USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume II > Part 3
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume II > Part 3
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"Concerning the beginnings of this Topping Clan I can do no better than quote the unadorned, forthright phrases in a letter written by the present Chief of the Clan. He writes, 'Thomas Topping came from Lynn, Massachusetts, between 1640 and 1644 and built a house on what is now South Main Street in the village of South Hampton and the house is still standing and in very good repair and is used as the Episcopal Rectory. When the allotment of land in Sagaponack was made on February 2nd, 1653, he got a lot which is now my farm and it has been in the family ever since down the years from father to son and I have a son with me now.' In these two sentences he compresses the family history of three hun- dred years. It should also be said that this farm was located precisely in the region which by common consent has ever since been adjudged the choicest agricultural land on the Sunrise Isle. Perhaps this fortunate situation was due to his wisdom and foresight. More likely I think it was due to happy good fortune.
"As he has written, there is a son who has three children of his own and so it is there is no indication that the dynasty draws to a close. This long line of Toppings runs thus :
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Thomas, Elnathan, Stephen, David, David the Second, Rens- selaer, Sidney, Alfred and Alfred the Second. They have been on the whole a singularly vigorous longlived race so that it has required only eight generations to cover almost. three hundred years. As I contemplate that long succession of men, who have been masters of the same acres, I say over once more the mouth-filling, sonorous, Old Testament phrase found again and again in the Book of Chronicles of the Kings of Judah, 'And HE SLEPT WITH HIS FATHERS AND HIS SON REIGNED IN HIS STEAD,' I think of them and I remember what Lorimer has put into the letters of a self-made merchant written to his boy at Harvard. It runs like this: 'When a man goes out at night to put up the shutters for the last time, he will do it a great deal easier if he knows there is a son to take them down in the morning.' This greatest of blessings these Topping men have always known.
"The tiny hamlet of Sagaponack fronts on the Common as a transplanted New England village should. But the Common is unusual in that it has been made the village burial ground as well. So here
'Each in his narrow cell forever laid The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep.'
"I went out there in company with the present head of the house and saw how in orderly array beneath burial slabs not of white marble but of red Connecticut sandstone a great company of Topping men and women lie and wait. There is one marker there which symbolized tragedy. Always the Toppings have been farmers, but now and again as is so often the case on eastern Long Island, there have been sons of the clan who made it their business to go down to the sea in ships. In the 1840s one Oscar Johnson Topping sailed from Sag Harbor in command of a whaling ship, which dropped below the horizon and concerning whose course or fate no word ever came back. When after years all hope was taken away, they enumerated him among the dead and settled his temporal affairs and set up a stone in the family plot as a memoriał to one who has made his grave in great waters. "I greatly regret that time does not permit me to relate other tales both grave and gay. I have been received as a guest in the Topping home. I have looked upon these fields which have never known any ownership save theirs. I have read the epitaphs cut in the slabs that stand above their graves.
"GOVERNOR LEHMAN: I believe the dynasty of the Top- ping Clan of Sagaponack have been good farmers, upright citizens, devout churchmen for almost three centuries. So far as anything that has yet been brought to our attention would indicate, this family represents the longest unbroken farm proprietorship in America. In behalf of the New York State
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Agricultural Society and its Committee on Century Farms, I recommend that you direct that their names be enrolled in the distinguished Order of Century Farmers."
In these latter days, new families with strange names are replacing the old stock which persists most of all on the East End and not so very much even there. But the farming is still done on old lands except for small areas cleared of scrub oak and pine and brought under the plow each year.
Long Island agriculture and Long Island climate denote a close kinship with the Atlantic Seaboard of the New Jersey, Delaware and Maryland region. Soils and growing seasons are similar, but the Island with deep water on both sides of the narrow spit of land has the more equable climate.
The types of agriculture on Long Island have been conditioned by natural factors, by the proximity of a great center of population and by a growing population of its own. The opening of the West, the great trek towards the Rockies and beyond are more than a national saga and campfire tale. They largely determined the metes and bounds of farming in Orient, Calverton and on Hempstead Plains, just as the agriculture of the nation has been persuaded or coerced by what has transpired in the Valley of the Nile or the Pampas of the Argentine.
