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 A HISTORY 
 
 of 
 
 by 
 
 Director Emeritus 
 
 Reprinted from History of Connecticut with the permission of 
 the States History Company, Inc. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 
 By Edward H. Jenkins 
 
 fl 
 
 Reprinted from History of Connecticut with permission of the States 
 Histo'-y Company, Inc. 
 
"! / / 
 
 J 4\^ 
 
PRELIMINARY 
 
 THIS paper is rather a sketch of the course of Con- 
 necticut agriculture than a complete history of it. 
 A history should cover the economic, political and 
 social relations which went with and greatly affected its 
 practice and its prosperity. But such a history would 
 of itself be a volume and not, like this, a single paper 
 among many others relating to the State. 
 
 However, great the temptation to discuss the broader 
 aspects mentioned, it has been necessary therefore to con- 
 fine the work simply to the story of the development of 
 the art of farming, with only the barest reference to the 
 economic and political conditions of its environment. 
 
 To set forth the effect on agriculture of the expansion 
 of manufacturing, the embargo and non-intercourse acts, 
 the opening of the west, the development of transporta- 
 tion and the six wars cannot be discussed here. 
 
 Yet they all deeply affected the course of agriculture. 
 They were like the buffetings of heavy waves, with agri- 
 culture now on the peak and then in the trough of the 
 sea, constantly conning the helm and trimming its sails 
 to avoid shipwreck. Of course this experience is not 
 peculiar to farming; all kinds of business are affected in 
 the same way. But these great disturbances bore with a 
 special severity on the farmer because of his inexperience 
 in transacting business. For more than a century and a 
 half farming was not a commercial business, but a do- 
 mestic affair of each house-holder, chiefly confined to pro- 
 viding food and clothing for his own family. 
 
 Business acumen and the methods of trading have to 
 be learned by long experience and they are a compara- 
 tively recent acquisition of the farmer. 
 
 289 
 
290 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 It is not so long since the three courses open to young 
 men were "the professions, business and farming." At 
 present farming should really be a profession and a busi- 
 ness in order to be a fairly successful "calling." 
 
 Aboriginal Agriculture 
 
 No writing or legend gives the history of agriculture 
 in New England before the coming of tthe white man. 
 But on a somewhat extensive scale a simple kind of agri- 
 culture was certainly practiced by the Indian dwellers 
 here long before the seventeenth century. 
 
 Almost its only relics are the few crops which they 
 raised, of which maize was their staple and their priceless 
 bequest to their successors, a crop which they cultivated 
 extensively and stored for winter use. 
 
 This stored corn was all that stood between the first 
 settlers and great scarcity of food if not of actual starva- 
 tion and in the earlier days of the settlement was occasion- 
 ally bought of the Indians to relieve a time of scarcity. 
 
 It has been one our staple crops from Colonial days to 
 the present and is now grown in larger quantity in the 
 United States than any other. 
 
 Maize or Indian corn had its origin in America but has 
 been changed by "domestication" so that it bears no close 
 resemblance to any native species now known and has 
 been developed out of all fitness to survive in a wild state. 
 This was probably a work of centuries by people who 
 have left no other record of this work in plant breeding 
 than the domesticated plants which they have handed 
 down to us. 
 
 It is a development for which we are indebted probably 
 to some ancient civilization in Central or South America,. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 291 
 
 a development vastly more valuable than any of those of 
 a modern "plant wizard." 
 
 Of particular interest is the Maya civilization de- 
 veloped in Yucatan, of which the earliest established date 
 is 113 B. C, and the time of greatest development from 
 455-597 A. D. The Mayas reached a high state of cul- 
 ture as is shown by their monuments and inscriptions 
 which have lately been studied and partly deciphered. 
 
 They planted corn, beans and pumpkins, taking ad- 
 \ antage of the wet and dry seasons to harvest two crops 
 annually. Among their records are pictures of the maize- 
 god, planting corn, represented frequently as a youth 
 with a leafy headdress, possibly meant to represent an 
 opening ear of corn. This deity appears to be at the mercy 
 of the evil deities when not protected by the good (59, p. 
 94). Other pictures show attacks by worms and birds, 
 suggesting that the pests are as old as the plant. The zo- 
 diac sign, Virgo, the Virgin, is represented in Peruvian, 
 Mexican and Maya sculpture as the Maize Mother. 
 
 Roger Williams (10) writes of the Indian tradition as 
 to the source from which corn and beans came, ''These 
 birds," crows, ''although they doe the corne some hurt, 
 yet scarce one native amongst an hundred wil kil them, 
 because they have a tradition, that the Crow brought 
 them at first an Indian Graine of Corne in one Eare and 
 an Indian or French Beane in another, from the great 
 god Cantantowit's field in the Southwest from whence 
 they hold came all their Corne and Beans." The last 
 clause of this tradition is probably correct. 
 
 Our flint, dent and sweet (45) types, the very early 
 and the tall, later maturing sorts of corn were probably 
 all grown by the aborigines before the settlement by white 
 men. In pre-Columbian days one or more varieties were 
 
292 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 grown all the way from the St. Lawrence on the north to 
 the Rio de la Plata on the south. 
 
 Pumpkins, squashes, beans and peas were also grown 
 by the Indians, all but the last probably indigenous to this 
 country. 
 
 "Peas" were grown by the Indians, according to the 
 annalists, but the Canada pea and the field pea are old 
 world plants. Possibly a Lathyrus, vetchling, or some 
 small rounded bean is what is referred to. 
 
 Before the coming of the white man there was a plenty 
 of land in Connecticut well enough cleared for growing 
 what crops were needed. Besides using the tidal marshes 
 and the alluvial lowlands, the aborigines had also long 
 practiced burning portions of the woodland to make 
 easier the taking of wild game, deer and turkeys. This 
 cleared the forest of underbrush and young trees. Larger 
 trees, (33) were girdled by the Indians to make open 
 spaces where their crops could be planted, leaving them 
 ready for further improvement (24, Vol. I). 
 
 The Narragansetts' land in Rhode Island was cleared 
 of wood for eight or ten miles from the seashore and 
 planted to corn (76. Vol. I). 
 
 There is abundant evidence of large clearings else- 
 where. 
 
 Says Roger Williams, (10) "When a field is to be 
 broken up, they have a very loving, sociable, speedy way 
 to despatch it ; all the neighbors, men and women, forty, 
 fifty, a hundred, etc. joyne, and come in to help freely." 
 The field was not wholly tilled but corn was planted in 
 hills 12 to 20 inches in diameter and the soil of these 
 hills was all that was cultivated. The hills were used 
 over and over in successive years and they have persisted 
 in some places until recent times. (10). Near the sea, at 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 293 
 
 least, fish, (menhaden) were exclusively used as a ferti- 
 lizer. 
 
 The implements of the Indians were very crude. Iron 
 was unknown. Stone hoes and perhaps spades have been 
 found. Bones, shells and wood were also used; yet it is 
 said of their cultivation (78), "Wherein they exceede our 
 English husbandmen, keeping it so cleare with their 
 Clamme-shell hoes as if it were a garden rather than a 
 Cornefield, not suffering a choaking Weede to advance 
 his audacious Head above their infant Corne, or an un- 
 dermining Worme to spoile his Spurnes." 
 
 They also used a hoe made of the shoulder blade of a 
 deer or a tortoise-shell, sharpened upon a stone and fas- 
 tened to a stick. 
 
 "Their corne being ripe, they gather it, and, drying 
 it hard in the sunne conveigh it to their barnes, which be 
 great holes digged in the ground in form of a brasse pot, 
 seeled with rinds of trees, wherein they put their corne, 
 covering it from the inquisitive search of their gorman- 
 dizing husbands, who would eate up both their allowed 
 portion, and reserved Seede if they knew where to find 
 it." (78). 
 
 Connected with aboriginal agriculture should be men- 
 tioned two important plants which were not cultivated but 
 were used extensively. The first is a food plant to which 
 writers refer as "rice," "Indian rice," or "Canada rice," 
 Zisania aqiiatica, a grass which grows commonly along 
 the banks of streams and marshes and in shallow water. 
 It was easily gathered in the early fall and is palatable and 
 nutritious. It is still gathered and used in the stuffing of 
 game birds and is esteemed a luxury. 
 
 The other plant yielding a textile fiber, was the Indian 
 hemp, Apocynum cannabinum, which grew commonly in 
 
294 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 this State. From the fiber of this plant the women twisted 
 twine or rope and made, among other things, fish nets, 
 sometimes twenty or thirty feet long (69. Vol. I). 
 
 Oldham, in a trading trip to Connecticut in 1633, found 
 that the Indian hemp grew spontaneously in the meadows 
 in great abundance. "He purchased a quantity of it," it 
 appeared to him ''much to exceed the hemp grown in Eng- 
 land." Later writers, however, pronounced it inferior to 
 the other. 
 
 Roger Williams says, "the Indians all take tobacco, 
 and it is commonly the only plant which the men labor in, 
 the women managing all the rest." This was probably 
 Nicotiana rustica, a smaller plant and inferior to our cul- 
 tivated species. It is stated that it was grown in Canada 
 as early as 1535. Flags and rushes and certain vegetable 
 dyes were used for making baskets. Carrier asserts (9), 
 that "a comparison, crop by crop, taking into considera- 
 tion acreage and value of these products with all other 
 crops now grown in the United States shows quite clearly 
 that our agriculture is about one-third American." The 
 agriculture of the Indians was chiefly if not wholly man- 
 aged by the women. Stiles says, (61 ) , that a common ex- 
 hortation at marriage was in substance, "You, man, must 
 take good Care to hunt deer and fish and provide Meat 
 for your Squaw. You, Squaw, must take care to plant 
 and hoe Corn and bring wood and cook Victuals for your 
 Sannup." 
 
 The Indian men are generally regarded as lazy, shift- 
 less and improvident in their family life, allowing or forc- 
 ing their women, who were reckoned to be inferior beings, 
 to do all the drudgery. No doubt there is much of truth in 
 this. Laziness, incompetence and contempt of women did 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 295 
 
 not mark the aborigines as absolutely different from many 
 of their successors in this State. 
 
 This judgment on Indian men must be tempered by 
 the following" facts : 
 
 The woman owned all the household property of the 
 family, including the tools used in farming, cooking, dress- 
 ing skins and making fabrics and in many tribes food, 
 skins and individual dwellings or wigwams. 
 
 Indian descent was generally through the female line. 
 Children belonged to the mother's, not the father's totem. 
 In some cases a female sub-chief sold land to the settlers, 
 but this, an international affair, was usually conducted 
 by the male chief .^ 
 
 The man had to be always ready to join in a foray 
 against his neighbors of another tribe, or to repel a foray 
 from them. He was at all times and of necessity a war- 
 rior. Hunting and fishing required skill and strength. 
 Thus women were the property holders of the family 
 groups. Men represented the army, legislature and courts 
 and did such provisioning of the family as required cap- 
 ture and killing. All their work required at times pro- 
 tracted labor, exposure and hunger and when the search 
 for food and the defense of the property and life allowed, 
 they may have been, in the language of Kipling, "most 
 'scrutiating idle." When about his regular work the In- 
 dian was alert, crafty and superstitious v/ith occasional 
 streaks of loyalty and honor — and a reveller in all the 
 arts of hideous cruelty. 
 
 iln the allotment of land in severalty to the Indians in modern times 
 one grievance w^as found to be that it was allotted to the man and not to 
 his wife, contrary to their idea of what was proper. 
 
296 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 Agriculture in the Seventeenth Century 
 
 The aboriginal agriculture was the root on which the 
 Colonial agriculture was grafted. No attempt will be 
 made to recite the events of the colonization farther than 
 to note those which have a very direct bearing on agri- 
 cultural development. 
 
 It is important to consider the physical surroundings 
 of the first traders and immigrants who began coming to 
 Connecticut in 1631. 
 
 The country is described as a wilderness. Its topo- 
 graphical features were not very different from what 
 obtains today. It was, of course, much more thickly 
 wooded than now and abounded in heavy timber.^ 
 
 There were of course no roads but only Indian trails 
 and the first settlers from Massachusetts had perhaps to 
 hew their way for a part of the journey. 
 
 The territory was not, however, wholly a forest, but 
 abounded as we have seen in open, roughly cleared tracts, 
 suitable for cultivation and capable of increased produc- 
 tion with the use of iron implements, axes, hoes and spades 
 which the colonists brought with them. 
 
 The whole area was occupied or claimed by various 
 tribes of Indians who numbered, according to Trumbull's 
 estimate, not less than twelve or fifteen thousand and 
 possibly twenty thousand (69. Vol. I). But DeForest 
 (23a), considers this much too high an estimate and holds 
 that 1,200 warriors and 6,000 or 7,000 individuals is a 
 liberal allowance for the aboriginal population. 
 
 They were more numerous in Connecticut, in propor- 
 
 2 (31) "The pine tree challengeth the next place and that sort which is 
 called the Board pine is the principal ; it is a stately, large tree, very tall, 
 and sometimes two or three fadoms about ; of the body the English make 
 large Canows of 20 foot long, and two feet and a half over, hollowing 
 them out with an adds and shaping the outside out like a boat." 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 297 
 
 tion to area, than elsewhere in New England, for the land 
 was rich in game, the waters rich in fish and the soil, in 
 parts, very fertile. 
 
 These Indians chiefly belonged to the Algonquin family 
 while over the border in New York was the Iroquois 
 family, or the "Six Nations." 
 
 These families were divided into a considerable number 
 of tribes. 
 
 Thus the west shores of Narraganset Bay were peopled 
 by the Narragansetts, numerous and warlike, who held 
 in partial subjection the weaker Nyantics near Point Ju- 
 dith. The fair dealing and tact of Roger Williams did 
 much to restrain the hostility of the Narragansetts to the 
 settlers. To the west of these and about the Thames River 
 were the still more formidable Pequots who for fierceness 
 and bravery were preeminent in southern New England. 
 Westward, in the lower Connecticut valley, were the 
 Monhegans, a small but valiant tribe held tributary to 
 the Pequots and restive under it. There were also numer- 
 ous lesser tribes within the present boundaries of this 
 State, Nehantics, Quinnipiacs, Tunxis, Podunks and 
 others. The thickly wooded mountain ranges between 
 Connecticut and the Hudson had few inhabitants. But 
 beyond., in New York, were the fierce Mohawks, dreaded 
 by all the others, to whom the Mohegans paid yearly 
 blackmail to avoid plunder and murder as far as possible 
 (26). 
 
 Down to about the time of the first settlement of Con- 
 necticut the New England settlers had experienced no 
 great trouble with the Indians. 
 
 They were at first disposed to be friendly but as the 
 settlements began to be pushed further inland and some 
 of their best clearings to be occupied by the invaders, even 
 
298 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 though the land had been fairly bought of the tribal 
 chiefs, hostility increased and soon resulted in actual war. 
 
 Of predatory wild beasts, bears, wolves, panthers, 
 lynxes and foxes were very common and, as will be seen 
 later, were very destructive to the livestock and crops of 
 the settlers for more than a century. 
 
 Into this country adventurers came from Massachu- 
 setts in 1633 and halted at Windsor. This was a trading 
 expedition and made no permanent settlement. In 1635 
 about sixty men, women and children with their cows, 
 horses and swine came overland from Plymouth and 
 Massachusetts Colonies to the region of Hartford, start- 
 ing on October 15th. They were unable to build dwellings 
 before winter, their goods which were sent by sea were 
 lost and most of them made their way back to Boston. 
 
 A very few remained (10). But in 1636 Wethersfield, 
 Windsor and Hartford were settled by colonists from 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 The Newton (Cambridge) congregation, (38) through 
 their minister. Rev. Thomas Hooker, urged from the 
 authorities permission to migrate. 
 
 The reasons given were, the crowded state of their 
 lands which prevented their friends in England from join- 
 ing them,^ the fertility of the Connecticut soil as reported 
 by Oldham and the fact that settlement would shut out 
 the Dutch who were trying to establish a claim to Con- 
 necticut. 'The minds of this people were strongly in- 
 clined to plant themselves there." 
 
 Hooker wisely did not mention in his petition that there 
 was considerable discontent also with the narrowness and 
 
 3 Cotton Mather, (65. p. 17), in referring to the migration from Massa- 
 chusetts, said : "Massachusetts soon became like a hive overstocked with 
 bees, and many thought of swarming into other plantations." 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 299 
 
 strictness of the Winthrop-Cotton administration in 
 Massachusetts. 
 
 Permission was rather grudgingly given and a migra- 
 tion followed, apparently in three companies. One, of one 
 hundred persons, mainly from Dorchester, Mass., jour- 
 neyed overland in fourteen days and settled in Windsor. 
 The second company, mainly from Watertown, Mass., 
 probably went from Boston by water to Wethersfield. 
 The third made their way overland with 160 head of cattle 
 "and fed of their milk on the way," and settled in Hart- 
 ford. "Women and children took part in this pleasant 
 summer journey which lasted about two weeks." Mrs. 
 Hooker, being ill was carried in a horse litter (26). In 
 the following year 800 people were living in these towns 
 (or settlements), forming the Colony of Connecticut. 
 
