USA > New York > Nassau County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume II > Part 4
USA > New York > Suffolk County > Long Island; a history of two great counties, Nassau and Suffolk, Volume II > Part 4
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LONG ISLAND'S AGRICULTURE
Some of the seeds of these agricultural reforms fell on sterile ground. The influence of the west had much to do with this. Many families from the shore villages of Long Island Sound and Peconic Bay went westward. But some of the seed fell on good ground. The arts of husbandry did make progress.
The end of the 18th century saw the ocean a great highway to and from New York. Along the shores of Long Island could be seen fleets of sturdy little sailing vessels, moored at "landings". These "landings" were the centers from which produce was hauled.
The opening of the 19th century saw new crops. In 1850 the head of every family in Flatbush was, with few exceptions, a farmer.
The cultivation of grain and the keeping of four-footed animals was less remunerative when the canals and railroads opened up western lands. As an illustration of what was taking place, Suffolk County grew 18,000 acres of corn for grain in 1879 and nearly 10,000 acres of wheat. The latest census figures available list 1200 acres of corn and 800 acres of wheat. This is agrarian revolution so gradual and peaceful as to be noted only by the statistician and student. Such changes will doubtless continue as men seek to adjust themselves to new conditions.
By degrees the whole character of Island agriculture changed. Flatbush farmers began to raise vegetables to supply the markets of New York and Brooklyn.
Philip Freneau, the bard of the Revolution, wrote of "The Market Girl":
"' At Dawn of day, from short repose, At hours that might all townsmen shame, To catch our money, round or square, She from the groves of Flatbush came With kail and cabbage, fresh and fair."
Nearly all the produce raised within 25 miles of New York was carted in with teams by the proprietors in the night. The larger part was sold at wholesale to dealers or middle men, between midnight and daylight, chiefly within the vicinity of Washington Market. In 1879 a market was established in the vicinity of W. 12th St. and 10th Ave. Those who did not sell at retail stayed until daylight when the retail trade began. The grocers came for daily supplies. The prod- uce which was sent by water or rail was consigned to commission dealers.
The Long Island Rail Road opened in 1836; in 1844 it reached out to Greenport. At long last the farmers' transportation problem seemed settled. What had taken days by boat or cart now took hours.
"The writer (Peter Ross) would gladly whisper in the ear of many large land holders that there is a great deal more profit in cultivating one acre of land well, than in 10 acres of land badly: The fact is, many on Long Island own and work too much land. The writer (Peter Ross) has in his mind's eye a farm of nearly 1000 acres, which half a
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LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
century ago (1852) was owned and cultivated under the direc- tion of a single individual, who was called a great farmer. But when he had ruined himself by the operation of the farm and had surrendered the whole to pay his debts (as honest, but unfortunate men were in the habit of doing in old times) it was cut up and sold to six or eight persons, who have since supported as many families from its production.
"But it is not intended by these remarkes to convey the idea that all the farmers of old Suffolk are regardless of the improvements made in agriculture, or that they are in the habit of taxing their fields without furnishing them the means of answering the demand. More or less attention has long been paid to the importance of manuring. Water with which they are surrounded furnish a large amount of fertilizer- seaweed and various other productions of bays and marshes."
The land on the western end of the Island became too scarce and valuable to hold for pasturage. Now the city which brought in the truck farmers has crowded them out. Fields once too valuable for pasturage are becoming too valuable for any kind of farming. Only specialized market garden farms with high production and return per acre, only these and farms under glass have been able to survive.
Duck farming was begun on the South Shore around Moriches about 60 years ago. Now, the Long Island duck is shipped from coast to coast and in 1921 the Long Island Duck Growers Association was formed for cooperative buying and selling of supplies.
According to Jesse Merritt, Nassau County Historian, Queens Agricultural Society (now Queens-Nassau) was organized June 21, 1819, with Rufus King, Singleton Mitchell, William Jones, Theodore Phillips and Daniel Kissan as its officers.