At one time, substantial quantities of milk were produced and sent daily to New York City. But this is not a natural grazing country. Sods, meadows, and pastures are not readily maintained on light, sandy soils with frequent periods of dry weather from mid- summer on. Milk can be produced more readily and economically elsewhere. The returns per acre are too low for high-priced land. It is logical, therefore, that crops that can be grown on an intensive basis with high value and production per acre, frequently yielding two or three harvests from the same acre in a single season, should gradually replace crops of the extensive type with small returns per acre. Add to these specifications the desirability of growing highly perishable products, which must be consumed quickly to be at their best, close to the point of consumption, and one has the key to agri- cultural trends on Long Island.
How much such modern gadgets as deep freezing of fresh prod- ucts and holding them in a comatose condition until they are plunked into boiling water or whatever the experts decree in readying them for the table, will influence future developments, none can disclose with certainty. It is evident that the range within which such products may be transported may be greatly increased, what with air freight and such goings on. But we are concerned here with history rather than prophecy. The author listened, not long ago, to a dissertation on "vine ripened" peaches, transported long distances by air and set down before the consumer with dew still on them. For aught he knows, peaches may grow on vines not long hence.
John Nicholson "Esquire" of Herkimer County stated in 1814 * when applied to lands
"Ashes are found more effective
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near the ocean. The Long Island farmers can afford twelve cents a bushel for even leached ashes, while in Herkimer County they are suffered to be untouched".
Long before John Nicholson's time, farmers were using fish as fertilizer. They learned to do so from the Indians. They improved upon and expanded the practice. Thousands of tons of menhaden were used for the purpose. An aroma that defies description lay like a blanket over the open fields till mercifully dissipated by vagrant breezes or more mercifully still, steady blows. Seaweed was used in like manner. Later came the well known commercial fertilizers now used in large quantities, frequently in excess of a ton per acre.
Speaking of the use of fish by the farmers 'of West Hills, Walt Whitman had this to say :
"Fish is one of the most powerful manures known, as under its influence the corn grows to astonishing height and size. I have thought indeed, that the fault among the farmers here was in putting too much of it, at a time, on their land. Like Macbeth's ambition, it overleaps itself and falls on the other side of fertility."
Long Island crops are of the succulent type. They must grow quickly to be crisp and good. Soils are warm and hospitable. Add the necessary plant nutrients and let the rains fall, or possibly their equivalent through irrigation, control the pests and diseases and the soil will yield its increase. Farmers now experiment to determine how best to apply the fertilizer, over the entire area, in bands along the rows, at plow and root depth, whether in split applications several times through the season, etc. The Long Island Vegetable Research Farm at Baiting Hollow, an arm of Cornell University, established in 1922, is now aiding them in determining and applying scientific procedures.
In 1625 cattle were imported for breeding. In 1675 nearly all Long Island farms maintained herds of cattle including oxen, beef cattle, and dairy cows as well as substantial numbers of sheep and swine. The tax lists of ten towns recorded 4293 neat cattle, 1564 sheep, 1344 swine and 941 horses.
For the current generation it may be prudent to indicate that "neat" cattle refers to the bovine genus-cows, steers, oxen. For- merly it was a very common term both in the literature and the con- versations of the time.
In 1675 the average number of cattle per farm was nine; largest herd reported was thirty-seven. By the time of the Revolution there were 7000 horned cattle and about the same number of sheep in the townships of Hempstead and Oyster Bay. Even in 1650 the Hempstead Plains were well populated with these animals. Cattle were pastured in common herds with "keepers" in charge. The keepers were bound by a signed covenant to devote all their time to the herds to keep them "carefully and faithfully and to watter them twice A day or onse at Least-to bring them home before sunesett at night". Owners paid in proportion to the number they sent out.
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Later, common pasture was leased to individual owners at April Town Meeting. The cattle were sold to butchers in New York and exported alive to the West Indies. In 1678 the City of New York consumed 400 beeves.