 In 1638 the town of New Haven was founded under 
 the leadership of Davenport and Eaton, which soon be- 
 came the republic of New Haven, including Mil ford and 
 Stamford, to which Southold on Long Island and Bran- 
 ford were afterwards added (26). Prior to 1640 there 
 were at least nine settlements made, four on the Connecti- 
 cut River and five others on the shore of Long Island 
 Sound. In the next decade five others were made on the 
 Sound shore and one inland. Between 1650 and 1685 
 eleven new settlements were made, three on the Connecti- 
 cut River, one on the seashore and seven not on navigable 
 waters. From 1685 to 1700 eight settlements were made 
 along the eastern side of the State as far north as Wind- 
 ham and two other inland settlements. The harbors of 
 New London, Saybrook, New Haven, Stratford, Bridge- 
 port, Norwalk and Greenwich were all occupied. 
 
 Thus, in the seventeenth century at least thirty-eight 
 settlements were made in Connecticut, eighteen on navi- 
 
300 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 gable waters and twenty inland. Three of the thirty- 
 eight, however, were "set off" from previous settlements. 
 By 1660 practically all the shore from the Connecticut 
 River to the New York boundary was settled, most of the 
 Connecticut River border as far north as Windsor and an 
 area from New London north above Plainfield. By 1675 
 these boundaries were considerably expanded but shrank 
 again somewhat, following King Philip's war and ex- 
 panded rapidly afterwards. In Lois Matthews', "The Ex- 
 pansion of New England," (38), this is very clearly illus- 
 trated by maps. By about 1732 practically the whole State 
 was included in settlements or districts claimed by the 
 several communities. 
 
 Dwight, (24, Vol. I) says that "exclusively of the 
 country of the Pequots,* the inhabitants of Connecticut 
 bought, unless I am deceived, every inch of land contained 
 within that colony, of its native proprietors." The same 
 thing was stated by Governor Winslow in 1676 regarding 
 Massachusetts settlements in his report to the English 
 Committee on Trade and Plantations (26). 
 
 This sale and transfer of lands from the Indian chiefs 
 was effected by deeds duly signed and witnessed. Thus 
 in 1638 Quinnipiac, now New Haven, was bought of the 
 chief Momauguin, subject to certain rights of hunting, 
 for one dozen coats, the same number of hoes, hatchets 
 and porringers, two dozen knives and four cases of 
 French knives and scissors. 
 
 A little later more land was bought for thirteen English 
 coats (30, Vol. I). The colonists thus obtained a tract 
 more than ten miles wide from north to south and thirteen 
 long from east to west, since divided into Branford, East 
 
 * The Pequots were nearly exterminated in the Pequot war in 1637. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 301 
 
 and North Haven, Woodbridge, Wallingford and Ches- 
 hire, 
 
 It has been said that the prices paid, always in com- 
 modities, were ridiculously small. Ridiculously small the 
 price appears now but the bargain was the free act of the 
 chiefs who, we may believe, considered that some warm 
 clothing and useful tools were worth more to them at the 
 moment than 130 square miles of wilderness in which 
 they still retained some rights. 
 
 Part of the later trouble with the Indians probably 
 arose from their misunderstanding of the nature of a 
 deed. In general they may have regarded it as conferring 
 only the right to live, hunt and fish in common with them- 
 selves, not as in any way the extinction of their own for- 
 mer rights. 
 
 Earlier a fort had been built at Saybrook, for defense 
 against the Dutch, and a grant of lands made under the 
 Warwick patent of 1631. 
 
 This was bought by the colony in 1644 from Fenwick, 
 agent of the proprietors.^ 
 
 The Connecticut colonists, almost wholly English, con- 
 sisted chiefly of squires and yeomen, united rather closely 
 in thought and purpose. There were a few indented serv- 
 ants or "redemptioners" paying for their voyage to Amer- 
 ica by service, who in time became independent citizens 
 and a few slaves employed almost wholly in domestic 
 service (26). 
 
 But it was a community holding substantially the same 
 
 5 The seal of the colony and later of the state, was probably given to 
 it, perhaps at that time, by Fenwick. Originally it represented a vineyard 
 of fifteen vines and above them a hand, issuing from clouds, holding a 
 label with the motto, "Sustinet qui transtulit." To carry out the idea of the 
 vineyard we may translate, without doing more violence to transtulit than 
 was done by Columella and Varro. "He who has transplanted maintains." 
 
 This seal has since been variously modified, as described in the Report 
 of the State Librarian, for 1912. 
 
302 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 religious dogmas, the same political principles and a com- 
 mon heritage. 
 
 The desire for religious and political freedom was the 
 chief motive which drove the first Pilgrims and Puritans 
 across the Atlantic, but probably the greater number who 
 followed them saw in the vast unoccupied lands of the new 
 world a chance to make a living unhindered by the tur- 
 moils of Europe, and the settlers of Connecticut, as we 
 have seen, urged as a reason for their migration the need 
 of room for further expansion. 
 
 The settlers in Connecticut, as in New England gener- 
 ally, with the exception of New Hampshire, unlike those 
 in colonies further south, were owners in fee simple of the 
 lands they occupied. 
 
 Community of tillage, to meet their most pressing want 
 of food, had been tried in the mother colony but had been 
 found less effective than private managment of personally 
 owned land. 
 
 Individual holdings were at once set off, and for a good 
 while there was much undivided common land used by all 
 the proprietors for pasturage, timber, etc., but there were 
 frequent difficulties connected with this ownership in com- 
 mon which are witnessed by frequent acts of the General 
 Court. Thus very early it was ordered by the towns of 
 Wethersfield, Hartford and Windsor that five able and 
 discreet men from each town should ''take the common 
 lands belonging to each of the several towns into serious 
 and sadd consideration and after a thorough digestion of 
 their own thoughts, set down under their own hands in 
 what way the said lands may, in their judgments, be best 
 improved for the common good." 
 
 The boundaries of the individual allotments were not 
 very difficult to determine, but those of the separate settle- 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 303 
 
 ments and towns and of the colony it was impossible to 
 fix accurately for many years. (The exact boundary line 
 between a portion of Rhode Island and Connecticut was 
 first finally determined under Governor Baldwin's ad- 
 ministration, 1911-1915). 
 
 Dwight, (24, Vol. II, 498) describes the settlement of 
 a dispute regarding land claimed by both New London 
 and Lyme in 1664. The distance, danger and expense 
 attending an appeal to the seat of government, decided 
 the disputants to settle the matter by a combat between 
 two champions selected by each of them. "On a day mu- 
 tually appointed, the champions appeared in the field ; and 
 fought with their fists, till victory declared in favor of 
 each of the Lyme combatants. Lyme then took possession 
 of the controverted tract and has held it undisputed to 
 the present day." 
 
 It appears that either this dispute was not finally settled 
 by this trial by combat, or that some new boundary dis- 
 pute arose, for about the year 1671 there was a "riot" be- 
 tween about thirty New London men who went to Black 
 Point to mow grass for their minister and a party from 
 Lvme who had come on a similar errand.® 
 
 There was a conflict of tongues, rakes, scythes, clubs 
 and fisticuffs ; the voice of the constable was heard in the 
 land — and disregarded. No one was killed though some 
 were bruised. Peacemakers finally prevailed and it was 
 agreed to leave the matter to the courts. "So drinking a 
 dram together with some seeming friendship, every man 
 departed to his home." But both parties were indicted for 
 assault, violence and riotous practices. As it was difficult 
 to get an impartial jury in that neighborhood the accused 
 
 _ 8 This land, 325 acres, had been sequestered in 1671 to the use of the 
 ministry forever (11). In 1668 the same land had been reserved by Lyme 
 for the support of their minister. 
 
304 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 were tried in Hartford. Both parties were fined and the 
 fines subsequently remitted. 
 
 Regarding the civil government in the colonies; The 
 New Haven Colony was extremely theocratic in its char- 
 acter. Only church members had the franchise and this in 
 New Haven itself excluded one-half of the inhabitants 
 from a share in the government. Each town was governed 
 by seven ecclesiastics, known as "Pillars of the Church." 
 They served as judges without juries because no authority 
 for trial by jury was found in the laws of Moses. 
 
 The Connecticut Colony was much less strict in its 
 views of civil government. In the first year it was gov- 
 erned by Massachusetts, but immediately thereafter a 
 General Court was held in Hartford, May 31, 1638, and 
 on May 14, 1639, all the freemen of the towns met in 
 Hartford and adopted a written constitution. "It was 
 the first written constitution known to history, that cre- 
 ated a government and it marked the beginnings of 
 American democracy." It made no reference to the king 
 of England or any other government. Under it all rights 
 and powers not expressly given to the General Court 
 were reserved to the towns. It did not prescribe church 
 membership as a condition for the right of suffrage.^ 
 
 In 1643 the four Colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, 
 Connecticut and New Haven formed a league, "The 
 United Colonies of New England," including thirty-nine 
 towns with 24,000 inhabitants. The League was given 
 entire control of dealings with the Indians and with for- 
 eign powers and the administration was committed to 
 
 ■f "The remarkable document, though deserving all the encomiums passed 
 upon it, was not a constitution in any modern sense of the word and es- 
 tablished nothing fundamentally new, because the form of government it 
 outlined differed only in certain particulars from that of Massachusetts and 
 Plymouth." "Later courts never hesitated to change the articles without 
 referring the changes to the planters." (3) 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 305 
 
 eight Federal Commissioners, two from each colony, all 
 to be church members. No permission was asked from 
 the home government. In 1661 a charter was granted 
 by Charles I to New Haven, but by it the colony was 
 annexed to its stronger neighbor, Connecticut, thus re- 
 ducing the number of the United Colonies to three. 
 
 The League continued till 1684 when the Massa- 
 chusetts charter was revoked by Charles 11. In 1687 
 Charles also revoked the Connecticut charter, but it was 
 never surrendered, and as the order for the surrender 
 of the charter was never enrolled it remained in force 
 and Connecticut was governed under it until 1818. 
 
 Concerning the relations with the mother country, we 
 see that the first settlements were made in the reign of 
 Charles I who, on the whole, was rather glad to get rid 
 of a lot of religious cranks and radicals moved to a wild- 
 erness across an ocean and three thousand miles from 
 England where they could praise God and fight savages 
 after their own fashion. He was willing to give them 
 charters and then to be rid of them while he reigned with- 
 out a parliament from 1649 to 1660. 
 
 Then followed the Commonwealth and the Protector- 
 ate when little thought could be given to 
 
 " * * * that small colony 
 Of pinched fanatics, who would rather choose 
 Freedom to clip an inch more from their hair, 
 Than the great chance of setting England free." 
 
 This was a period of prosperity and undisturbed 
 growth. But soon after the accession of Charles II the 
 seeds of disafifection were sown which resulted in the 
 revolution about a century later. 
 
 The story of the protection of the regicides in New 
 
306 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 Haven and elsewhere, of religious differences, of the 
 work of Andross and Randolph, the attempted annulment 
 of the charter, etc., need not be repeated here. 
 
 "The four years from 1684 to 1688 were the darkest 
 years in the history of New England." (Fiske). The 
 advent of King William and Queen Mary in 1689 closed 
 the long struggle with the Stuarts and lessened the ten- 
 sion between the Colonies and the mother country. 
 
 Such, in very brief outline, was the physical and polit- 
 ical environment of Colonial agriculture in this Colony in 
 the seventeenth century. Before it was settled the land 
 was a wilderness except where it had been partially 
 cleared and subdued by the crude methods of the Indians. 
 The colonists' farming tools were no ''better than had 
 the farmers of Julius Caesar's day; in fact, the Roman 
 ploughs were probably superior to those in general use in 
 America eighteen centuries later." 
 
 "The mass of production shows no radical difference 
 from that in ages long past." (2) "The Saxon farmer 
 of the eighth century enjoyed most of the comforts 
 known to Saxon farmers of the eighteenth." 
 
 But the spiritual comfort, the freedom from vassalage 
 and other forms of tyranny and the joy of self-govern- 
 ment made the Connecticut colonist a totally different 
 being from the eighth century peasant. 
 
 Nevertheless the earlier years were a fierce struggle 
 against starvation and murderous attack, demanding al- 
 most continual manual labor from all members of the 
 community, men, women and children alike. 
 
 It is not possible now to give any very precise picture 
 of the every day life of the early settlers or of the course 
 of their agriculture. 
 
 "There is but a slender residue from the vicissitudes 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 307 
 
 o£ history to throw any sufficient Hght upon some of the 
 habits, practices and daily concerns of the colonists in the 
 ordinary routine of their existence." 
 
 The first care of the settlers was naturally a provision 
 for continuous food supply after the store of provisions 
 which they brought from Massachusetts was exhausted. 
 Wheat/ rye and pease had been grown in the Massa- 
 chusetts and Plymouth Colonies, but the main reliance at 
 first was Indian corn. The reasons are obvious. They 
 had abundance of seed, they knew from the Indian ex- 
 perience that it yielded well and the method of planting 
 and cultivating had been learned from the Indians by the 
 settlers at Plymouth, "being instructed in the manner 
 thereof by the forenamed Squanto."^ 
 
 As to the method of planting corn, Peters, writing in 
 1781 says, "Maize is planted in hillocks three feet apart, 
 five kernels and two pumpkin seeds in a hillock and be- 
 tween the hills are planted ten beans in a hillock. One 
 man plants one acre a day, in three days he hoes the same 
 three times and six days more suffice for plowing and 
 gathering the crop. The whole expense is thirty shillings 
 and allowing ten shillings for use of land, the whole ex- 
 pense is two pounds, while corn is worth two shillings per 
 bushel." He figures that the gain is seldom less than 300 
 and often 600 per cent. "It is thus that the poor man be- 
 comes rich in a few years," — and it is thus that a parson 
 ;figures profits for the farmer. But this description of the 
 way of planting corn, though written in the following 
 
 8 In the third generation of farmers wheat had almost passed out of 
 cultivation and was got chiefly from New York and the southern planta- 
 tions. 
 
 9 Squanto, an Indian who had been carried to England, it is said, by 
 Waymouth, learned the English language and was afterwards returned to 
 his native home, Plymouth. He "proved a special instrument of God for 
 their good, beyond expectation; he directed them in planting their corn, 
 where to take their fish and to procure their commodities." (42) 
 
308 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 century and by one to whom Ananias and Munchausen 
 were mere tyros, is substantially correct judging by other 
 accounts and was probably followed from the beginning ; 
 being adopted from the Indian practice. It is noted in the 
 
 old rhyme : 
 
 One for the bug, 
 One for the crow, 
 One to rot, 
 And two to grow. 
 
 At first fish was the only fertilizer. Three or four fish, 
 (menhaden), were put in a hill "and in them they plant 
 their maize which grows as luxuriantly therein as though 
 it were the best manure in the world ; and if they do not 
 lay fish therein the maize will not grow, so that such is 
 the nature of the soil." (42) 
 
 The colonists brought seed of other cultivated crops 
 with them for in 1638 among the supplies requisitioned 
 for the force engaged in the Pequot war are mentioned 
 corn, oats, pease and rice, see page — (63, Vol. I). 
 
 The colonists, while they were at first chiefly dependent 
 on Indian corn, wanted wheat to which they were more 
 accustomed and in 1640 (9) it was ordered, to promote 
 the production of English grain, that every farmer for 
 every team he owned could have one hundred acres of 
 plow land and twenty of meadow if he seeded twenty 
 acres the first year, eighty the second and the whole one 
 hundred the third. 
 
 Of the gardens of the early settlers in New England 
 almost the only account is that of John Josselyn in 1672. 
 (32). (Wood, 78). These accounts do not specifically 
 refer to Connecticut but probably conditions were quite 
 alike in all the New England Colonies. 
 
 "Of such garden Herbs, (amongst us) as do thrive 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 309 
 
 there, Cabbage, Lettice, Carrats, Parsnips of a prodigious 
 size, Red Beetes, Radishes, Turnips, Wheat,'" Barley," 
 Oats, Pease of all sorts and the best in the world, and 
 Beans. In the gardens Josslyn also finds Sorrel, Parsley, 
 Marygold, French Mallowes, Burnet, Winter and Summer 
 Savory, Time, Sage, and — Purslain, (May Allah blot 
 it out). Red and black currants were grown and goose- 
 berries "grow all over the countrie" (31). Coriander, 
 Dill, "annis," "sparagus," Pepper wort, "Tansie," cucum- 
 bers and melons also grew. 
 
 Obviously the settlers very quickly provided themselves 
 with a variety of vegetable foods and with "English roses 
 very pleasantly." 
 
 There was also an abundance of fruit; plums, wild 
 cherries and various berries growing everywhere. Car- 
 rier, (10), quotes Roger Williams, "In some parts where 
 the natives have planted, I have many times seen as many 
 (strawberries) as would fill a good ship within a few 
 miles compasse : the Indians bruise them in a mortar and. 
 mix them with meale and make a strawberry bread." 
 
 Josselyn, in 1638-1639, found no apple or pear trees 
 anywhere except on Governor's Island in Boston harbor 
 where he got "half a score of very fair pippins." But on 
 his second voyage, thirty years later, he says that the 
 finest trees prosper abundantly, apple, quince, cherry, 
 plum and barberry and "the country is replenished with 
 fair and large orchards." 
 
