation. This gain occurred de- spite a heavy westward emigration. In 1860 there were 867,032 natives of New York living out of the state, most of them in the region of the Old Northwest. Of course, many citizens of Connecticut, New Jersey, and other states moved to New York, but the Empire State lost three people for every one it gained from other states.
The high birth rate and immigration from Europe accounted for the rapid growth of population, which rose from 1,372,812 in 1820 to 3,880,735 in 1860. The thousands of immigrants, most of whom came as young adults, and native citizens as well, generally reared good-sized families. The census for 1865 shows that 25 per cent of all families had more than three children. It is interesting to note that another quarter of all families had no children at all.
Perhaps the most significant development was the growth of urban population. New York City's population almost quadrupled between
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1825 and 1855, and the metropolitan area was well over a million at the opening of the Civil War. Other cities made similar gains. The following figures are representative:
Table 4. Urban population, 1825 and 1855.
1825
1855
Albany
15,971
57,333
Brooklyn
10,791
205,250
Buffalo
5,141
74,214
New York City
166,086
629,810
Rochester (1828)
9,469
43,877
Syracuse
3,833
25,107
Troy
7,859
33,269
People living in cities of more than ten thousand totaled almost 30 per cent of the state's population in 1855. This figure understates the urban drift, since it excludes communities below the ten-thousand figure. In contrast, the rural population was no longer growing. In fact, hundreds of townships had fewer residents in 1860 than in 1830. So extensive was the flight from the land to the cities and to the west that public officials and farm editors expressed much concern at the trend.
The Negro population grew slowly, numbering only 45,286 in 1855, or about 1.3 per cent of the population, a percentage much lower than that in colonial times. Most Negroes lived in New York City and Brooklyn. The Negro suffered much inequality both within and outside the law. The Constitution of 1821 discriminated against free Negroes by requiring them to meet a property qualification higher than that required for white voters. Although the property qualification for whites was abolished in 1826, that for the free Negroes was retained. On three occasions, 1846, 1860, and 1867, the public refused to approve a constitutional amendment permit- ting equal suffrage rights for Negroes. It required the Fifteenth Amend- ment to eliminate the property qualification imposed on Negroes. In addition to legal inequities, the Negroes met the usual round of discrim- ination and lack of opportunity. The Irish immigrants in particular fought desperately for the jobs as manual laborers, waiters, and domestic serv- ants which previously had offered Negroes their best opportunities for employment.
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