The Suffolk Agricultural Society was organized in 1842 and reorganized in 1843. "In 1869 The Board of Managers of the Suf- folk Agricultural Society voted to purchase four acres of land north of the Riverhead fair grounds from Allen T. Terrill, Henry L. Grif- fing and J. Henry Perkins for $100. A hog guessing contest was conducted at B. F. Wells' hotel, Mattituck. There were 210 guesses at 50 cents each, and three hit the exact weight of the animal, 598 pounds. The hog was raised by David Tuthill of Jamesport."
Horse racing was a major interest at the fairs and Long Island has a notable history in this field. It constitutes a saga in itself.
The development of the poultry business on Long Island is best considered in two phases-the production of market eggs, and the growing of broilers. Market egg production has experienced a steady growth for many years, the trend somewhat paralleling the increase in population. Poultry farms on Long Island, as in much of the sea-coast areas from Maine to Maryland, are highly specialized, deriving 95% or more of their income from poultry products, and catering to the demands of large city consumers who are extremely quality conscious. Local poultry farmers buy practically all their
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LONG ISLAND'S AGRICULTURE
feed, grade their eggs carefully, and sell at the top of the market, either directly or through hucksters, local stores or operators of retail routes. This type of business is successful and stable for a region of concentrated population and high land values. As my father would say, "It is wheat in the mill", meaning that it is sound and good.
The business revolves around the single comb White Leghorn hen. The "heavies", however, are not to be ruled out. Rhode Island Red, New Hampshire, Barred Plymouth Rock and crosses of Reds and Rocks giving the "black cross" are increasing. Brown eggs sell just as well or almost as well to local trade and many egg farmers do a good business in dressed fowl at certain seasons. They prefer the more meaty birds.
Nassau County had been falling off somewhat in egg production. up until 1940. It has since experienced a sudden upsurge, which probably will not be permanent. Suffolk County, and the total for the two counties, exhibit a steady upward trend :
Number dozen eggs (thousands)
1890
1930
1945
Total
1880 911
1,417
2,206
3,386
Until the middle nineteen-thirties, the production of broilers was not a specialized business, and followed a course similar to that of egg production. Most of the broilers produced were a by-product of the growing of pullets for egg production. In 1930, less than 1% of the chickens grown were produced on farms specializing in broiler production; in 1940, specialized broiler farms produced about half of the chickens grown, and by 1945 three times as many chickens were produced by the broiler growers as by other poultrymen. The tend- ency is toward larger operations, handling upwards of 20,000 broilers at a time, growing them to weights of 31/2 lbs. mostly sold alive at the farm. One grower, Wendell Still of Selden produces about 120,000 broilers each year on his three farms. Several growers produce from 50,000 to 100,000 annually. In 1930 the two counties produced 487,000 broilers; in 1945, 2,888,000. The more efficient producers will probably continue to compete effectively with producers in sections more distant from the metropolitan market. Long Island costs of production are higher than elsewhere, and to some extent the abnormal conditions of the war years have supported this rapid development in broiler growing. The competitive position of the broiler men under postwar conditions seems less secure than that of producers of eggs.
Among Long Island poultrymen are a number of breeders of good production stock, one large hatchery, and several smaller ones. How- ever, quantities of baby chicks and hatching eggs are brought in from New England and other states. These phases of the poultry business are subordinate here to the production of eggs and meat for market, which by and large seems to provide the most satisfac- tory returns for those engaged in poultry farming in this area. A broiler man has a vocabulary of his own. He talks of Rock-Red
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LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
crosses and reciprocal crosses and knows what he is talking about. This is not a treatise on genetics. Suffice it to say that crosses seem to give greater vigor, more rapid growth, and greater weight at a certain age than the purebreds.
In these latter days, with diseases under control we are getting back into the turkey business. There were no turkeys to speak of on the Island ten years ago. In 1944 Nassau County had 12,000 and Suffolk nearly 28,000. We have almost enough to supply our Thanks-
Long Island Potato Scene
giving dinners, one to every 17 residents of the two counties, enough surely if the birds are big enough. One of the largest turkey ranches in the East is at Port Jefferson with 3000 breeders. The wild ances- tors of these birds must have loved it here what with the chestnuts and cover and salubrious climate. We cannot bring them back because we cannot restore the environment that made them happy but it is good to have this majestic bird even in a less romantic edition once more part of the Long Island scene.