 Perhaps the most particular account is that of the or- 
 chard of Henry Wolcott in Windsor. This was in bearing 
 
 10 Both winter and summer wheat were grown, the former accepted for 
 taxes at five shillings, the latter at four shillings per bushel, with com at 
 two shillings six pence. 
 
 11 As early as 1646 barley was grown in Wethersfield, probably chiefly 
 used for making malt for beer, an article of general consumption. (64) 
 
310 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 before 1649. Summer Pippin, Holland Pippin, Pearmain, 
 "Belly Bonds" (Belle et Bonne), and London Pippin are 
 varieties named. He also sold orchard trees, both apple 
 and pear, as early as 1650. (65). The price of apples fell 
 in Windsor from eight shillings the bushel in 1650 to two 
 shillings sixpence to three shillings in 1654. 
 
 Josselyn was told by Wolcott that he made five hun- 
 dred hogsheads of "syder" from his own orchard in one 
 year, sold for ten shillings per hogshead, and that in 
 1654 he got 1,588 bushels of apples from his own orchard. 
 Cider, beer and other spirituous liquors were drunk in 
 large quantities in the Colony, Cider and beer were the 
 ^common table beverages. Tea and coffee were very rarely 
 to be had before 1700 if at all. 
 
 "It has been truly said that fruit growing in America 
 had its beginning and for almost two hundred years its 
 whole sustenance in the demand for strong drink." 
 
 "As early as 1643 there was a weekly market in Hart- 
 ford and many towns established fairs or markets held 
 once or twice a year for the sale or barter of all kinds of 
 commodities. 
 
 The houses of the early settlers, according to Hollister, 
 (30), were of wood and those of the more prosperous, 
 after the first thirty years, were framed. The frames 
 were of heavy oak timbers, some of them eighteen inches 
 in diameter. The rafters were larger than the sills or 
 beams of present day houses and supported slit sticks, 
 .called "ribs," to which were fastened long, reft, cedar 
 shingles. The siding was of oak clapboards, reft and 
 ;smoothed. Only the sides of the rooms were plastered. 
 The floors were of oak. The windows were of two small 
 leaden frames with diamond-shaped panes and hinges 
 opening outwards. The outer doors were of double oaken 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 311 
 
 planks, made as solid as a single piece by nails or spikes 
 driven into them in the angles of diamonds. The rooms 
 were seldom over seven feet high, with enormous fire 
 places and a stone chimney. The buildings "are generally 
 of wood, some of stone or brick, many of good strength 
 and comelynesse, for a wilderness." (15, III. 1680). 
 
 Time was reckoned by farmers according to the work- 
 ing seasons as well as by the calendar. Events happened 
 at "sweet corn time," "at the beginning of hog time," 
 "since Indian harvest," etc. (3) 
 
 The need of textiles was early felt. In 1640, (15. pp. 
 61, 64, 79), every family was required to get and plant 
 at least one spoonful of English hemp seed in good soil, 
 at least a foot between each seed "and tend it in husbandly 
 manner." The next year each family that kept a team 
 was to sow one rood of hemp or flax. Every family which 
 keeps cows, heifers or steers was to sow twenty perches. 
 Every family with no cattle shall sow ten perches and 
 tend it properly and every family was to provide at least 
 half a pound of hemp or flax. 
 
 In 1675 (15), to encourage the production of rape 
 oil, the monopoly of its manufacture was given to Wil- 
 liam Roswell for ten years. 
 
 The Court gave a subsidy of two shillings per acre per 
 annum to each person sowing cole seed up to eighty acres. 
 This was to continue for ten years. Tobacco was grown 
 prior to 1640 and in that year an act forbade the "drink- 
 ing of tobacco." Later a statute restricted its use to that 
 grown "within these liberties." This act was repealed 
 four years later. In 1680 a duty of two pence per pound 
 was levied on imported tobacco. In 1680, (15, Vol. Ill), 
 the Colonial authority reports, "Most people plant as 
 much tobacco as they spend." Honey was raised in 
 
312 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 Wethersfield as early as 1648. In 1650 an inventory in- 
 cludes "11 skipp of bees," valued at nine pounds, (40, p. 
 622). 
 
 The colonists very quickly supplied themselves with 
 cereals and vegetables. Naturally to get an adequate sup- 
 ply of live stock required much more time. The first set- 
 tlers from Massachusetts brought with them one hundred 
 and sixty head of live stock and later settlers no doubt 
 brought many more. Wild hogs are mentioned in the 
 early records which may have been relics of the first ad- 
 venture to Windsor in 1633 to 1635. Breeding naturally 
 increased the number of swine more quickly than of 
 dairy stock and as early as 1637 pork was one of the sup- 
 plies furnished to the force which fought the Pequots. 
 
 The keeping of dairy stock, sheep and horses was handi- 
 capped by the scarcity of good hay land and pasture. 
 Eliot notes, (25), that the first settlers by tide water had 
 so much salt marsh mowing that they improved the land 
 nearest at hand and when, with growing population more 
 was needed for meadow they made use of old land without 
 breaking up more. 
 
 Salt marsh is neither good pasture nor is its hay the 
 most suitable for feed. Of the meadow and pasture 
 grasses at present used in Connecticut all, with possibly 
 one or two exceptions are introduced species (10). To 
 establish good mow land or even good pasture in a new 
 country, having only rather inferior herbage, was a work 
 of considerable time. Even in Eliot's time good hay was 
 scarce. 
 
 In the revision of the Colony laws in 1672 to 1673 an 
 act required every male between forty and seventy, fit 
 for labor, excepting certain. magistrates or ruling elders, 
 physicians and school teachers, to work for one day in 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 313 
 
 June, cutting and clearing land as directed by the selectmen 
 for the encouraging of sheep raising. Nine years later 
 the law was modified, authorizing the townsmen to call 
 forth their inhabitants at such time as they think best to 
 kill the brush. 
 
 Before considering what was wrought by this colony 
 of farmers in the first sixty or seventy years of their 
 struggle with the wilderness there should be noticed in 
 particular some of the hindrances and obstacles to prog- 
 ress which had to be overcome. 
 
 As has been said their field and garden tools, either 
 brought from England or else made on the same pattern 
 at home, were of the simplest sort ; none of them, except 
 a clumsy plow, of a kind to use with draft animals. Sow- 
 ing, cultivating and harvesting were all done by hand. 
 
 Their farming tools, moreover, were of a kind designed 
 for tilling soil long under cultivation, not for subduing 
 forest land or scrub growth. 
 
 Though at first, as a rule, the Indians were not very 
 unfriendly to the colonists, their attitude soon changed. 
 The pushing of settlements inland incommoded the In- 
 dians. They had further embarrassed themselves by part- 
 ing with much of their cleared land and these things, to- 
 gether with their innate joy of plunder, murder and tor- 
 ture soon made them a menace to the settlers. Robbery 
 and murder became frequent. 
 
 The Connecticut settlements were chiefly harassed by 
 the Pequots and in May, 1637 an expedition left Saybrook 
 and near Groton met the Pequots in their fortified place 
 and after a severe fight killed nearly seven hundred of 
 them, only five escaping alive (26). 
 
 But another account says that in the Pequot fight at 
 ''Mistick" at daybreak they took the fort after two hours' 
 
 %' A r, 
 
314 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 fighting, by firing it, slew the two chief sachems, one 
 hundred and fifty fighting men and one hundred and fifty 
 old men, women and children, with the loss of two 
 Englishmen. (65). 
 
 Hon. John H. Perry, in a paper on "The Great Swamp 
 Fight in Fairfield" states that the remnant of the Pequot 
 nation immediately started to migrate to the Hudson and 
 passing westward was overtaken and besieged in a swamp 
 in Fairfield. There were eighty strong men with two 
 hundred women and children. Loath to destroy the women 
 and children, under a truce two hundred old men, women 
 and children were allowed to come out and surrender. 
 After a fight, not very sanguinary, about sixty or seventy 
 Indians broke through and escaped. This ended all 
 trouble with the Pequots. 
 
 After this there was no further organized fighting 
 with the Indians for thirty-eight years. 
 
 The expedition from Saybrook was provisioned from 
 the various Connecticut settlements and commanded by 
 Captain John Mason who reports, (5), "Our commons 
 were very short, there being a general scarcity throughout 
 the colony of all sorts of provisions" — "we had but one 
 pint of strong liquors among us in our whole march" — 
 "(the bottle of liquor being in my hand) and when it was 
 empty the very smelling to the bottle would recover such 
 as had fainted away, which happened by the extremity of 
 the heat." 
 
 In spite of this victory, individual cases of robbery and 
 murder were not infrequent and the farmer needed to 
 keep his weapons constantly ready for use. As when Ne- 
 hemiah rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem, "Every one of 
 them with one of his hands wrought in the work and with 
 the other hand held a weapon." In 1643 it was noted that 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 315 
 
 "The order for one in each family to bring his arms to 
 the meeting house every Sabbath hath not been fully at- 
 tended to." 
 
 King Phillip's war began in 1674 and in this the Narra- 
 gansetts joined. 
 
 The Great Swamp Fight, near Kingston, Rhode Island 
 decisively defeated the Indians but in 1676 Philip was 
 again on the war path and there were massacres in Massa- 
 ,chusetts and Rhode Island; but in June, in a series of 
 fights, three or four hundred of the Narragansetts were 
 killed and later in the year Philip himself was hunted 
 down and killed. By 1688 the Indians were generally sup- 
 pressed (26). But Dwight (24, Vol. I), states that with 
 the Indians the colonists had to contend from 1675 till 
 1783 and within this period there were seven wars with 
 them; five stimulated by the French, King Philip's war 
 and the revolution. 
 
 In King Philip's war little damage was done in this 
 state but its armed forces were used in defending other 
 regions from the common enemy. 
 
 Besides the threat from the Indians, wild animals were 
 a great annoyance and did much damage so that bounties 
 were almost continually offered for their destruction. In 
 Windsor in 1647, (5), a panther killed nine sheep in a 
 yard. He was tracked and killed for which a bounty of 
 five pounds was paid as allowed by law. Wolves were the 
 most common and persistent pests. From the beginning 
 to the end of the century bounties were paid for their de- 
 struction ranging from eight to thirty-two shillings per 
 head. In 1640 by the town of Hartford *Tt is ordered yt 
 Learance Woodward shall spend his Time abought kil- 
 ling of wolf es & for his Incoragmentt he shall have 4s 6d 
 a weeke for his bord in casse he kill not a wolfe or a 
 
316 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 deare in ye weake ; but if he kill a wolf or a deare he is to 
 pay for his bord himselfe & if he kill a deare we are to 
 Have it for 2d a pound," (14, VI). (Fearlessly this 
 scribe flouts all old world traditions in matters of orthog- 
 raphy and blazes a new way for the speller, with the 
 freedom of the new world, to the joy of his readers in all 
 generations.) 
 
 In 1693 Stratford voted a wolf hunt, with a bounty of 
 three shillings per day for horse and man. A day was 
 set, all to be ready at seven A. M. on the hill at the meet- 
 ing house by the beat of the drum. No record is given of 
 the killing (49, p. 289). 
 
 Blackbirds were also a nuisance and a bounty of ten 
 shillings per thousand was paid for their destruction. 
 Even flocks of wild pigeons were destructive to grain. 
 
 As early as 1644 wheat blasted in Connecticut and New 
 Haven, (75, I. ), and in 1679, (15, III.), there is com- 
 plaint made of "an unaccountable blast on wheat and 
 pease." Later in an election sermon, (15, III.), reference 
 is made to God's smiting with "blasts, mildews, cater- 
 pillars, worms, tares, floods and droughts." 
 
 In a report by the Governor to the British Committee 
 for Trade and Foreign Plantations, he says: "Besides 
 for sundry years past the holy providence of God hath 
 smitten us year after yeare & these three or four yeares 
 past there is a worm breads in sd. pease which doth much 
 damnify them so that we are like, (by reason of said 
 losses at home and the heightened price of goods from 
 abroad), to remain a poor but loyal people." 
 
 There were besides, the usual vagaries of weather and 
 miscalculation of the crops most needed, which caused 
 serious discomfort. 
 
 In 1637 there was scarcity of corn due to Indian dis- 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 317 
 
 turbances and the absence of men engaged in the Indian 
 war. The colonists were forced to buy corn of the In- 
 dians in Massachusetts. Corn rose to twelve shillings 
 per bushel, but fifty canoes came down later from Deer- 
 field, Mass., which gave great relief. Again in 1638, 
 (15, I.), it was necessary to import corn which it was 
 ordered to "goe" at five shillings six-pence in money, in 
 wampums at three a penny, six shillings per bushel, or 
 in beaver at nine shillings per pound. 
 
 In 1643 Winthrop reports that corn was very scarce 
 all over the country because of a cold, wet season, ravages 
 of pigeons and mice in the barns. The mice also damaged 
 orchards by girdling the trees. 
 
 But the next year there was a glut of corn, prices fell 
 and the growers were forbidden by the General Court to 
 sell ''out of the river" except to two agents who were to 
 pay four shillings per bushel for wheat and three for corn 
 and rye and who undertake to transport it over seas. 
 This overproduction may have been due, in part at least, 
 to the extraordinary bounty offered in 1640. The mer- 
 chants are to pay on the return of the ship or as soon as 
 return may be otherwise made in the best and most 
 suitable English commodities. Subsequent lawsuits prove 
 the failure of the scheme. This was the end of the first 
 "pool," undertaken to foil the "middleman" and by gov- 
 ernment action to sustain prices in a time of over-produc- 
 tion. 
 
 In 1662 it was forbidden to convey away out of this 
 river any corn or provision from any plantation on this 
 river. 1675 was another lean year as far as the staple 
 corn was concerned. The Colony, in reply to the Massa- 
 chusetts authorities, say they will supply what provision 
 for the army as they can, "but corn being very scarce with 
 
318 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 us and the seat of war within our borders, we cannot do 
 all that is desired." 
 
 Regarding the population of Connecticut in this century 
 we have no exact figures. The most reliable estimate is 
 as follows (72, p. 9) : 
 
 In 1640 2,000 1680 13,000 
 
 1650 6,000 1690 18,000 
 
 1660 8,000 1700 24,000 
 1670 10,000 
 
 "We compute the Indian neighbors of this Colony to 
 be about 500 fighting men" (1680). At this time there 
 were not above thirty slaves in the Colony. 
 
 In a community without extensive trade or business 
 relations with other sections of the country, a community 
 almost exclusively engaged in tilling the land and business 
 immediately concerned with it, current money was scarce. 
 We find therefore in the records of the General Court and 
 of town governments schedules of rates at which country 
 produce might be used for payment of a part (often one- 
 third) of taxes. 
 
 Thus the highest exchange price for winter wheat was 
 five shillings per bushel, in 1677 and 1698. The lowest 
 was four shillings in 1653. 
 
 Corn exchange prices ranged from two to four shill- 
 ings, rye and pease from two to three shillings sixpence 
 per bushel (15, III). Apples were quoted in 1653 at two 
 and a half to three shillings per bushel. 
 
 It remains to consider the condition of agriculture in 
 the Colony at the end of the seventeenth century. The 
 condition of agriculture was the condition of the Colon>, 
 for while the settlers on the sea and river coasts began 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 319 
 
 trading and commerce/^ yet agriculture, with lumbering, 
 stock raising and dairying as the chief business aside 
 from tillage crops was the almost universal employment. 
 
 The State was secured against the Indians and was in- 
 creasing in population and the area of tilled land. There 
 is no evidence of an improvement in the farming tools 
 used. The food crops and the vegetables of England were 
 raised with success and productive orchards had been 
 established. The quality of the meadows and pastures 
 was very poor, there being no meadow grasses which 
 were well suited for dairy stock. 
 
 Governor Winthrop of Massachusetts writes in 1660 
 to an English correspondent (37, VIII), "Now the coun- 
 try doth send out great store of biscott, flower, peas, 
 beife, butter and other provisions to the supply of Bar- 
 bados, Newfoundland and other places, ate." "This 
 country is now well stored with horses, cowes, shepe and 
 goates." No doubt the production and commerce of the 
 older Colony was much larger than that of Connecticut 
 but Connecticut shared in the general prosperity of the 
 New England Colonies. 
 
 In the same year Maverick (cited by Whedon, 75), 
 says, "For the southern part it is incredible what has been 
 done there." "All through the land there was plenty of 
 pears, apples and other fruit, muskmelons, watermelons, 
 etc." 
 
 A fair idea of the progress of agriculture may be 
 gleaned from the report of the Governor of the British 
 Committee on Trade and Foreign Plantations in 1680. 
 He states that the commodities of the country are peas, 
 rye, barley, Indian corn and pork, beef, wool, hemp, flax, 
 
 12 In 1680 there were 27 vessels owned in the state, the largest of 90 
 tons, with a total tonnage of 1,030 engaged in trade from river and coast 
 .ports. 
 