Sheep were maintained on the common lands throughout the season. The ceremony of "sheep parting" or dividing the flock and returning the animals to their owners each fall became a great event, a holiday. There were much eating and drinking, mending of political fences by the office hungry, shrewd bargaining and plenty of gossip- ing. No one wished to be absent and few were. In addition to Hemp- stead Plains, Montauk Point and Shinnecock Hills were important grazing areas.
Hogs were easily fattened by roaming in the woods and eating the nuts fallen from the trees. The oxen was the all important animal. He was used to draw the plow and the cart.
The livestock had to be protected from wild beasts. Wolves, foxes and wildcats were the chief menace. Rewards were paid for their heads. Finally the heads circulated so freely, claiming several rewards, that in one instance the whole animal was required to be skinned before the justice, the hunter to "make oath upon the holy Evangelists that he had killed it in Queens County."
The Dutch, English, and Huguenot settlers seemed always to be raising flowers and trees. The Dutch travelers who visited Long Island at the time of its settlement say of peach trees, "They were so laden that one might doubt whether there were more leaves or fruit on them". In 1776 peaches were so abundant in Flatbush that they lay ungathered under the trees. Insects and diseases took small toll and the trials of spraying and dusting were for a later day and generation.
It was a great day for Long Island when in 1737 William Robert Prince founded the Linnaeus Botanic Gardens at Flushing. Prince and his gardens became famous and are cited in all literature on the sources of American horticulture to this day. He introduced plant materials from many parts of the world and stimulated an interest in the art and practice of horticulture that has carried down through the years. He even attempted to promote a native silk industry by experimenting with the Chinese Mulberry tree. As early as 1763 a society was formed chiefly for the fostering of horticulture. In 1767 a premium of ten pounds was awarded to Thomas Young of Oyster Bay for a nursery of 27,123 apple trees. People believed in being exact in those days. Certificates were awarded to Joshua Clark and Francis Furrier of Suffolk County for success in cultivating the grape.
In 1798 the Bloodgood Nursery was started in Flushing; in 1838 Kissen Nurseries were started by Samuel and Robert Parsons; about 1854 Isaac Hicks started his nursery at Westbury. Its products have adorned many a Long Island landscape and it still serves.
The gathering and marketing of small fruits, strawberries, black- berries, and cranberries was once a business of some importance. In the central part of the Island blackberries and cranberries grew wild
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in great profusion. "The growth and productiveness of the briars is greatly augmented by an occasional plowing of the ground, imme- diately after which in many instances, the crop of berries produced without further cultivation or care, will return much better profits than any ordinary field crop with all its necessary labor and expense". This is still good doctrine. The supply of cultivated fruits lessened the demand for wild fruits but blueberries and beach plums from woodland and seashore remain great delicacies to this day.
On the south side of the Island wintergreen plants were found in profusion. Women and children gathered them for market, whole wagonloads were collected and shipped to market by amateur speculators.
From William Robert Prince and those who followed in his train has come the nursery industry of many acres and 6,670,000 square feet under glass in 1940. Long Island is the natural seat of these phases of horticultural interest. Here and hereabouts people live in ever increasing numbers. They are intent upon beautifying their surroundings through lawns, trees, shrubs and gardens. Horticulture belongs to the healing arts in the broad view. A love of natural beauty, a sense of partnership in it, do not make for hatred and bigotry.
A newcomer to Long Island Agriculture is the bulb industry. It sprang from the Federal Quarantine Act of 1926. Prior to that date most of our bulbs were imported from Holland.
The industry has developed in the moist climate and sandy soil in the vicinity of Babylon although Ryneveld settled at Yaphank. Frylink & Son and K. Van Bourgondien & Sons, all of Dutch ancestry, have been among the leaders.
Daffodils are the new crop. Tulips, lilies and bulbous iris are also of importance. Gladioli, not a true bulb, are grown extensively. Perhaps 250 acres are now devoted to this new enterprise. Two hundred fifty acres of wheat or corn are inconsequential; 250 acres of bulbs with the high investment and heavy yields are quite another matter. It is a fair start toward big business. The product is deemed to be on a par with the offerings from Holland or from any other part of this country.