Even the Hamptons were decidedly farm conscious fifty years ago. Said the East Hampton Star in its issue of February 28, 1896.
"One thing Amagansett farmers would like to know, and badly, too, is how to grow a kind of potato that will net them
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LONG ISLAND'S AGRICULTURE
more than 30 cents a bushel. * This week about a dozen empty freight cars passed through here enroute for Promised Land where they are to be loaded with Tuthill's produce. Six carloads of fertilizer were shipped from Ells- worth Tuthill's factory Wednesday morning."
Is Long Island agriculture disappearing? No, but its nature is changing. In Nassau County the agriculture is typically one of
(Photo Courtesy of F. Kull)
Potato Crop Scene
market crops in succession plantings, with many nursery and green- house developments, and a substantial potato acreage. In Suffolk there is a very large development of potatoes and cauliflower with truck crops fitting in, plus the greenhouse and nursery crops. Suf- folk is one of the most important and productive agricultural counties in the State. Many do not appreciate this fact. The two counties taken together constitute the outstanding potato area in the State and the only one which is increasing in acreage and production. The latest census figures (1944) list 13,332 acres of potatoes in Nassau and 52,000 acres in Suffolk County against 9000 and 33,000 respec- tively ten years earlier. Yields vary with the season, chiefly with the amount and distribution of rainfall.
The season of 1946 saw many acres produce 400 bushels of U. S. No. 1 tubers. The total yield was the largest on record. In unfavor- able seasons the yield will be cut in half, so no one need get out his pencil and figure long-time returns on an average yield of 400 bushels.
--
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LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
Fertilizer, spraying, tillage, seed and overhead costs do not decrease with decreasing yields. The farmer is worthy of his hire and fre- quently more. Over 10,000 acres of potatoes in Suffolk County are now under irrigation from deep well pumps supplying portable systems between the rows. It is worth a trip along Sound Avenue in Riverhead Town during May and June to see the jets of water against the sky, to marvel at the ingenuity of man and the responsive- ness of nature. Henry Talmage of Friar's Head Farms, Baiting Hollow, tells of what he regards as the beginning of the commercial potato industry on Long Island :
"My first recollection of working is of dropping potatoes on a little farm at Westhampton. I was ten years old. Potato planters were unheard of. I had to stick them into the side of a furrow. They were plowed in. The potato beetle had just become a pest on Long Island. We did not know how to combat it. Father paid my sister and me one cent a hundred for the old shell back bugs and a nest of eggs counted the same as a bug. We earned our fire cracker money in that year that way.
"That fall we moved to the farm where I now live. The farm had been in pasture for many years. The next spring we planted four acres of potatoes, in tough sod. Strange to say they grew fine. Father saw an ad of a potato digger from way out in Iowa. He wrote for a price and got a letter stating he would get a special reduced price if he would exhibit it at the County Fair.
"He exhibited it at the fair and S. Terry Hudson, who had a farm machinery manufacturing plant on the site of Maxim Bobinski's present potato and machinery business, made very careful inspection and drawings of the digger and the next year came out with an improved digger. It was a double mouldboard style, with rods in place of solid mouldboards.
"The potato digger was the first special machine to be used in growing potatoes and made possible the growing of potatoes in a larger way.
"When we came to dig our crop that fall they turned out 300 bu. per acre. Our neighbors came to see the wonder- ful crop and asked father 'What will you ever do with so many potatoes?' From that you can draw your own infer- ence of the importance of the potato crop at that time."
From this to 65,000 acres in one man's lifetime!
Some decry the "one-crop system" whereby potatoes are grown on the same land year after year. But it is not really a one-crop system, for rye is sown after the crop is harvested and plowed under before planting in the spring. Moreover, it can be demonstrated that yields are. increasing from year to year under this system. It is difficult to condemn a system that brings home the bacon-or in this case, the potatoes. A well grown Long Island potato is a
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LONG ISLAND'S AGRICULTURE
delicious thing-an aristocrat of its kind. It is the partner of home- made bread and there should be more of both.