320 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 cider, perry and tar; deal boards, pipe staves, horses. 
 What was produced above the local demand was mostly 
 transported to Boston and there bartered for clothing, 
 though some small quantity was shipped to Barbados, 
 Jamaica and other of the West Indies and there bartered 
 for sugar, cotton and rum. For material for shipping 
 there is good timber of oak, pine and spruce for masts, 
 oak and pine boards, tar, pitch and hemp. "We are but 
 a poor people, we have lost and spent much of said estates 
 in the last Indian war. Said expense with our loss cannot 
 be estimated less than 30,000 pounds and no other ad- 
 vantage gained by it than the riddance of some of our 
 bad neighbors . . . For the most part we labor in tilling 
 the ground and by that time a year's . . . and labor hath 
 gathered some small parcel of provision and it is trans- 
 ported to the market at Boston and then half a crown 
 will not produce so much goods of any sort as ten pence 
 within England." 
 
 "We cannot guess as to the number of acres unsettled. 
 Most that is fitt for planting is taken up. What remaynes 
 must be subdued and gained out of the fire as it were, by 
 hard blowes and for smal recompense" (15, Vol, III). 
 
 The history of agriculture in Connecticut would not be 
 quite complete without this note. In 1644 "The proposi- 
 tion for the releife of poore schollars att Cambridg was 
 fully approved of, and thereupon it was ordered, thatt 
 Josua Attwater and William Davis shall receive of every 
 one in this plantation whose hart is willing to contribute 
 thereunto a peck of wheat or the value of itt." In 1645 
 Mr. Attwater reported that he had sent from Connecticut 
 forty bushels of wheat for the college at Cambridge 
 although he had not received so much. In 1647 "The 
 Governor propounded that the Colledge corne mi^ht be 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 321 
 
 forthwith paid — it will be a reproach that it shall be 
 said New Haven is falne off from this service." 
 
 It is interesting to note the attitude of the legislative 
 body towards tobacco and alcoholic beverages in the 
 seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and to compare it 
 with the attitude at the present time. 
 
 Tobacco was grown in the Colony as early as 1644, 
 rum was imported from the West Indies and later made 
 in the State from the juice of cornstalks, though never to 
 any great extent. Intoxicants were freely used in the 
 community by clergymen and all classes of their parish- 
 ioners. President Stiles of Yale College enumerates 
 among the wonderful orderings of divine Providence 
 which conspire towards the establishing of the indepen- 
 dence of America, "Heaven has led us to the successful 
 experiment on corn stalks from whence it is probable may 
 be made an abundant supply of molasses and rum for this 
 whole continent." Cider was a common beverage in the 
 family and was not by any means a spiritless drink. 
 Licenses were required for selling strong liquors and 
 the maximum prices were fixed by statute (15, IV). 
 
 Captain John Mason, as we have seen, found use for 
 strong liquor in the Pequot War. In 1780 Congress called 
 for army supplies from this state and among them were 
 named 68,558 gallons of rum. 
 
 But tobacco, so vigorously condemned by that miso- 
 capnic sovereign, James I, in his Counterblaste of 
 Tobacco, was barred by the Colony. 
 
 In 1647 it was ordered that no one shall take tobacco 
 publicly on the street or in fields or woods unless wher he 
 is on a journey of at least ten miles, or at the time of 
 repast commonly called dinner, or if not taken then, not 
 above once a day at most, and then not in company with 
 
322 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 any other. By the code of 1650 persons under twenty-one 
 and all others not already accustomed to it were forbid- 
 den to use the weed without a physician's certificate. No 
 one could publicly use tobacco on streets, highways, in 
 barns, or on training days in any public place. There 
 was however a gradual decline in tobacco morals for in 
 1680 its use was restricted to that grown in the Colony 
 and in the next century tobacco became a considerable 
 article of export and inspectors were appointed to see that 
 only merchantable tobacco was sold. 
 
 In the twentieth century the pendulum which marks 
 the effort to promote temperance in individuals by legisla- 
 tive acts has swung to the other extreme. Tobacco is used 
 everywhere by clergymen, physicians and all classes in 
 the community, both men and women, but the making, 
 selling or carrying of any alcoholic beverage or bringing 
 it within one hour's steaming distance of 
 
 " * * * thee, 
 Sweet land of Liberty" 
 
 is contrary to the Constitution and statute and punishable 
 by fine and imprisonment. 
 
 It would seem that the pendulum could hardly swing 
 further in either direction and may come back to the re- 
 gion of temperance in habits, legislation and language. 
 
 Agriculture in the Eighteenth Century 
 This period witnessed great changes in Connecticut,, 
 political, religious and economic. 
 
 The danger of extermination by Indians was wholly 
 past. They continued for some time to be a plague, in- 
 clined to plunder, but in' 1763 the Governor reports 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 323 
 
 (Appendix to the Public Records), that the Indians are 
 "in peace, good order and inclined to idleness." 
 
 Nor was the Colony any longer threatened by a very 
 dangerous lack of food. 
 
 Trade increased and manufacturing began on a mod- 
 erate scale. 
 
 As late as 1790 it is probable (72) that nine out of 
 every ten bread winners in the State were engaged in some 
 form of agriculture. A century later only three out of 
 ten. At the close of this century ninety-eight out of every 
 one hundred of the New England population could trace 
 their origin to England in the narrowest sense. 
 
 The following figures of population in Connecticut 
 
 (72) "may be accepted as expressing the best judgment 
 
 of students of history and statistics at the present time" 
 
 (1909). 
 
 In 1700 24.000 1750 100,000 
 
 1710 31,000 1760 142,000 
 
 1720 40,000 1770 175,000 
 
 1730 55,000 1780 203,000 
 
 1740 70,000 1790 237,635 
 
 Up to the Revolutionary period there was an average 
 increase of about 33 per cent in each succeeding decade. 
 From 1770 to 1790 the increase per decade averaged only 
 about 18 per cent. This increase, reports the Governor, 
 "Under the Divine benediction we attribute to indus- 
 trious, temperate life and early marriage." 
 
 In 1713 two-thirds of the area of the State was settled, 
 and by 1754 the whole State was occupied. 
 
 The housing of the colonists became more substantial. 
 Brick w^as more often used in building. As late as 1770 
 brick was imported from England and Holland, perhaps 
 as ballast. But most bricks in Colonial buildings were 
 
324 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 made at home. (As early as 1639 the Henry Whitfield 
 house in Guilford was built of stone and is still standing.) 
 The household in New England generally was a self- 
 sustaining unit. 
 
 There was little care for ornament or design. In the 
 first half of the century, at least, the household furniture 
 was likely to include shoemaker's tools, leather tanned in 
 the neighborhood, surgeon's tools and apothecary's stuff, 
 occasionally carpenter's and blacksmith's tools, and a 
 cider press. A spinning wheel was almost always in 
 the house and often a loom. The wood turner made 
 plates, etc., from "dish timber," probably poplar or 
 linden (10). 
 
 At this time "through New England men, women and 
 children wore homespun; linen shirts, tow cloth skirts 
 and breeches and woolen socks. Buckskin and lambs skin 
 breeches were common." Coats for heavy weather were 
 made of deerskin. These statements represent conditions 
 in the first half of the century among even well-to-do 
 farmers throughout the Colony. There was, of course, a 
 small fraction of the people, living near centers of inter- 
 course and trade whose houses and dress were more 
 elaborate and the dress of all classes gradually improved 
 in material later in the century. 
 
 Cereals and meats of all kinds were abuuvdant but there 
 was no means of keeping either meat or vegetables in 
 fresh condition. Many families lived through the winter 
 on smoked, salted and pickled food. But milk, butter and 
 cheese were available. Fruit, such as apples, could be kept 
 well into winter. Housewives pickled Indian corn and 
 other vegetables, nuts and oysters, they dried apples and 
 made "apple butter." Beer, cider, brandy and rum were 
 the ordinary beverages. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 325 
 
 Beer was brewed at home and spruce beer was used at 
 sea against scurvy (4). 
 
 From 1715 to 1750 a great change came over the 
 Colonies. *'No war, no constant danger from the French 
 or Indians, no menace to shipping on the seas." Hanover- 
 ians came to the EngHsh throne and there followed what 
 Burke called "a wise and salutary neglect." "The home 
 government giving up the idea of rigidly carrying out 
 the laws of navigation and trade, offered a generous 
 nature to take her own way to perfection." 
 
 Thus the colonists entered on an era of progress and 
 consequent prosperity. 
 
 The clearing of land, raising food, producing clothing, 
 with the establishment of commerce, by which some 
 necessities and comforts were provided which it was not 
 possible to make at home, were practically the whole busi- 
 ness of the inhabitants, until the final struggle for inde- 
 pendence in 1776, when a seven years' war and six years 
 or more of labor in organizing and establishing a civil 
 government left little time or thought for improvement 
 in the methods or tools of agriculture which marked the 
 next century. 
 
 The only plow in use, up to the nineteenth century was 
 an unwieldy, heavy, wooden affair. The harrow was 
 wooden, with wooden pegs (45). The farm tools were 
 made locally; rakes, forks, axe helves, shovels with 
 wrought iron edges, flails, baskets and yokes, cheese 
 presses, bowls and paddles (53), 
 
 The means of transportation were, of course, very 
 limited. Carts with one or two horses were used on the 
 farm, but oxen were preferred for the heavier work. 
 
 Pleasure carriages were first seen in Middlesex County 
 about 1750 (16), and in Litchfield in 1776 and there 
 
326 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 were few there until after the Revolutionary War. In 
 1761 there were only four "chaises" in New Haven. 
 
 New England soon became a network of roads and 
 highways, with main routes connecting important towns, 
 country roads and lanes, pent roads and private ways 
 leading to outlying sections (4). 
 
 Connecticut roads had a bad reputation. There were 
 few bridges, troublesome ferries and much soft and 
 rocky ground. They were referred to by travellers as 
 "most miserable" and "most intolerable." 
 
 These conditions were considerably improved in the 
 latter part of the century and bridges over the larger 
 rivers were more common. As roads are the subject of 
 another paper in this volume no further notice of them is 
 needed here. 
 
 As to the principal crops raised in the eighteenth cen- 
 tury: 
 
 Indian corn continued to be the chief staple crop both 
 for family use and for stock feed. Eliot raised 60 to 70 
 bushels to the acre and the following year 90 bushels. The 
 Rev. Peters (52), says 40 to sixty bushels are raised on 
 even land; 30 to 40 on hilly land, but this latter weighs 
 13 pounds to the bushel more than that raised on river 
 land. Dwight, writing in the early part of the nineteenth 
 century, (24, Vol. I), says the average yield of corn is 
 25 bushels but he has seen crops of 118 bushels. 
 
 It was hoped to make the stalks available for the man- 
 ufacture of molasses. Stiles notes (62), "This is done 
 with only the Topping of the corn without damaging the 
 Ear or Grain. In old York, 8 M. from Portsmo. are 
 erected last week two Mills consisting of three plane 
 Wooden Cylinders with the Improvement of Cogs atop. 
 In these Mills they have already made considerable Mo- 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 327 
 
 lasses from Corn Tops and some of the Molasses has been 
 distilled into good Rum. It is said that the Produce is at 
 the rate of two Bbls. Molasses to an acre of Corn." ''At 
 Dr. Gales in Killingworth, As I had first tasted good Mo- 
 lasses, 21st. Oct. at Greenfld made of Cornstalks, so here 
 Dr. Gale first showed me Spirits made of the Juice which 
 I tasted and also saw it sink Oyl." (62, Vol. II). And 
 later on, "At Middletown ten thousand gallons of stalk 
 juice were delivered in this fall to one distillery which 
 distilled near a thousand gallons of good rum." 
 
 The business began much earlier in the century. In 
 1717 (75, Vol. II), the General Court granted the sole 
 right to make molasses from Indian corn to Edward Hin- 
 man of Stratford. It does not appear that this business 
 ever became extensive. 
 
 Wheat was considerably grown until the appearance of 
 the Hessian fly when wheat growing was nearly aban- 
 doned. There were few varieties grown of both summer 
 and winter kinds. "But corn is very much the staple and 
 a scarcity of it affects the country more than a failure of 
 wheat." 
 
 Dwight, (24, Vol. I), says that the Hessian fly first 
 appeared in New England in 1787, entering Fairfield Co. 
 and advancing about twenty miles a year. Peters says 
 that wheat generally yields from 20 to 30 bushels per 
 acre (52). Dwight puts the average production at 15 
 bushels though he has known of 40 bushels per acre. 
 
 Rye and barley were also grown. 
 
 Regarding forage, Eliot, in 1749, (25, Vol. II), com- 
 plains of the scarcity of hay and corn which is increasing. 
 The stock of the country has outgrown the meadows so 
 that the high price of hay limits the live stock. In a hard 
 winter the scarcity of hay must be made up with corn 
 
328 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 and rather than lose cattle the farmers pinch their fami- 
 lies. 
 
 He mentions only two grasses native to the country, 
 Herd's grass or timothy and Foul Meadow grass, which 
 he pronounces to be much the best of the two. The seed 
 of these and of clover could be bought in market in 1765.. 
 The lack of good meadow both for pasture and hay con- 
 tinued till the beginning of the nineteenth century. 
 "Agricola," writing to the Connecticut Courant, March 
 3, 1784, says: ''The parching heats to which this country 
 is exposed often occasions a want of summer pasture as 
 well as winter fodder. It is therefore of the utmost mo- 
 ment that the American cultivators should be informed 
 that artificial meadows constitute one-half of the rural 
 riches of Europe." He states that any farmers who wish 
 to experiment in the matter may get the seed from Nor- 
 mandy by applying to the French consul's office for which 
 the only charges will be its purchase price in Normandy 
 with land carriage from Caen to Port I'Orient. This is 
 made possible by the generosity of His Most Christian 
 Majesty, the King of France. He then discusses the 
 merits of clover, sain foin, lucerne, (alfalfa), and Hy- 
 vernage, a species of winter vetch. 
 
 The time of the introduction of potatoes seems to be 
 somewhat uncertain, probably between 1705 and 1750 
 (10). Andrews states, (4), that they were not intro- 
 duced until after the advent of the Scotch-Irish in 1720, 
 and they did not for some time become a common vege- 
 table. 
 
 A few appear, probably as a curiosity, at a Harvard 
 dinner in 1708 (75). Trumbull gives the date of their 
 introduction into Connecticut as 1720 (70, Vol. I). They 
 were first seen in Windsor' in 1760 (65). and were little 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 329 
 
 used there till after the revolution; (53), but a corres- 
 pondent in Saybrook writes to President Stiles in 1767, 
 (61, p. 463), "We improve in potatoes in this colony ex- 
 ceedingly. Many farmers raise 500 (bushels) per An. 
 T don't think myself stored without 150 bushels per An. 
 They make butter and beef and store excellently well." 
 
 Wethersfield is the traditional home of the onion and 
 there is record, (64), of their being an article of trade as 
 early as 1710. Later large quantities were raised here and 
 shipped to New York. 
 
 In 1780 Wethersfield citizens protested against an act 
 of the Committee of Public Safety which forbade ship- 
 ment or sale of produce outside the State. Anticipating a 
 great demand Wethersfield had raised more onions than 
 ever and many more than the army and navy could use, 
 and the excess they could neither sell nor barter for the 
 selling to army and navy had to be done through an agent 
 of the government who would take only a moderate share 
 of the crop. The growers were therefore in great dis- 
 tress. 
 
 A traveller notes in 1788 that "Wethersfield is remark- 
 able for its vast fields uniformly covered with onions, of 
 which great quantities are exported to the West Indies." 
 
 The common garden vegetables and herbs as we have 
 seen were usually raised in the preceding century. 
 
 Maple sugar was made in Norfolk and Goshen and 
 probably in many other parts of the Colony. In 1774 
 16,000 pounds were produced in Norfolk and in 1784 a 
 third more (62, Vol. III). 
 
 As we have seen, fruit, particularly apples, were grown 
 in considerable quantity early in the settlement and were 
 used largely for making cider. The planting of orchards 
 
330 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 apparently increased with the increasing quiet and pros- 
 perity and more attention was paid to the finer varieties. 
 
 Dudley, states that in 1726 Pearmain, Kentish Pippin 
 and Golden Russetin were esteemed apples in New Eng- 
 land and Orange and Bergamont were cultivated pears. 
 It is likely that at first many of the apple trees were seed- 
 lings and their fruit was mainly ''cider apples" rather 
 than good eating varieties. In a paper on the Pioneers of 
 Pomology in New Haven, (44, Vol. I), the author says 
 that Benjamin Douglass was the first propagator of fine 
 fruit in New Haven known to him. In 1775 he planted 
 64 cherry trees, all grafted. White and Black Ox Hearts, 
 Honey Heart and May Duke. In 1780 or soon after 
 grafts of Delancey pear and a large, sweet, red apple were 
 distributed and the pear, called Jonah, was still alive in 
 1865. 
 
 Nathan Beers, before 1779 grew Catharine, Jargonelle, 
 Warden, St. Michael's Bergamont and many other pears. 
 T. S. Gold of West Cornwall reports (21), that he has a 
 Seeknofurther, grafted near the ground, the last survivor 
 of an orchard which he believes was set out in 1760. 
 
 Of other than food crops, the growing of flax, hemp, silk 
 and broom corn was undertaken with more or less suc- 
 cess. Broom corn was early cultivated in Wethersfield 
 and in 1797 the first broom was made from this plant 
 (64). It is matter of tradition that Benjamin Franklin 
 introduced this plant in 1781 from seed which he saved 
 from a whisk broom that came from the West Indies. 
 Previously brooms were made from splints. 
 