The growing of fruit in the commercial sense has never taken hold in any large way on Long Island. There are thriving orchards of peaches, apples and other fruits with ready markets at the farm. Suitable varieties on suitable soils and in suitable locations do very well indeed. But generally speaking, returns from annual crops have been too satisfactory for farmers to look with favor upon the period of waiting involved in producing fruit. Perhaps a hormone will be discovered which will change all this. There are veiled mysteries all about us. Some are down to the last veil.
There were other influential figures in addition to Prince. Ezra . L'Hommedieu of Southold was one of these. He was a prominent member of the New York State Agricultural Society, probably the oldest agricultural society in America with a record of continuous activity for 114 years. He urged strongly the use of fish for ferti-
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LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
lizer. Rufus King, first ambassador to the Court of St. James took an active and prominent interest from his country home at Jamaica.
In later years Hal Fullerton sought to establish under the auspices of the Long Island Rail Road that the scrub oak and pine barrens on the saddle dividing much of Suffolk County north and south deserved a worthier place than had been accorded them. In 1905 at Wading River and in 1907 at Medford he established demon- stration farms, beginning with the clearing of the land. He grew many products and grew them well. He strongly urged the planting of sugar beets as a major crop. The Long Island Agronomist was the organ through which the results were made known. No cost records were published. Sugar beets continue to be grown in areas of cheap and abundant labor. The soil, thin and frequently burned over, thus losing its mat of organic matter, has not been able to compete with more favored areas. Nevertheless, reclamation is gradually taking place as any careful observer may note as he travels the center Island highways. The greatest need has been moisture. With the development of deep well irrigation and liberal use of fertilizers, Hal Fullerton's dream may yet come true.
One aspect of the Kieft Patent granted to settlers of the Town of Hempstead by William Kieft, Dutch Governor in 1644, should be noted. It stipulated that the settlers should enrich the soil which they cultivated with "plough and howe" (harrow) through the use of manure and advised the "grasing and breeding of cattle" to insure a supply of butter and cheese. Jesse Merritt, Nassau County Histo- rian, has found that the agricultural literature in the library of the U. S. Department of Agriculture discloses no other evidence of con- cern for the improvement and conservation of soil by a public agency or unit of government at so early a date.
While animal husbandry was flourishing, the settler used his slowly broadening fields for crop production-corn, rye, and wheat- later flax was added-also, barley, buckwheat, oats, and in a few places, tobacco.
The passing of the 17th century saw the primitive phase begin to come to an end. Long Island was coming into contact with the outside world. The opening of markets caused the disintegration of the self-sufficient type of agriculture. Men put out to sea, became weavers, hatters, tailors, brickmakers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and coopers.
During the Revolutionary War a Tory advised a British minister to land the forces, destined for the subjugation of the colonies, on Long Island, "for", said he, "it is 130 miles long and is very fertile, abounding in wheat and every other kind of grain, and has innumer- able black cattle, sheep, hogs, etc .; so that in this fertile island the army can subsist without any succor from England. It has a fertile plain 24 miles long, with a fertile country about it, and is 20 miles from New York * the spot I advise you to land is at Cow Bay" (Manhasset).
The English army occupied Long Island with New York City as its headquarters for seven years and drew its supplies largely from the Island.
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Washington toured a part of Suffolk County in 1756 and much of western Long Island in 1790. Preferably husbandman and country squire, his observations carefully recorded are meticulous and pene- trating. Thus on April 24, 1790, under the heading of "Observa- tions" he made notes as follows :
"This Island (as far as I went) from West to East seems to be equally divided between flat and Hilly land, the former on the South next the Seaboard, and the latter on the No. next the Sound. The highland they say is best and most pro- ductive, but the other is the pleasantest to work, except in wet seasons when from the levelness of them they are some- times, (but not frequently having a considerable portion of Sand) incommoded by heavy and continual rains. From a comparative view of their crops they may be averaged as follows :- Indian Corn 25 bushels-Wheat 15-Rye 12-Oats 15 bushels to the acre. According to their accts. from Lands highly manured they sometimes get 50 of the first, 25 of the 2d and 3d, and more of the latter.