Long Island cauliflower (really Suffolk County) needs no encomium. With acreage and production increasing there is no occa- sion for an epitaph. Some restricted areas in the Catskills are the only rivals of Suffolk lands in presenting this offering of creamy succulence and beauty. There is room for the products of both sec- tions. Incidentally, more and more cauliflower is finding favor in
(Photo Courtesy of F. Kull)
Potato Crop Scene
the raw. Try it just as you would a radish and be convinced. Said Francis Brill in 1872, "Where this vegetable does well, there is certainly no crop which will pay a larger profit. For the past two years the farmers of the east end of Long Island, especially about the village of Mattituck, have planted largely of cauliflower, being incited by the successful experiments of some who have removed here from the west end, who were formerly engaged in growing vegetables for New York markets."
Percentage of Nassau County area in farms is decreasing as the city pushes eastward and new communities come into being and old ones reach out. But cropping is more intensive and yields are greater than ever. There is much land on the Island still to be brought into
L. I .- II-3
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LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
production of some intensive specialized type when conditions are favorable.
There is more cooperative effort in Island agriculture than ever before and there will be still more in the future. The Nassau County Farm Bureau, sponsored by Elwood Titus, pioneer in the cooperative movement, came in 1914; the Suffolk County Farm Bureau in 1917. These are self-help organizations with individual farmer member- ships and trained agents or leaders as their hired men. Here, too, are the Home Bureaus of both counties and the 4H organizations for boys and girls. In 1912 came the Institute of Agriculture at Farming- dale, now under a broadened program, the Long Island Agricultural and Technical Institute. All these agencies seek in various ways to enrich, broaden, and dignify rural life and living.
There are or have been many other groups and agencies. serving the same general purpose-the Grange with a program for the entire family, the Long Island Farmers Club, Long Island Duck Growers Association, Long Island Poultrymen's Association, Long Island Cauliflower Association, one of the most successful of all farm cooperatives; Long Island Horticultural Society, Long Island Nurseryman's Association, The G. L. F. (Grange-League-Federation- Coop Assn., Inc.) with its local outlets furnishing farm supplies ; Long Island Farmers Institute, garden clubs galore and many, many others. There is even a Long Island Goat Association and the rabbit growers are organized. Why not? And there will be others. The whole American public has learned how to organize and join. There is still much to be learned about execution and the responsibility to do something more than join. But farm people are learning.
About twenty years ago The American Agriculturist, one of the leading farm papers of the Northeast established its order of "Master Farmers." Its purpose has been to recognize men who have not only achieved well in the practices of husbandry but who have set high standards of family life and community service. Back of it all has been the desire to dignify agriculture as a way of life. The movement is chiefly symbolic. No claim is made that all worthy recipients have been named or any large number of them. Neverthe- less the following Long Islanders have been so honored and all Long Island with them:
Henry Talmage-Riverhead 1928
E. E. Boisseau-Southold 1928
Harold Simonson-Glen Head 1933 William Louden-Hempstead 1935
"For climate and geographic reasons Long Island became a garden and ultimately developed into one of the richest garden areas in America. As the old range of low-lying hills that made up the first Long Island supports the tumbled glacial deposits that later eras have piled upon them, so the farmer, who was the first Long Islander, still supports the life that later generations have called into being."
CHAPTER XXI
The Presbyterian Church on Long Island
EDWARD J. HUMESTON, D.D. Late Pastor Emeritus, First Presbyterian Church, Huntington 1176002
L ONG ISLAND is a home of old churches. Excepting Caroline Church, at Setauket, the Bowne and Matinecock Quaker Meet- ings and such Dutch churches as those at New Utrecht and Flatbush, all the oldest churches are now Presbyterian. It is only of the Presbyterian churches that have passed from one to three century-marks that this chapter will treat.
In respect to things physical theirs is a story of massive hewn timbers, community frame-raisings, hand-rived cypress shingles, shingle-nails wrought of material separated from the iron-bearing sands of Long Island beaches; of hitching-posts, carriage-sheds, early eighteenth century bells, elaborate weather-vanes, perpendicular sun- dials and bubble-glass windows; of box pews, high pulpits, rush- bottom pulpit furniture, whale-oil lamps, pitch-pipes and ancient Communion tables and silver, many of these items being still preserved and even in use.