 Hemp was greatly needed for cordage for the vessels 
 built on the coast and the Indian hemp was not satisfac- 
 tory in quality or sufficient in supply. The growing of 
 English hemp became necessary. In 1734, (15, Vol. VII), 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 331 
 
 the Colony offered bounties for good, well-dressed, water- 
 rotted hemp in lots of not less than 50 pounds, raised in 
 the Colony and for "well wrought canvas or duck," In 
 1740, (10), every family was ordered to get at least a 
 spoonful of English hemp seed and "sow in some f rutfull 
 soyle, at least a foote distant between every seed, and the 
 same so planted, shall presarve and keepe in husbandl)' 
 manner for supply of seed for another yeare." 
 
 Later bounties were ofTered by the court for fine linen 
 cloth woven in the Colony. In 1787 the State ordered that 
 forty shillings per acre of land on which hemp was raised 
 should be abated by the assessors on the tax of said land 
 and after 1789 a duty was to be laid on imported hemp. 
 
 More important to the families of Connecticut was 
 flax. Cotton goods were very scarce. "Cotton wool" had 
 long ago been imported from the West Indies in very 
 moderate quantity but it was used not for making cotton 
 fabrics but for the lining of vests to be worn as a protec- 
 tion against the arrows of the Indians. In 1643 every 
 family in New Haven plantation was required by law to 
 have a coat of cotton wool well and substantially made, 
 "so as it may be fit for service and custom" ; and probably 
 the law required this until there was no longer danger of 
 an Indian attack. 
 
 Until the beginning of the nineteenth century the com- 
 mon wearing apparel, at least outside the centers of popu- 
 lation, as well as other household fabrics, were homespun 
 and spun and woven by the family or the immediate 
 neighborhood from home-grown wool and flax. In some 
 places this home weaving continued well into the nine- 
 teenth century but probably little flax was grown after 
 1830. Apparently it was grown on a considerable scale 
 
332 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 for a time for its oil and the cake from the presses was 
 used for feed as it is at the present time. 
 
 The growing of mulberry trees and silk worms and the 
 manufacture of sewing silk and silk fabrics was an indus- 
 try which had its rise and considerable development in 
 this century. Stiles states that the first silk worms raised 
 in New England were grown by Rev. Dr. Wigglesworth 
 of Harvard College about 1727. The industry began in 
 Connecticut about 1732, (12), and was not abandoned 
 till about 1840. 
 
 In 1734, (15, Vol. VII), the production of silk was 
 encouraged by bounties offered by the Colony for the 
 production of sewing silk and silk fabrics from silk worms 
 bred and nourished within the Colony. 
 
 In 1747, Governor Law wore the first coat and stock- 
 ings made of New England silk and in 1750 his daughter 
 wore the first gown made of the same material. Governor 
 Leete raised silk and wore a suit of it about 1783. 
 
 President Stiles of Yale College took great interest in 
 the project and probably did more than any one else to 
 make possible a chance of success in the industry, by his 
 careful studies in breeding and feeding the worms and in 
 getting mulberry trees planted throughout the State, the 
 foliage of which is the sole food of the worms. In the 
 library of Yale University is a manuscript volume with 
 the title, "Observations on the Silk Wormx and the Culture 
 of Silk, A. D. 1763, Being the Journal of an Experiment 
 in Newport, R. I., in the Summer of 1763 in Raising 
 about 3,000 Silk Worms. By Ezra Stiles." He spared 
 no manual labor, nor painstaking observation of his 
 worms and kept a full record of his daily observations. 
 These cannot be further noticed here, but it is pleasant 
 to see that this eminent divine named the three worms 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 333 
 
 which he had under very particular observation, for con- 
 venience of reference, General Wolfe, Oliver Cromwell 
 and Yeo. "General Wolfe and Oliver Cromwell, his com- 
 panion, very sluggish, eat a little or rather nibble." "Yeo 
 has not yet settled himself. Oliver in indolence below." 
 etc. 
 
 . In 1788, 1789 and 1790 Stiles sent to each of eighty 
 ministers in the State enough mulberry seed to grow 4,000 
 trees, with the understanding that at the end of three 
 years three-quarters of them shall belong to the planters 
 and the others distributed by the minister gratis in his 
 parish. In 1784 the State offered bounties for growing 
 mulberry trees under suitable conditions. In 1789 a writer 
 in the Connecticut Courant states that there were about 
 12,000 mulberry trees in the State. Silk culture was begun 
 in Mansfield and neighboring towns as early as 1760 and 
 there it maintained its foothold until about 1840. 
 
 The largest amount of reeled silk produced in any one 
 year in Mansfield is stated to have been 7,000 pounds, 
 but in general not above 3,000 pounds. The New London 
 Gazette, of March 31, 1769, states that William Hanks 
 of Mansfield is now "cultivating a large vineyard and last 
 year raised silk sufficient to make three women's gowns." 
 A very limited amount of silk was produced in many 
 places through the State until about 1835 when a silk bub- 
 ble business grew rapidly until about 1839 or 1840 when 
 it burst and ended silk culture in this State. The Morus 
 multicaulis is a mulberry growing more rapidly and hav- 
 ing much larger leaves than the black or white mulberry 
 which had been grown hitherto. Nurseries of the multi- 
 caulis were established and the prices of trees rose from 
 one and two dollars apiece to as much as $300 to $vSOO 
 per hundred. In 1839 the nursery men suffered from the 
 
334 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 financial panic of 1837 and it appeared that the multi- 
 caulis was not hardy enough for the northern states. 
 Prices went to pieces and many nurseries were ruined. To 
 close the whole story a fatal blight of the mulberry trees 
 became common all over the country which resulted in 
 the death of the worms and the practical abandonment 
 of the business. But the failure of silk production was in- 
 evitable even if there had been no panic and no multicaitlis. 
 The feeding of silk worms can only be successfully car- 
 ried on where hand labor is exceedingly cheap and abund- 
 ant and the scale of living is very low. 
 
 Tobacco had been grown in Connecticut in the preced- 
 ing century for home consumption but in the eighteenth 
 century it had become an article of export. In 1753 in- 
 spectors were appointed to pack all tobacco which was 
 offered for sale. Stiles states that tobacco was packed in 
 hogsheads and shipped to the West Indies. It sold for 
 five-pence the pound. The date is not clear but probably 
 before 1768. 
 
 The acts of Connecticut published in 1784 provide that 
 "Whereas Tobacco is or may be a considerable Article of 
 Exportation and ought to be under such Regulation as to 
 prevent Fraud therein," each town was to elect two or 
 more surveyors or packers of tobacco, ''who shall care- 
 fully survey and search the Tobacco by them to be packed 
 and shall cull out and separate all such Hands of Tobacco 
 as are in Whole or in Part damnified in any way or by 
 any means whatever : and shall pack or press no Tobacco 
 but what is judged by him to be sound, well ripened, suffi- 
 ciently cured and every way good and merchantable." The 
 packer is required to brand each cask or container which 
 he packs with the first two letters of his name and with 
 the name of the town wherein he dwells. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 335 
 
 No one may pack his own tobacco or transport any 
 unbranded tobacco. 
 
 The object thus sought in 1784 is one of the aims of 
 the Connecticut Valley Tobacco Improvem.ent Associa- 
 tion very recently established in this State. 
 
 Along with the more strictly agricultural business of 
 the farmers of the Colony should be mentioned the tapping 
 of pine trees and the making of tar, pitch and turpentine 
 which, used to some extent at home, were articles of ex- 
 port. 
 
 From the earliest days sheep and hogs were commonly 
 raised and their numbers increased easily and rapidly. 
 Pork was sufficiently abundant to be exported. More 
 sheep were raised in Connecticut, (in 1781), than in any 
 two of the other colonies. "Their wool is better than in 
 other colonies but not so fine or good as the English" 
 (52). The wool used for clothing or bedding was spun 
 and wove in the separate families. In 1774 the General 
 Court notes that "It is practiced by some particular in- 
 habitants to turn large flocks (of sheep) on the highways 
 with a keeper and thereby eat up and destroy the herbage 
 therein to the great detriment of the poor inhabitants of 
 such towns," and orders that no one shall turn more than 
 fifty on the highway without getting permission from the 
 town (15, Vol. 14). 
 
 The number of cows increased more slowly but butter 
 and cheese were exported, at least in the latter part of the 
 century. 
 
 The town of Goshen early established a reputation and 
 foreign trade in cheese which will be noticed later. 
 
 Trouble from wolves continued through the eighteenth 
 century, though their number was very materially reduced 
 and at its close was probably so small as to make the 
 
336 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 damage done by them infrequent. Bounties were offered 
 for their destruction partly by the Colony or State and 
 partly by the town, as high as fifteen pounds, "old tenor," 
 in 1750, three pounds in 1784, which represent the ex- 
 tremes. 
 
 When Goshen was settled about 1730, bears, raccoons, 
 wolves and foxes were plenty and for a long time there- 
 after. Beavers were also found. 
 
 The wolves were especially troublesome and injurious. 
 
 In 1784 four wolves appeared one Sunday in the vi- 
 cinity of Norfolk and fearing for their stock an alarm was 
 given to the congregation in church. About eighty men 
 turned out and after a chase got all the marauders. The 
 church service was over, for them, and "the whole party 
 then retired to an Inn and spent the day in joy and fes- 
 tivity" (5). 
 
 Bears were taken in Litchfield County between 1760 
 and 1770, (16) and wild cats occasionally destroyed sheep 
 and lambs. About the same time (5), a bear was killed 
 in Bethany which had destroyed calves and bee hives and 
 even had the effrontery to enter a house and lap up the 
 milk and cream. A panther, (5), in 1767, which had 
 killed nine sheep in a yard at Windsor, was tracked and 
 killed. 
 
 Dogs, first cousins to the wolves, had become common 
 and developed that fondness for mutton which their age 
 cannot wither nor custom stale. 
 
 In 1738 a law provided that if a selectman declared that 
 evidence of harm to sheep or cattle was, in his opinion, 
 satisfactory, the dog concerned might be killed and the 
 owner be liable for damages. Any dog found at large in 
 fields or woods without a master might be lawfully killed. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 337 
 
 Various other laws regarding damage by dogs were 
 passed from 1716 to 1786. 
 
 A minor pest, then as now, was mice which occasionally 
 girdled orchard trees (25, Vol. II). 
 
 Blackbirds were enough of a plague in 1711 to cause 
 the Hartford authorities, (14, Vol. VI), to require every 
 rateable person to kill one dozen blackbirds in the four 
 months beginning with March or else to pay a fine of 
 one shilling. Those who kill more than a dozen may re- 
 ceive a penny apiece. 
 
 Wheat had been seriously affected by "blast" which 
 came to be rightly attributed to the presence of barberry 
 bushes. In the Colonial Records for 1726, page 10, it is 
 recorded "Whereas the abounding of barberry bushes is 
 thought to be very hurtful, it being by plentyful experi- 
 ence found that where they are in large quantities they 
 do occasion or at least increase, the blast on all sorts of 
 English grain," the inhabitants of each town are em- 
 powered to agree on the utter destruction of such bushes 
 within the town and the time and manner of their de- 
 struction. 
 
 A fine of ten shillings is imposed on any one who op- 
 poses the destruction, to be paid for every month he op- 
 poses until he gives free consent. Provided that if the 
 bushes are depended on for a fence, the town shall make 
 just satisfaction. 
 
 In 1784 the Laws of the State of Connecticut provide 
 that any one, with the advice and consent of the civil 
 authorities and selectmen of the town may, during March, 
 April, October and November, enter any lands where bar- 
 berry bushes are growing and dig up and destroy them 
 without being liable to any action, suit or damage. In 
 1796 the town of New Haven. ( 16) , granted $200 for the 
 
338 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 purpose of destroying the barberry bushes within its lim- 
 its and they were "principally destroyed." "The method 
 adopted to destroy them was to eradicate them." 
 
 This was nearly one hundred and fifty years before 
 botanical studies proved a direct connection between the 
 blast of wheat and barberry bushes. The farmer knew 
 nothing of Puccinia graminis and "heteroecious rusts" 
 which must spend a part of their life cycle on one plant 
 and a part on a different one. But they adopted a plan 
 which was effective and which the farmers of the middle 
 west are now carrying out at a very considerable expense. 
 
 No extended discussion of economic history is here in 
 place, but because farm produce had largely to serve the 
 purpose of money in the exchange of service, a brief 
 notice of financial conditions is proper. 
 
 The amount of money in the Colony had been relatively 
 very small ever since its settlement. The need for it had 
 also been quite limited. 
 
 As we have seen the dwellers in Connecticut for a cen- 
 tury and a half had been engaged in settling and subduing 
 a wilderness, producing food and clothing for their own 
 families and having very limited intercourse or trade with 
 the world outside." Barter took the place of a common 
 medium of exchange. But this scarcity of money became 
 an acute embarrassment when intercourse between com- 
 munities and foreign trade developed. The close of the 
 war of independence (72), found finances in almost hope- 
 less confusion and there was little improvement before 
 the end of the century. All coins, excepting coppers, were 
 foreign, many badly worn or mutilated. The Spanish 
 
 ISA farmer writes (19, Aug, 18, 1788), "At this time my farm gave me 
 and my whole family a good living on the produce of it and left me, one 
 year with another one hundred and fifty silver dollars ; for I never spent 
 more than ten dollars a year, which was for salt, nails and the like. Nothing 
 to wear, eat or drink was purchased, as my farm provided all." 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 339 
 
 "milled dollar" or "piece of eight" was most common, ob- 
 tained in the West India trade and after the war this and 
 its subdivisions were the recognized unit of account, equiv- 
 alent to the dollar. The other most common coins were the 
 French guineas and pistoles, Portuguese moidores and 
 "Johannes or "Joes" ^* and Spanish doubloons and pistoles. 
 
 The supply of fractional currency was inadequate and 
 silver pieces were often cut in halves or quarters. The 
 coins of Great Britain were in very limited circulation. 
 In 1785 Congress made the silver dollar the currency 
 basis of a decimal system. The equivalent of the dollar 
 in New England was six shillings but was different 
 in different states. Large amounts of paper, "Continen- 
 tal" money entered circulation during the war and suc- 
 ceeding years, the value of which went from bad to worse. 
 
 In 1780 one dollar in silver was the equivalent of 65 
 dollars in paper money which became "not worth a conti- 
 nental" when Congress refused to accept its own paper 
 money in payment of postage. 
 
 In November 1777, (15), Congress recommended that 
 commissioners be appointed in the several states, New 
 Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Connecticut, New York, 
 New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware to meet in New 
 Haven, to ascertain and regulate the price of labor, manu- 
 factures, internal produce and commodities, imported and 
 to recommend legislatures to enact suitable laws in ac- 
 cordance with their recommendations. There is a con- 
 siderable list of these recommended prices in lawful 
 money, six shillings to the dollar. (The "dollar" was the 
 equivalent of a "piece of eight" ).'^^ Among them are: 
 
 1* A gold coin, worth about nine dollars coined by John (Johannes) a 
 
 king of Portugal. 
 
 15 A suggested explanation of the dollar sign, $, is the use of the numeral 
 8 with two vertical lines to give it a monetary significance. 
 
340 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 Wheat, peas, beans, per bushel $ 1.61 
 
 Rye or rye meal 1.08 
 
 Indian corn or meal 75 
 
 Oats 50 
 
 Butter, (firkin or cask) per pound 20.7 — .22 
 
 Neat leather shoes 1.99 
 
 Best American steel, per ton 66.40 
 
 All through the history of the Colony^® and especially 
 towards the latter part of the eighteenth century we find 
 efforts made to regulate the price both of labor and com- 
 modities and to fix the price at which commodities could 
 be used for the payment of a part of the state or town 
 taxes. Sheldon cites, (57), "colony pay" at which grain 
 and other articles would be received for colony taxes, 
 "town prices" at which the same things would be received 
 for town taxes or for exchanges, "provision pay" was 
 grain or other food. 
 
 Thus, for paying town debts the value of wheat was 
 fixed at 6 shillings the bushel in 1722, 12 shillings in 1740, 
 16 shillings in 1742, and 17 in 1746, "old tenor." Values 
 for other cereals are also given. 
 
 The wages of laborers in Goshen (29), were fixed at 
 town meeting at 5 shillings a day, from Oct. 1 to the last 
 day of February and at 6 shillings a day for the rest of the 
 year. How this regulation was received, whether it met 
 with objection or was disregarded does not appear. The 
 mention of penalties is not prominent and one imagines 
 that the law was a convenience to facilitate barter rather 
 than a stern restriction to prevent profiteering. But in a 
 friendly neighborhood where the struggle for wealth was 
 
 The shilling would then be 12^ cents, one-eighth of the dollar or the 
 piece of eight. 
 
 18 As early as 1641 (65), the General Court regulated by statue the scale 
 of prices for different kinds ol labor, hours of day labor, etc. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 341 
 
 not pressing, because hardly obtainable, some standard 
 for exchanging provisions which did not involve money 
 must have been a great convenience. 
 