"Their general mode of Cropping is,-first Indian Corn upon a lay, manured in the hill, half a shovel full in each hole-(some scatter the dung over the field equally)-2d. Oats and Flax-3d. Wheat with what manure they can spare from the Indian Corn land-with the Wheat, or on it, towards close of the Snows, they sow Clover from 4 to 6 lb; and a quart of Timothy Seed. This lays from 3 to 6 years accord- ing as the grass remains, or as the condition of the ground is, for so soon as they find it beginning to bind, they plow. Their first plowing (with the Patent tho' they call it the Dutch plow) is well executed at the depth of about 3 or at most 4 inches-the cut being 9 or 10 Inches and the sod neatly and very evenly turned. With Oxen they plough mostly. They do no more than turn the ground in this manner for Indian Corn before it is planted; making the holes in which it is placed with hoes the rows being marked off by a stick-two or three workings afterwards with the Harrows or Plough is all the cultivation it receives generally. Their fences, where there is no Stone, are very indifferent; frequently of plashed trees of any and every kind which have grown by chance; but it exhibits an evidence that very good fences may be made in this manner either of white Oak or Dogwood which from this mode of treatment grows thickest, and most stubborn .- This however, would be no defence against Hogs."
Toward the end of the 18th century farming methods had changed little since pioneer times. Farms were of 100 to 150 acres, fenced with rails or posts; some places had hedges of old England. The cattle grazed over the pastures. Growing on the fields were wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, flax, and common grass (cut for hay). The extent of fertilization was a little manure and menhaden fish.
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After the Revolution farmers became aware of the value of better cultivation, the possibilities of a greater variety of crops, the breeding of a higher type of livestock than the lean cows and "rat- tailed" sheep which grazed the Hempstead Plains and Montauk Moors. All this came about largely through the efforts of Ezra L'Hommedieu, previously mentioned, William Cobbett and Elkannah Watson.
Ezra L'Hommedieu was a New York lawyer and a Long Island farmer. During the Revolution he represented his state in Conti- nental Congress. In Transactions-Observations on Manures, by Ezra L'Hommedieu, Esq., March, 1795:
"I have heard of no instance of new land producing . more wheat than 42 bushels to the acre. In Suffolk County, Huntington, some years ago, by manure 52 bushels were raised to the acre. * * * A farmer, Riverhead, Suffolk Co., Mr. Downs, having 5,000 fish called mossbonkers or men- haden strewed them about the 1st of June on 20 rods of ground, a poor, gravely, dry soil which without manure would not pay for tillage. These fish were plowed under a shallow. furrow. At the time of sowing about the last of September, the ground was sown with rye at the rate of one bushel to the acre. In the spring the growth was rapid, 9 inches high. The neighbors' sheep broke in the inclosure and ate it all off close to the ground. The fence was mended and the rye grew again, much thicker than before, 6 inches high. The same sheep broke in again and the second time ate it close to the ground. It was then supposed the crop would be lost, but it grew up again with additional thickness. * * Mr. Downs assures me he had 16 bushels of rye from his 20 rods of ground . * *
Robert R. Livingston of the Hudson Valley Livingstons intro- duced the element of rotation. New root crops were brought in-beets and turnips. In 1817 William Cobbett, an English Dissenter, who was living in exile on Long Island, tried to bring about the general use of turnips. These men did not stop at new crops; they tried to get to the root of the evil-dissipation of soil fertility. They were early apostles of the modern program of soil conservation. Books were written, papers and articles were published by the press.
In 1811 Elkannah Watson completed the organization of the Berk- shire Agricultural Society. It was responsible for the county fairs. Every year the Society had an exhibition of the best products of the locality. Prizes were awarded for the best crops-butter, cheese, cloth, and animals. At the end of the day a general assembly was held in the local church and the prizes were awarded. In 1817 the Berkshire organization came to Long Island. This movement was of great interest to the women of the farming communities. The Berk- shire system was the first great movement for better conditions among small farmers. It played an important part in the evolution of American Agriculture as did the Grange, beginning in the 60s and 70s.
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