In relation to things of the spirit this is an account of altar-fires that through more than three centuries have never failed; of a people of English and Puritan-rarely of French and Huguenot-antecedents who sought in New England asylum from persecution and shortly migrated to Long Island, discovering here a place where with greater convenience they could work out their Biblically derived ideas of religions and political independence. That in comparison with their New England background they exhibited here a degree of religious tolerance rather uncommon in Colonial times, that they believed that the native Indians had souls and instituted successful missionary work among them, and that they were duly appreciative of the value of general education and especially concerned to have a well educated clergy are facts readily demonstrable and generally agreed upon among historians. Here the Quakers were not usually molested by earlier settlers. Only three cases of witchcraft were tried here and not one was severely sentenced (Prime). Only when established or state religion sought to impose authority over or insinuate itself into the independent town churches were the congregations aroused to extremes of resistance (The First Presbyterian Church of Jamaica, Winans; pp. 32-34). Even so, there were instances, as in Brook- haven township, in which in mutual accommodation a Lord of Manor and his Lady were assigned, before the Church of England had its own building there, a place of prominence close to the pulpit.
Partly because from 1640 to 1662, "no power on earth laid claim to any part of eastern Long Island" the early English settlers of that section presumably felt that they owed allegiance to no government
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LONG ISLAND-NASSAU AND SUFFOLK
but such as they themselves should set up. At any rate they so acted. Connecticut being more accessible than New York, and much more friendly, their several towns welcomed an alliance or juris- dictional affiliation with its colonies and continuing relations with its Congregational churches. This they preferred to compliance with the capricious orders of provincial governors and acknowledgment of the authority of a crown-constituted ecclesiastical system. They would make their towns "little republics", but church governed. No one but a church member was to be permitted to hold office. In some towns only church members would be allowed to vote. The atmosphere of what would be virtually a theocratic rule would inevitably modify political opinion. It did. In hardly more than forty years after their first settlement of Long Island, and almost a hundred years before the Declaration of Independence, these Puritans made, in 1681, their formal though unavailing protest against the injustice of taxation without representation, in an attempt to procure redress of their grievances under "the arbitrary rule" of Sir Edmund Andros, Gov- ernor of the Province of New York. (See any early history of Long Island.) Their hope for justice was definitely of religious origin and sanction.
These people were imbued with the tradition of Protestants who had cast off prelatical authority and, in need of another, had turned to a Book every word of which was divinely inspired, literally iner- rant, universally and eternally binding. The modern conception of the Bible as a progressive revelation, comprising parts of unequal value, had entered no one's mind. Rather, it was a compendium of ready reference for ordering specifically the conduct of the community after a scriptural pattern, citing book, chapter and verse.
From ancient, mutilated and sometimes illegible town records of Southampton Nathaniel Prime made, apparently, his own abstracts of the laws of that colony as follows in part:
"If any man's swine, or any other beast, or a fire kindled by a man, damage another's field, he shall make full resti- tution for the grain and time lost in securing the swine, etc. Exod. XII. 5, 6,-Lev. XXIV. 18."
"Drunkenness, as transforming God's image into a beast, is to be punished with the punishment of a beast. Prov. XXVI. 3. A whip for a horse-and a rod for a fool's back."
Fornication was punishable with "(a) a fine or penalty to the father, (b) with marriage of the maid, if she and her father consent, (c) with stripes, 'for this is a real slander. It is worse to make a harlot, than to say one is a harlot'."
Evidently the "shot-gun wedding"-blunderbuss or muzzle loader-or its equivalent, had no standing, nor did the "unwritten law". The case was to be disposed of by the magistrate upon the evidence submitted. But the view that the law took of such a mar- riage as a "punishment", even when the father and the girl consented, appears to have unwittingly anticipated and perhaps paved the way for modern appreciation of the impracticability of a misalliance.
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THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH ON LONG ISLAND
Also the statute suggests emphasis upon a Biblically patriarchal structure of the family, for of the mother's understanding of the matter there is no mention.
Crimes deserving capital punishment were such as blasphemy, Deut. XXIV. 15; idolatry, Deut. XVII. 3-5; profaning the Lord's Day, Num. XV. 30-36; rebellion, sedition, insurrection. Rebellious children merited death. Also, of course, adulterers, man-stealers, and any who bore false-witness against life.
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