 If we agree to call a bushel of wheat this year $1.61 
 and of corn 80 cents, we manage to get one or the other 
 without dispute, though the dollar itself is far from us." 
 The Mexican, whose offer to lend his mule to a stranger 
 was thankfully accepted, replied "Oh, sir, I have no mule 
 but I beg you to receive the compliment." In like manner 
 the farmer might say to his shoemaker, 'T have no dollar 
 to pay for your work but I beg you to accept a bushel 
 and a peck of corn with my compliments." 
 
 The general progress of agriculture and its condition 
 at various times in this country may be indicated by the 
 following extracts from the reports made by the Colonial 
 government to the English Committee on Trade and 
 Foreign Plantations. These, or most of them are found 
 in manuscript copies of Foreign Correspondence with the 
 British Government 1668-1748, in State Library, pgs, 
 126, 145, 149, 165. 
 
 "The number of our inhabitants is about 4,000. (!) A 
 little pitch and turpentine and tar are sent to Great Bri- 
 tain. Trade is principally with Boston and the West In- 
 dies,^^ consisting in what is chiefly produced by tillage of 
 the land. Most people weave their cloth in their own 
 families. Horses and lumber are sent to the West Indies 
 in exchange for sugar, salt, molasses and rum." 
 
 "Coarse cloths and coarse linens are made amongst us 
 of our own wool and flax without which our people must 
 
 17 A shoemaker's ledger from 1770 to 1784 (34), shows that he was paid, 
 for making shoes, in walnuts, butter, sugar, salt, milk, wheat, rye, wool, 
 meats, cider and rum. 
 
 18 At this time only 42 vessels were owned in the colony with a tonnage 
 of 1,225, a very small gain over the year 1680. 
 
342 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 go naked or ragged ye greater part of the time. We tan 
 our own leather and make most of our own shoes." 
 
 In 1708, "The trade of this Colony is principally what 
 is produced by their tillage of the land. The manufac- 
 turers in this Colony are but few. There is but one clothier 
 in the Colony so that our people are necessitated to weave 
 the cloth that they can make in their own families with- 
 out any thing more than fulling of it, (for the most 
 part), after it comes out of the loom. All we make is not 
 enough to serve the occasions of the poorer sort." 
 
 In 1728, 'The trade of the Colony is but small. Horses 
 and lumber are exported from home to the West Indies 
 for which we ... in exchange sugar, salt, mo- 
 lasses and rum. What provisions we can spare and 
 some small yearly ... of tar and turpentine are 
 sent to Boston and New York and Rhode Island for 
 which we . . . European goods." 
 
 The last report to the Committee, made just before the. 
 Revolution, (Appendix to Public Records, 1772 to 1775) 
 names the same agricultural products as were common 
 about a hundred years before, with the addition of flax. 
 The staple commodities were pork, beef, pot and pearl 
 ashes. 
 
 The principal trade was with the West Indies with an 
 occasional cargo of flax seed to Ireland, to England with 
 lumber and potashes and a few to Gibralter and Barbary 
 with flour, lumber and New England rum. 
 
 The value of the exported produce and commodities 
 may be 200,000 pounds. Manufacture of linens and 
 woolens was done in the family, for the use of the poorer 
 .sort, laborers and servants. Iron, mostly bog iron, was 
 rmanufactured to some extent "but hitherto not a supply 
 ior our inhabitants." 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 343 
 
 In the eighteenth century three Connecticut men ap- 
 pear prominent for service in promoting and improving 
 agriculture. There were no doubt others who were also 
 leaders, but these three have left permanent records of 
 their services. Rev. Ezra Stiles, D. D., LL. D., was the 
 President of Yale College, from 1777 to 1795. He has 
 left a record of his studies in the growing of silk worms, 
 diligently carried for two years or more. He was the 
 chief agent in planting mulberry trees throughout the 
 State, which provides food for the silk worms, and he 
 showed great interest and helpfulness in all agricultural 
 matters. 
 
 Rev. Jared Eliot of Killingworth, a grandson of John 
 Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, a graduate of Yale, was 
 a clergyman of Killingworth, most acceptable in this 
 calling and it is recorded, (16), that for more than forty 
 years he never failed of preaching at home or abroad a 
 part of every Sabbath. He was also a physician, very ex- 
 tensively employed in the neighboring places "and such 
 was his reputation that he was sometimes called out of 
 the Colony." "Much of his practice was performed gratu- 
 itously and in charities he abounded." Connected with 
 his knowledge of medicine was his acquaintance with the 
 botany of the region. He was withal a successful farmer 
 and "acquired a large landed estate which laid the founda- 
 tion for the wealth of a numerous family." But aside 
 from his example as a progressive and successful farmer, 
 his chief service was in his writings, the most interesting 
 of which is a series of Essays upon Field Husbandry 
 in New England as it is or may be Ordered. This, it 
 is believed, was the first practical agricultural treatise 
 written in this country. 
 
 The first of these essays appeared in 1748 and in sub- 
 
344 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 sequent years five others, with an index concluding the 
 series in 1761. 
 
 He discusses the handling of tilled land, drainage, the 
 grasses which he finds most useful, the production of 
 silk, the use of creek mud as a fertilizer, etc. He intro- 
 duced and urged the growing of clover which made its 
 way into general farming very slowly (25, Vol. II). He 
 was an experimenter and reported the results of his 
 work for the benefit of the public. Prof. Eli Ives, in an 
 address before the New Haven Horticultural Society in 
 1837 states that Jared Eliot introduced chicory into this 
 State and that he was the first native citizen of this coun- 
 try to be elected a member of the Royal Society of Lon- 
 don. He also appears to have been the first to introduce 
 an agricultural machine, a seed and fertilizer drill. Start- 
 ing with Jethro Tull's wheat drill which he found very 
 intricate and expensive, "But knew not how to mend it, 
 therefore applied myself to the Reverend Mr. Clapp, 
 President of Yale College and desired him for the regard 
 which he had to the public and to me, that he would apply 
 his mathematical learning and mechanical genius, in that 
 affair, which he did to such good purpose that this new 
 modelled drill can be made with a fourth part of what 
 Mr. Tull's will cost." 
 
 Next Eliot wanted a dung drill for which there was 
 no model or precedent available. But Benonai Hylliard 
 of Killingworth, a wheelwright, devised one which was 
 combined with the seed drill so that they became one tool 
 and could distribute 80 bushels of dung per acre, along 
 with the seed. Eliot adds that Tull writes, "Two shil- 
 lings in horse plowing would do more than forty shillings 
 in dung." 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 345 
 
 To this Eliot remarks, 'T should be glad, if in our 
 climate one-half of this would prove true." 
 
 The perfected drill received an award of fifty pounds 
 offered by the New London Society for the Encourage- 
 ment of Arts, and there was dispute between the estate 
 of Jared Eliot and Hylliard as to the possession of this 
 award. 
 
 Agriculture in the Nineteenth Century 
 
 The agriculture of the seventeenth century had been a 
 struggle of each family to produce for itself by its own 
 labor, food, clothing and shelter and to defend itself 
 against the attacks of Indians and the ravages of wild 
 beasts which together threatened the destruction of the 
 settlements. It was truly a struggle for existence. 
 
 Agriculture in the eighteenth century had been less 
 menaced in these ways but was interrupted by the war 
 with the mother country, by emigration to western lands 
 and by the political agitation incident to the establishment 
 of a federal union. These were matters of great concern 
 to men who had fled from what they considered political 
 and religious injustice, matters not to be left to the tender 
 mercies of a politician class but to be anxiously and often 
 acrimoniously discussed in their town meetings as well 
 as in the state legislative assembly by men who thought 
 more about the future of the State than of improvements 
 in agriculture. 
 
 In general each family formed a closed circle, contain- 
 ing within itself both producers and consumers in about 
 equal proportion. 
 
 "The close of the Revolution found the State greatly 
 impoverished. The demands made on the State for pro- 
 visions for the army," says Gov. Trumbull," were "vastlv 
 
346 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 beyond her just proportion. Payment in depreciated cur- 
 rency involved financial loss and discontent. Connecti- 
 cut also bore the expense of defending her own coasts, 
 an expense which the federal government refused to as- 
 sume" (34). 
 
 At the beginning of the nineteenth century nine-tenths 
 of the inhabitants got most of their living from the farm.^® 
 Even those who had other business or profession, arti- 
 zans, lawyers, physicians and clergymen, all had farming 
 land and supported themselves partly from its produce. 
 
 This is illustrated by a statement that the doctors in 
 Canterbury practiced medicine "when they had nothing 
 more important to do," and the inventory of a physician 
 in that region, besides his stock of drugs, included a pair 
 of oxen, thirteen cows, thirty-five head of young cattle 
 and sheep, swine, hay, farming tools, etc. It was usual 
 to set aside a tract of land for the support of the minister 
 and he also was often dependent, in part, for support, on 
 his own work in farming. 
 
 It was only a very inconsiderable portion of the popu- 
 lation which did not clothe and feed itself, mostly by its 
 own labor and on its own land. The sum total of manu- 
 factures was not large and manufacturing, particularly 
 of clothing and other textiles, was chiefly done, not in 
 factories but in families and was, up to this time, largely 
 for home or community consumption. 
 
 The methods of agriculture made no marked improve- 
 ment in these two centuries. Bidwell, (8), says "The 
 ignorance and the conservatism of farmers were to some 
 extent hindrances to agricultural progress, cheap land on 
 
 19 In 1810 about one-tenth of the population lived in towns of between 
 five and six thousand, one-quarter in towns of between three and five 
 thousand dwellers (average thirty-seven hundred), and about two-thirds in 
 still smaller communities. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 347 
 
 the frontier discouraged cultivation at home; but these 
 circumstances do not, either alone or in combination, fur- 
 nish a sufficient explanation of the state of the industry 
 which prevailed. 
 
 'Tn the background lay a condition of much more sig- 
 nificance because of its determining force upon all the 
 others. I refer to the lack of a market for agricultural 
 products." The author asserts that with a suitable mar- 
 ket, neither ignorance of methods, nor cheap land inviting 
 extensive rather than intensive farming would have stood 
 in the way of agricultural progress. But with little or 
 no chance to sell a surplus of corn, butter, cheese, etc., 
 of what use was it for the inland farmers to raise such a 
 surplus ? It was time and labor wasted. 
 
 Agriculture was waiting for an increase of non-pro- 
 ducing population, and facilities for foreign trade which 
 were to come with improved means of transportation 
 and the growth of manufactures and of shipping. 
 
 The condition of agriculture at the beginning of this 
 century is set forth by Purcell as follows (54) : ''Ameri- 
 can agriculture at the beginning of the nineteenth century 
 was inferior to that of England" (24, Vol. I) . "The small 
 free holder with fifty to one hundred and fift}' acres 
 could not afford to be progressive. Content with a 
 tolerable crop which covered local demand, he was con- 
 tented to scratch the top of an exha^usted soil with an an- 
 tiquated plow, sow home grown seed on unharrowed 
 fields and await the harvest. Indian corn, the staple crop, 
 was cultivated as the aborigines had taught the first 
 settlers, fertilized by white fish or sea weed." 
 
 ''Small apple orchards furnished cider apples for cider 
 brandy," but not exclusively for brandy making. Cider 
 itself was a common, not to say an almost universal drink 
 
348 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 in families and some good eating apples were also grown. 
 The housewife also made store of dried apples and apple 
 butter for winter use. In the aggregate, ''the production 
 of butter and cheese was large." "Sheep were of a mongrel 
 type producing little wool." "Oxen were used for heavy 
 work on the farm and horses chiefly for driving." "Swine 
 alone were considered up to the standard by foreign ob- 
 servers." "The fodder for livestock was insufficient; the 
 lack of nourishment coupled with imperfect shelter and 
 inattention to the principles of selection in breeding, had 
 caused a general degeneration in practically all kinds of 
 domestic animals." ^° 
 
 "In general the system of agriculture was not only ex- 
 tensive but even in many respects predatory : the farmers 
 had little stimulus to get anything beyond a living." "The 
 call for food supply in commercial towns can scarcely be 
 said to have had any influence on the prosperity of the 
 (farming) population or on farming methods in the 
 inland region." Trade and barter were generally prac- 
 ticed in the inland towns, to provide certain luxuries and 
 comforts which the farm could not supply, such as coffee, 
 tea, sugar and — let it be whispered — rum. As to the 
 markets for produce outside the State, there was a limited 
 trade with the City of New York, then of 100,000 in- 
 habitants, the southern states and the West Indies, 
 chiefly from the river and shore towns of Connecticut. 
 In the New York market there was competition with the 
 Dutch settlers on Long Island and the nearby New Jersey 
 and New York farmers. New Haven also shipped in the 
 coasting trade cheese, pork and hams, butter, lard and 
 cereals (8), the only vegetables being small amounts of 
 
 20 The situation is admirably set forth in detail in P. W. Bidwell's Rural 
 Economy in New England at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century. (8) 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 349 
 
 beans and potatoes, most being transhipped to the West 
 Indies. Other towns shared in this coastwise trade. The 
 Connecticut River and Long Island Sound furnished the 
 only convenient channels for moving the produce of Con 
 necticut to market. But these means for carrying and 
 trading in the products of the farm were entirely inade- 
 quate to serve the inland towns. 
 
 The public roads and highways were in wretched con- 
 dition, being generally in charge of incompetent mana- 
 gers and inefficient workmen who were either impressed 
 by the town or were "working out" their road tax. Co- 
 operation between towns and counties in laying out and 
 building highways was not always easy. In short, there 
 was neither adequate means of transporting farm prod- 
 uce from the inland producers to consumers, nor any 
 great demand for them. Connecticut had been, essentially 
 on a circular one track business. It might have suited a 
 literalist who could quote from the Scripture, "Having 
 therefore food and raiment let us be therewith content." 
 
 It may not be amiss to mention two traits which have 
 been commonly ascribed to the Connecticut Yankee and 
 which were developed in these many years of struggle 
 with adverse conditions. The first is a close and some- 
 tim.es parsimonious economy. Of this Horace Bushnell 
 wrote, "It was also a great point in this homespun mode 
 of life, that it imparted what many speak of only v/ith 
 contempt, a closely girded habit of economy. 
 
 Harnessed all together in the producing process, young 
 and old, male and female, from the boy that rode the 
 plow horse to the grandmother knitting under her spec- 
 tacles, they had no conception of squandering lightly what 
 they had all been at work, thread by thread, and grain 
 by grain to produce" (8). But along with this there was 
 
350 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 also of necessity developed a spirit of comradeship and 
 an exercise of mutual helpfulness in all times of need; 
 for they were "members one of another." 
 
 Other traits ascribed to the Yankee were ingenuity and 
 resourcefulness. In an unsettled country, without di- 
 vision of labor, with almost no factories, the farmer had 
 to be his own mechanic, machinist and architect. 
 
 Inventiveness, which was at first a necessity in making 
 tools and appliances for his own house and farm, fostered 
 by the native mental alertment of the settler and the facili- 
 ties for general education, instantly applied itself to in- 
 vention and manufacturing as a separate business when 
 the political troubles of the early nineteenth century 
 stopped trade with the factories of the old world. 
 
 But here began a new agriculture. 
 
 In a century where the growth of knowledge of the 
 laws of nature and the art of bringing the work of the 
 world into co-operation with them, had been greater than 
 in all the world's previous history, it was inevitable that 
 agriculture, the basic industry of our people, should have 
 made rapid advances in methods ; in supplementing hand 
 labor by machinery, reducing the man power required on 
 the farm, facilitating transportation and trade, improv- 
 ing the quality of live stock and the types of cultivated 
 plants and restoring the fertility of soils, temporarily ex- 
 hausted by the rude agriculture of the previous centuries. 
 
 The course of Connecticut farming in this century may 
 be roughly divided into four periods. First, the period 
 of self sufficient economy, at its highest point of develop- 
 ment in the early years of the century. Second, the period 
 of transition to commercial agriculture — agriculture as 
 a business — due to the development of manufacturing 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 351 
 
 and foreign trade which involved a large non-farming 
 population. 
 
 This lasted till near the middle of the century. Third, 
 the period in which Connecticut agriculture was greatly 
 depressed by western and later by southern competition. 
 Fourth, the period of abandonment of the less productive 
 lands and the unprofitable crops and more intensive pro- 
 duction of the very perishable farm products, fruit, vege- 
 tables, milk, etc., for consumption in adjacent cities. 
 
 Each of these periods has forced important changes in 
 the kind of farm products raised, a resulting loss of in- 
 vested capital and in some cases the abandonment of 
 farms and the desolation of rural communities. 
 
 These changes also wrought a diversification of farm- 
 ing, caused by differences of soil and climate, (there is 
 enough difference in the length of the growing season 
 between the northern and southern counties to affect 
 the yield of certain crops), opportunities of foreign trade, 
 etc. Thus at nearly the same time, horse and mule breed- 
 ing for the West India trade, was a paying business in 
 the eastern part of the State, in the northwest cheese 
 making was popular and profitable, while in New Haven 
 and specially in Fairfield Counties more flax and flax 
 seed were grown than in the whole of New England be- 
 sides. 
 
 The history of Connecticut agriculture in this century 
 is the history, not of the development of a single great 
 business like cattle or wheat growing, but of raising vari- 
 ous kinds of farm products, beef, dairying, special crops, 
 like flax, tobacco, onions, etc., at times promoted, at other 
 times depressed by wars, financial crises and the develop- 
 ment of competition with other places, largely caused by 
 
352 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 the growth of transportation facilities and cheap western 
 lands. 
 
 In the eighteenth century, as we have noticed, trade 
 had begun, chiefly with the West Indies, but early in the 
 nineteenth century trade and commerce greatly expanded. 
 The north Atlantic states were the food states. The de- 
 mand for provisions, fresh, salted, pickled or dried, be- 
 sides livestock and naval stores, was great and trade with 
 the warring countries of Europe, as well as with the West 
 Indies was very profitable — and at times very risky. The 
 United States was the only constantly neutral country 
 with food to sell and ships to carry it and agriculture, 
 shipbuilding and trade greatly prospered for a time. 
 But from about 1807 to 1916 embargos, spoliations, non- 
 intercourse acts and war with Great Britain and all the 
 measures of other countries to impede our manufactures 
 and commerce, depressed farming in one direction and 
 caused a marvellous expansion of manufacturing. Some 
 capital had already been collected by commerce and an 
 intelligent and energetic labor force immediately pushed 
 the business of manufacture when European suppHes 
 were cut off and increased the demand for domestic 
 goods which grew in volume and lessened the number of 
 food producers. 
 
 But it did not for some time greatly concentrate popu- 
 lation in manufacturing centers. In 1840 this State had 
 a population of 310,015. About one-sixth of them were 
 engaged in manufacture (not including farm produce, 
 butter and cheese, cutting lumber, etc.) 
 
 Boots and shoes were extensively made, but no shoe 
 factories are listed. The work was let out to be done in 
 families. There are 2,166 "factories" listed, but their 
 •size is shown by the fact that the average number of 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 353 
 
 hands in each of the 284 textile mills was thirty. Eighty- 
 seven different manufactures are listed and every town 
 had a considerable number. With all these factories only 
 29;000 tons of coal were used, small water powers, wood 
 and perhaps charcoal furnished the rest of the needed 
 power. It is obvious that many of the "manufacturers" 
 were also farmers to the extent of growing more or less 
 of their own food (66). 
 
 The factory system of England became established in 
 America in the second quarter of the nineteenth century 
 and the development of manufactures on a very large 
 scale has been since 1880 (9). 
 
 While the total population of the State was 2.2 times as 
 large in 1920 as in 1880, the population of eight of our 
 manufacturing towns was about 3.3 as large as it was 
 forty years ago and includes a little over half of the pop- 
 ulation of the State. In 1880 it included about one-third. 
 
 The agencies which helped to make the art of agricul- 
 ture more intelligent and productive by bringing to its aid 
 the results of farm experience here and elsewhere were 
 the following: 
 
 Farmers Organizations. Agricultural Societies. 
 These gatherings drew their members from the isolation 
 of their farm life, secured social intercourse, the exchange 
 of ideas and experience, instruction from agricultural 
 ^^aders and by frequent shows and fairs promoted a 
 healthy emulation in crop and livestock production. 
 
 The agricultural societies were not meant to be just 
 clubs for the exchange of facts and personal farm experi- 
 ence, but included men of all professions who were to re- 
 ceive, adopt and spread the knowledge of the farming 
 progress of all countries. This they did in the earlier 
 
354 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 years of the century, but later their chief activity was in 
 providing annual fairs or agricultural shows. 
 
 A "Society for Promoting Agriculture in the State of 
 Connecticut" was formed by persons from several towns, 
 at Wallingford, Aug. 12th. 1794 and a constitution was 
 adopted Nov, 11th, 1794. Its members were invited to 
 make experiments in the various departments of agri- 
 culture and the constitution of the Society contemplated 
 the free communication of that information. Many ex- 
 periments were made by the members themselves and 
 their observation was extended to the improvements of 
 their neighbors; the queries v/hich were framed by the 
 Society were distributed to stimulate a spirit of investi- 
 gation and the report of useful facts to the Society, that 
 they might be preserved for general use. Both oral and 
 written communications to the Society were encouraged 
 and the former committed to writing. 
 
 "This Society shall reject all doubtful or suspicious 
 facts in communications made to the Society." The 
 queries issued by the Society cover the whole range of 
 farm practice. 
 
 In its Transactions, published in New Haven, in 1802, 
 a considerable number of experiments are recorded, 
 chiefly with fertilizers and amendments and each article 
 is signed by the contributor. This Society was probably 
 the fifth of its kind to be organized in the United States. 
 
 Regarding it Prof. Brewer states that it met at various 
 places in New Haven County, but its influence extended 
 over other parts of the State. A new constitution was 
 adopted in 1803. A library was started in 1807. There 
 ^- seems to be some confusion regarding the name of the 
 ^ vSociety. In 1709 in the call for meetings it is named 
 "The Agricultural Society of the State of Connecticut." 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 355 
 
 From 1803 to 1818 it was called "The Society for Pro- 
 moting Agriculture in the State of Connecticut." But 
 when the Society applied for incorporation the General 
 Assembly was unwilling to grant this name, but granted 
 the name of "The Agricultural Society of New Haven." 
 
 At first many papers were read on agricultural topics 
 at its meetings which were quite regularly held and in 
 1813 it was "Resolved that a discourse be delivered be- 
 fore the Society at New Haven on the day following the 
 public Commencement of Yale College, at 11 A. M. an- 
 nually." 
 
 In 1819 apparently it began holding an agricultural 
 and manufacturing show in the county. In 1820 the presi- 
 dent of Yale College and the clergy of the county are 
 made honorary members of the Society. 
 
 A circular issued in 1840 speaks of a "revival" of the 
 Society and there are no records of meetings between 
 1822 and 1840. In 1841 the Transactions of this Society 
 and of the New Haven Horticultural Society were 
 printed in a pamphlet of 84 pages. The annual fairs were 
 revived and held for a time in the town which raised the 
 most money for the expenses of the fair. Thus in Water- 
 bury, in 1847, there were exhibited 1,300 head of horned 
 cattle of which 300 came from Watertown, and about 
 10,000 people attended the fair. In 1848 it was voted to 
 ask the General Assembly for an appropriation for a pro- 
 fessorship of agriculture in Yale College and Prof. J. P. 
 Norton was asked to deliver a lecture on agriculture be- 
 fore the Society during the next session of the Legislature 
 and that members of both houses be requested to attend. 
 
 The manuscript records of the Society end in 1860. 
 
 The Hartford Agricultural Society was founded and 
 incorporated in 1817, suspended in 1831, revived in 1840, 
 
356 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 and in that year published a pamphlet of its Proceedings. 
 It held fairs from 1854 to 1857 and perhaps later. The 
 Horticultural Society of New Haven, organized in 1830, 
 incorporated in 1833, was intended to take the place of 
 the Agricultural Society of Connecticut, then moribund, 
 but later invigorated. The Society published reports in 
 pamphlet form with premium lists and occasional papers. 
 The Society still exists. Other agricultural societies were 
 established as follows: Litchfield County, about 1839; 
 Windham, Fairfield and Middlesex Counties in 1840. The 
 latter led a precarious life until 1851 when it became more 
 prosperous. Its reports were published in the Middle- 
 town papers. The Tolland County Society was established 
 in 1853 and the New London Society in 1854. The Green- 
 wood Agricultural Society was founded in the northern 
 part of Litchfield County, in 1844. In the same year 
 the Pomological Society of New Haven was established. 
 The Hartford Horticultural Society was organized in 
 1849. For a time it held weekly exhibits of fruits, 
 flowers and vegetables, from June to October. 
 
 But by the middle of the century most of these so- 
 cieties became dead and alive affairs, affected with sleep- 
 ing sickness (18), only waking at times to make an ex- 
 hibition, which was a kind of farm outing, reviving again 
 with some vigor, under the management of some ex- 
 ceptionally efficient officer, then dozing again, or splitting 
 up into smaller local groups. 
 
 But in 1852 H. A. Dyer prepared a bill which was 
 passed, incorporating The State Agricultural Society and 
 wrote its constitution which was adopted in June of that 
 year. The first annual meeting was held on Jan. 11th, 
 1854. The aim of the Society is thus explained: "The 
 Society seeks to disseminate a knowledge of agricultural 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 357 
 
 science among farmers by encouraging the institution of 
 clubs in the several towns where the experience of prac- 
 tical men may be gathered and the theories of scientific 
 men discussed and subjected to experiment by members. 
 
 The Society also recommends the use of elementary 
 science books in common schools, the preparation of 
 teachers in normal schools for instruction in these studies 
 and gathering the products of agriculture in this State 
 and bringing men together to enjoy an annual harvest 
 festival." There appears to have been a federation of 
 county agricultural societies, each of which chose a dele- 
 gate to sit as a member of the executive committee. The 
 first fair was held in New Haven in 1854 at which pre- 
 miums of $3,500 were offered. Subsequent fairs of this 
 Society were held annually in New Haven and Hartford 
 and one at least in Bridgeport. 
 
 From 1854 till 1S59 this Society printed a report of 
 its Transactions. It is said that these publications con- 
 tinued till 1867, but I have not been able to find them. 
 Besides some reports of the proceedings and fairs of the 
 other agricultural societies, they contain notable papers 
 on various agricultural subjects. For example, in 1855 
 Prof. John A. Porter offers a plan for an agricultural 
 school. In 1856 is a paper by T. S. Gold, The Natural 
 Flora of a District Indicates its Natural Capacity. The 
 first of Prof. S. W. Johnson's reports on Commercial 
 Fertilizers was published in the Transactions of 1856, 
 followed by further reports in the two following years. 
 In the report of 1858 he published an Essay on Peat, 
 Muck and Commercial Fertilizers which was the basis 
 of his book on Peat and its Uses, long the standard au- 
 thority on that subject. In 1856 there is an interesting 
 paper by H. A. Dyer on Tobacco. 
 
358 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 Probably one result of the discussions of these agri- 
 cultural societies was the testing of various old world 
 crops and plants; lucerne, vetches, spelt, rape, poppies, 
 madder, woad, etc., most of which were soon found to 
 be of little or no value in this State. Alfalfa and rape 
 still have consideration and occasional patches of alfalfa 
 still found in headlands and fence corners, are rehcs of 
 tests made long ago. 
 
 Incidentally should be mentioned the small local 
 "Farmers Clubs" which were most numerous in the last 
 quarter of the century and were to the neighborhood 
 what the Agricultural Society was to the county. 
 
 The first Farmers Club of which record is found was 
 organized in Middletown about 1842. It was to hold six 
 meetings between October and May. "No question is to 
 be discussed but such as shall immediately relate to agri- 
 culture." 
 
 Many of these agricultural societies still exist, but the 
 sole purpose of most of them is to hold an agricultural 
 fair each year, offering premiums which are paid in part 
 by a state appropriation. 
 
 (At this writing, 1924, thirty-nine fairs have assigned 
 dates for the present year.) The State Agricultural So- 
 ciety is still in existence and holds an annual show, but 
 it has greater influence in popularizing horse racing and 
 the attractions of a midway than in promoting agricul- 
 ture. Yet in the Fifties this society was very active and 
 became the forerunner of the State Board of Agriculture 
 which was for a long time the single rallying point of 
 farmers. 
 
 The Board of Agriculture. This Board was in- 
 corporated by the General Assembly at the May session 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 359 
 
 of 1866. It was made up of the Governor, one person 
 appointed from each County by the agricuhural societies 
 which received an annual bounty from the State and four 
 appointed by the Governor with the consent of the Senate. 
 The Board met and organized on August 1st, 1866. The 
 Governor was elected president, E. H. Hyde, vice-presi- 
 dent and T. S. Gold, secretary. The Board was to in- 
 vestigate such subjects as it thought proper relating to 
 improvements in agriculture and horticulture, to investi- 
 :gate and regulate returns of Agricultural Societies and 
 make report on them and to inquire into the wants and 
 methods of practical husbandry, encouraging the estab- 
 lishment of farmers clubs, agricultural libraries and 
 reading rooms, and to disseminate useful informa- 
 tion in agriculture, by means of lectures and otherwise. 
 The first of its public meetings was held Jan. 8, 9, and 10, 
 1867, in New Haven. 
 
 The Board of Agriculture proved to be the organiza- 
 tion which was most needed and most effective in pro- 
 tQoting all agricultural interests. 
 
 Its annual meetings brought together all the leading 
 experts in agricultural science, the leaders in agricultural 
 practice within the State and large numbers of interested 
 farmers. The latest work of experimenters, the wisest 
 experience of practical farmers, discussion, and oppor- 
 tunity for questioning by anyone in the audience — all 
 these things gave tremendous interest and importance to 
 the meetings and particular value to the reports of them. 
 
 The meetings of this Board were also the birthplace 
 of legislation in the interest of agriculture and of agri- 
 cultural institutions like the Connecticut Agricultural 
 Station, The Storrs Agricultural Station, the Storrs 
 Agricultural School and the Connecticut Agricultural 
 
360 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 College. All these projects were discussed in advance 
 in the winter meetings and the opinion of the farming 
 public obtained. 
 
 "In no other state," said Prof. Atwater "has so much 
 been done for the application of chemistry to agriculture 
 as has been done in Connecticut through the agency of 
 the Board of Agriculture." 
 
 It would carry us too far to recite the subjects treated 
 at these meetings which have been held annually, with 
 possibly one exception, ever since. It is certain that the 
 reports of proceedings in the earlier years are everywhere 
 regarded as the most valuable of all similar reports and 
 have been of the greatest help in the improvement of 
 Connecticut farming. Especial praise is due to the serv- 
 ice rendered by T. S. Gold, the secretary of the Board 
 during a long series of years, for his most wise and effi- 
 cient management of the meetings. 
 
 The Board was abolished by resolution of the General 
 Assembly on July 21st, 1870, but in 1871 The State 
 Board of Agriculture was again incorporated by the same 
 body. The new act of incorporation is quite like the old 
 except that wider powers were conferred on the board. 
 
 The Board could quarantine animals having infectious 
 diseases, enter premises where such diseases were present 
 or suspected and make necessary regulations to prevent 
 a spread of the disease and to appoint three commissioners 
 on diseases of domestic animals and delegate to them the 
 powers of the Board. The Board elected besides a presi- 
 dent, vice-president, secretary and treasurer, a veterinary 
 surgeon, entomologist, botanist and chemist. Thus con- 
 stituted, the Board continued to be active in providing 
 for discussions of agricultural improvement and for in- 
 formation both from scientific experts and from leaders 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 361 
 
 in agricultural practice. In 1897 the Assembly reor- 
 ganized the Board, providing that its eight members 
 should be appointed by the Assembly, one from each 
 county, rather than as before, by the agricultural so- 
 cieties of the State. 
 
 Two offshoots of the Board have had a very vigorous 
 and helpful life : On April 10th, 1889, was incorporated 
 the Connecticut Dairymen's Association. A brief report 
 of its meeting in January, 1892, 25 pages, states that this 
 is the eleventh annual meeting. 
 
 It then had 45 life members and 43 annual members. 
 It must therefore have been in existence for eight years 
 before its incorporation. 
 
 It has yearly held a general meeting of dairymen and 
 has published valuable annual reports. It has also held 
 dairy institutes and farm meetings about the State. In 
 1900 it had 99 life members and 69 annual members. 
 
 The Board of Agriculture had a pomologist and at its 
 annual meetings were many discussions of interest to 
 orchardists ; but as fruit growing increased in importance 
 within the State, the growers desired more opportunity 
 for discussion and promotion of their interests. 
 
 A convention of fruit growers, called in 1891, or- 
 ganized the Connecticut Pomological Society. This So- 
 ciety, which in 1923 numbered 483 members, has for 
 many years held annual meetings with fruit exhibits 
 which are largely attended, frequent field meetings dur- 
 ing the summers and farm institutes in all parts of the 
 State. It has been the chief agency in promoting the in- 
 terests of fruit growers. 
 
 The Cream Hill Agricultural School. The use- 
 fulness of technical schools of agriculture was anticipated 
 long before their establishment. A debate in Yale Col- 
 
362 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 lege in 1789 is noted on the question : ''Whether it would 
 be best to introduce agriculture into colleges as a classical 
 study?" 
 
 In 1832 an effort was made to establish The Litchfield 
 Agricultural High School and the corporation of Goshen 
 Academy was asked to turn over the Academy to the 
 promoters of the scheme, but they were refused and the 
 plan failed (29). In 1842 the Connecticut Farmers Ga- 
 zette announced that Rev. J. B. Noble proposes soon to 
 open an agricultural institute in Bridgeport. No further 
 notice of it has been found. 
 
 Three years later, in 1845, The Cream Hill Agricul- 
 tural School was established at West Cornwall and con- 
 ducted by Dr. S. L. Gold, for years the principal physi- 
 cian in Goshen, who had recently removed to his farm in 
 West Cornwall, and his son, Theodore S. Gold, (Yale, 
 1838), who, throughout his long life was an inspiring 
 leader in the promotion of Connecticut agriculture. The 
 prospectus of the school is in part : 
 
 "The plan of this institution is to receive a select and 
 limited number of pupils, under the superintendence of 
 well qualified teachers, to be fitted for college, or any of 
 the useful pursuits of life. 
 
 "This school embraces two important departments of 
 instruction. First: Thorough attention to the various 
 elementary and scientific branches taught at the best 
 academic institutions. Second : Both scientific and prac- 
 tical instructions in Agriculture and Horticulture, em- 
 bracing the most approved method of tillage, rearing of 
 stock, cultivation of trees, the laying out of grounds, or- 
 namental gardening, chemical analysis of soils, composts, 
 etc. A portion of each day will be allotted to these sub- 
 jects, so that the pupil may become a scientific and prac- 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 363 
 
 tical farmer. The farm, containing 200 acres, with con- 
 venient buildings, situated on Cream Hill, surrounded by 
 a picturesque country scenery, furnishes a location un- 
 rivalled for healthfulness and freedom from immoral ten- 
 dencies and peculiarly fitted for such an institution. 
 
 "The Housatonic railroad furnishes daily access to 
 New York. The students will become members of the 
 family of the instructors. A parental supervision will at 
 all times be exercised over each individual. 
 
 "All will be treated with kindness and every attention 
 rendered, with affectionate regard to health, deportment 
 and morals. 
 
 "The institution will be conducted by Samuel L. Gold, 
 Theodore S. Gold and Thomas R. Button. There will be 
 two terms in each year; the first commencing the first 
 Wednesday in May, and terminating the first Wednes- 
 day in November; the second from the first Wednesday 
 in December to the first Wednesday in April. 
 
 "Terms : The pupils will be furnished with tuition, 
 board, fuel, lights, washing, privileges of the library and 
 riding, at $200 a year, one-half to be paid at the beginning 
 of each term. 
 
 "West Cornwall, Conn. March 31, 1845." 
 
 In all, 272 pupils attended this school from its opening 
 in 1845 until it was closed in 1869 on account of the 
 pressure of other business. It opened with ten pupils. 
 After that the number ranged from twelve to thirty-one, 
 an average of more than twenty-two, probably all that the 
 accommodations would permit. ^^ 
 
 21 Prof. George J. Brush was one of the earliest students. He planned to 
 enter a commercial establishment in New York City but here acquired an 
 interest in chemistry and particularly in mineralogy the pursuit of which 
 became his lifework until overshadowed by his administrative work as 
 Director of the Sheffield Scientific School and the Agricultural College of 
 the state. 
 
364 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 From the catalogue of 1849 we learn "Each pupil cul- 
 tivates a garden of about 130 square yards; is instructed 
 in laying out, planting and the application of manures. 
 Small premiums are awarded for the best gardens. Ample 
 opportunity is afforded each to acquire a knowledge of 
 general farming, tending and rearing the various kinds 
 of stock, etc." 
 
 There is nothing in the catalogues to show any list of 
 teachers. 
 
 Mr. Button dropped out soon after the school was es- 
 tablished and most, if not all, instruction was given by 
 Dr. Gold and his son. 
 
 The Storrs Agricultural School. In January, 
 1881 Messrs. Augustus and Charles Storrs offered to the 
 vState 180 acres of land and various buildings in the town 
 of Mansfield for the purpose of establishing and main- 
 taining an agricultural school. The buildings had been 
 used previously as a home and school for the orphans of 
 soldiers in the Civil War. The offer was accepted and the 
 Storrs School was established. 
 
 Its object, as set forth in the act of establishment, was 
 "The education of boys ... in such branches of scien- 
 tific knowledge as shall tend to increase their proficiency 
 in the business of agriculture." 
 
 A part of their time was to be spent in classroom work 
 and a part in the practical work of the farm. The school 
 continued for twelve years with fair success. During this 
 time its attendance ranged from 40 to 63. In 1893, by 
 act of the Assembly, its purpose was changed and it was 
 renamed The Storrs Agricultural College. 
 
 The Agricultural and Mechanical College of 
 Connecticut. In 1840 Justus von Liebig issued his 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 365 
 
 work on Chemistry in its Relations to Agriculture which 
 started a great agricultural revolution and drew the at- 
 tention of chemists throughout the world to the prob- 
 lems of plant production. 
 
 Between 1840 and 1850 Prof. Silliman at Yale gave 
 instruction in these matters. In 1846 John P. Norton, 
 the son of a Connecticut farmer, after training as a 
 farmer and some years of study at Yale and at Boston 
 and later in Scotland, (where he won a prize of fifty 
 sovereigns, given by the Highland Society of Scotland 
 for the best essay on the oat plant), opened a laboratory 
 at Yale in connection with Silliman "for the purpose of 
 practical instruction in the applications of science to the 
 arts and agriculture." 
 
 This was the beginning of the Sheffield Scientific 
 School which first gave the degree of Ph. B. in 1851. 
 Here Prof. Johnson studied and began the analysis of 
 commercial fertilizers and detection of frauds in their 
 sale, and for many years this was the only place connected 
 with any college in America where that means of pro- 
 tecting farmers was systematically followed. 
 
 Norton, whose work was cut short by tuberculosis, was 
 succeeded by Prof. John A. Porter. 
 
 In the meantime Joseph E. Sheffield made a gift of 
 $50,000 for the endowment of the School and during the 
 rest of his life gave from ten thousand to twenty thousand 
 dollars yearly to its support and made it as one of his 
 children in the final division of his estate. In all he must 
 have given more than a million dollars to its support. 
 
 Under the management of Prof. Norton there was 
 given the first course of Yale Agricultural Lectures, 
 
 The views in which this course originated are given by 
 which began Feb. 1, 1860, and closed Feb. 25. 
 
366 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 Prof. Porter as follows : The importance of new agencies 
 for the diffusion of agricultural knowledge is emphasized. 
 
 "Shall we wait for the establishment by government 
 of great agricultural institutions, similar to those in Eu- 
 rope? Such institutions are the most obvious and essen- 
 tial wants of our times, but a public and general opinion 
 of their utility and necessity must be created before either 
 our state or national governments will seriously consider 
 their establishment." 
 
 Porter proposes "the enlistment of practical men, who 
 are not professional teachers, in the work of instruction 
 and their combination in such numbers, that a small con- 
 tribution of time and labor from each shall make a suffi- 
 cient aggregate to meet the object in view." 
 
 The experiment was made under the auspices of the 
 Yale Scientific School. At this course of lectures about 
 350 students were registered and some 500 in attendance ; 
 172 from Connecticut, 23 from Massachusetts, 35 from 
 New York and a smaller number from 13 other states. 
 
 Three lectures were given daily, morning, afternoon 
 and evening. The subjects and lectures were : 
 
 Agricultural Chemistry Prof. S. W. Johnson 
 
 Entomology Dr. Asa Fitch of New York 
 
 Vegetable Physiology Daniel C. Eaton 
 
 Vegetable Pathology Chauncey E. Goodrich 
 
 Pear Culture Marshall P. Wilder 
 
 Grapes Dr. C. W. Grant 
 
 Berries R. G. Pardee 
 
 Fruit Trees P. Barry 
 
 Fruits Lewis F. Allen 
 
 Arboriculture Geo. B. Emerson 
 
 The Honey Bee Mr. Ouimby 
 
 Drainage Henry F. French 
 
 Grasses .- John S. Gould 
 
 Agricultural Associations Mason C. Weld 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 367 
 
 Cereals Joseph Harris 
 
 Root Crops T. S. Gold 
 
 Tobacco and Hops W. H. Brewer 
 
 Sandy Soils Levi Bartlett 
 
 English Agriculture L. H. Tucker 
 
 Profits of American Farming Josiah Quincy, Jr. 
 
 Cattle Cassius M. Clay 
 
 Stock Breeding in the United States Lewis F. Allen 
 
 The Dairy Charles L. Flint 
 
 Horses Sanford Howard 
 
 Breeding and Training Horses Dr. D. F. Gulliver 
 
 Sheep T. S. Gold 
 
 The course proved to be very popular and stimulated 
 the desire for regular courses of agricultural instruction. 
 "Mr. Barry whitling at his pear tree before the audience 
 is worth a whole treatise on grafting and pruning. Mr. 
 Gold's discourse on sheep, interspersed with the bleating 
 of his Cotswolds and punctuated with the black noses of 
 his Southdowns, is worth a volume on mutton and wool."" 
 
 This Institute was not continued. In the next year 
 the outbreak of the Civil War made it seem unwise at that 
 time and the establishment of the Agricultural College 
 later made it less needed. But there is much evidence 
 that greatly increased interest in scientific agriculture 
 immediately followed. "In concluding, Mason Weld 
 strongly advocated the establishment at once of an agri- 
 cultural farm in connection with a thoroughly furnished 
 laboratory, referring to the debt the world owes Lawes 
 and Gilbert for their experiments at Rothamstead and to 
 the weighty results developed by the investigations in 
 France and Germany which latter country has now in 
 operation more than forty experiment stations under the 
 
 22 Brief abstracts of these lectures are given in the New England Home- 
 stead for the year 1860. 
 
368 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 management of competent men of science in connection 
 with practical farmers." 
 
 Two years later the Morrill Act was passed by Con- 
 gress which provided for the establishment of an Agri- 
 cultural College in every state. 
 
 By this act a grant of public land was made to each 
 state for "the endowment, support and maintenance of 
 at least one college where the leading object shall be, 
 without excluding other scientific and classical studies, 
 and including military tactics, to teach such branches of 
 learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic 
 arts in such manner as the legislatures of the states may 
 respectively prescribe in order to promote the liberal and 
 practical education of the industrial classes in the several 
 pursuits and professions of life." 
 
 The yearly grant to Connecticut yielded an income of 
 only six or seven thousand dollars — a rather scanty sum 
 for the establishment of an institution which should meet 
 the requirements of the act. 
 
 Yale College was the only institution which was at all 
 capable of using the grant. It was already equipped for 
 such work and was giving instruction in all the branches 
 of study required under the act except in military tactics. 
 The state having accepted the grant, in 1863 gave the 
 income to the Yale corporation to be devoted to the sup- 
 port of the Sheffield Scientific School for the maintenance 
 of such instruction as shall carry out the intent of Con- 
 gress. 
 
 The School was to furnish gratuitous tuition to such 
 a number of pupils that their tuition, charged at the usual 
 rate, would equal one-half of the income of the fund. The 
 award of these scholarships was made by a committee, 
 whose appointment was provided in the act. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 369 
 
 The State made a perpetual contract with Yale College 
 and established it as the Agricultural and Mechanical 
 College of the State, but contributed nothing more to its 
 support. The government fund was, however, supple- 
 mented by generous gifts from Joseph E. Sheffield as 
 has been noted on a previous page. In 1890 Congress 
 passed an act for the more complete endowment of the 
 Agricultural Colleges by which they eventually received 
 an additional sum of $25,000 annually. At this time there 
 were eighty students in the Sheffield School on the agri- 
 cultural scholarships. 
 
 As soon as this appropriation was made, various col- 
 leges of agriculture and the mechanic arts were bitterly 
 attacked on the ground that they were not fulfilling the 
 object of their existence and were maintaining colleges 
 of too high grade and unsuitable requirements for the 
 sons of farmers. As a consequence of this movement the 
 General Assembly in 1893 transferred the government 
 fund to the Storrs Agricultural School in the town of 
 Mansfield, at the same time changing its name to the 
 Storrs Agricultural College. 
 
 A commission appointed to decide on the nature of the 
 contract between the State and the Sheffield School 
 awarded the latter $154,000 damages on account of the 
 violation of the perpetual contract by the State. The 
 Storrs Agricultural College had at this time an enroll- 
 ment of about one hundred students and its courses were 
 officially opened to women. In 1889 the name of the in- 
 stitution was changed to the Connecticut Agricultural 
 College. 
 
 The College now has an attendance in all departments 
 of 484. Its activities fall into three divisions; the Resi- 
 
370 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 dent Instruction, the Storrs Agricultural Station and the 
 Extension Service which are noticed later. 
 The Resident Instruction offers: 
 
 1. A four year course in Agriculture leading to the 
 bachelor's degree. Graduates of high schools, accredited 
 by the State Board of Education are entitled to enter this 
 course. 
 
 2. A four year course in Home Economics, for young 
 women, leading to the bachelor's degree. Open to grad- 
 uates of high schools as above. 
 
 3. A two year course in Agriculture, divided into 
 four ten-week terms. Open to those who have had a 
 common school education. Those completing the four 
 terms' work are given a diploma. 
 
 4. A summer school in Home Economics for those 
 who desire teacher training in that subject. 
 
 5. Short course in Agriculture is given to men and 
 women of the State who can be away from home duties 
 for a short time only. 
 
 Agricultural Extension Work — 
 County Farm Bureaus 
 
 On May 8, 1914 a national system of co-operative ex- 
 tension work in agriculture and home economics was pro- 
 vided by the so-called Smith-Lever bill. By it Congress 
 appropriated $480,000, providing an annual increase for 
 eight years until the total sum annually appropriated 
 reached $4,580,000. Congress has since appropriated an 
 additional $1,300,000 for the same purpose as the Smith- 
 Lever fund and a further appropriation of about $1,300,- 
 000 for co-operative demonstration work. 
 
 In order to secure Federal Smith-Lever funds, the 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 371 
 
 several states must appropriate an equal amount for the 
 support of extension work. 
 
 These funds are divided between the states on a basis 
 of their rural population. Under these several acts Con- 
 necticut receives $68,950.09 from Federal funds which 
 is supplemented by appropriations from the State amount- 
 ing at this date to $75,000 annually. 
 
 The Extension Service is, therefore, part of a national 
 system of agricultural education estabHshed by Federal 
 laws. It is a division of the Agricultural College which 
 is carrying information and instruction in improved 
 methods of farming and home making to the people of 
 the State, through demonstrations, meetings, letters, news 
 stories, campaigns, field trips and farm and home visits. 
 Further than this it is the work of the extension service 
 to interest farmers and home makers in putting these 
 improved methods into practice. It is concerned as much 
 with assisting in solving the problems of marketing as 
 it is with solving the problems of production. 
 
 The extension work is carried on by a staff of men and 
 women. Some of these are specialists in the various 
 branches of agriculture and home making, such as dairy- 
 ing, fruit growing, poultry raising, nutrition, clothing, 
 etc., who work throughout the .State and have headquar- 
 ters at Storrs. The other extension workers are county 
 representatives of the Extension Service and are known 
 as County Agents, doing work in agriculture with adults ; 
 Home Demonstration Agents, working with women on 
 home problems; and County Club Agents, the latter 
 carrying work with boys and girls, commonly known as 
 club work. 
 
 Practically all the work is carried out in conjunction 
 with the county workers. The Extension service reaches 
 
372 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 the entire family; men, women, boys and girls. The 
 specialist studies the industry which he represents, in 
 order to learn its problems and recommends the improve- 
 ments which should be encouraged and the methods which 
 should be used in extension teaching. Co-operating with 
 the Extension Service are the County Farm Bureaus in 
 each county, supported by membership fees, voluntary 
 contributions and when these amount to $1,000, by grants 
 from the college and State. In 1921 seven Farm Bureaus 
 formed a state federation and through it joined the Amer- 
 ican Farm Bureau Federation, a national organization, 
 maintaining a representative in Washington and interest- 
 ing itself in legislative questions which affect the farming 
 interests. 
 
 The Connecticut Agricultural Experiment 
 Station. The object in establishing this station was to 
 apply the methods of scientific research in solving those 
 problems of the farm which needed the time, equipment 
 and technical knowledge which the farmer himself could 
 not supply. 
 
 Connecticut was the first State to establish such a 
 station after many years of effort to convince the public 
 of the need. 
 
 The demonstration which Connecticut made of its value 
 quickly induced other states to create similar stations and 
 now they are found in every state, territory and insular 
 possession of the United States. 
 
 A brief notice of the development of the idea for 
 twenty years from the early fifties is interesting. In 1853 
 and the following years, articles by Prof. S. W. Johnson 
 of the Sheffield Scientific School, published in the Country 
 Gentleman, discussed the contributions of science to agri- 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 373 
 
 culture, the feeding of farm animals, food for plants, 
 superphosphate of lime, etc., calling attention to the ap- 
 plications of science to agriculture and perhaps for the 
 first time in this country, to the quality of commercial 
 fertilizers. Such fertilizers were then, for the first time 
 coming into common use, extravagant claims for their 
 virtues were often made and no knowledge of their com- 
 position given; there was danger of too much faith in 
 their virtues and too little knowledge of their proper use. 
 In 1856 Johnson's exposures of fraud in fertilizers led 
 to his appointment as chemist of the Connecticut Agri- 
 cultural Society and the continuance of his work on that 
 subject. 
 
 A lecture on ''The Relations which Exist between Sci- 
 ence and Agriculture," delivered in Albany, in 1856 and 
 published in the Transactions of the New York State 
 Agricultural Society, excited wide interest and discus- 
 sion. There followed almost twenty years of preaching 
 and teaching by Johnson on the need of applying to the 
 art of agriculture the teachings of natural science. His 
 laboratory work as chemist of the State Board of Agri- 
 culture and the publication of its results in the annual re- 
 ports stirred the desire of farmers to enlist the aid of 
 research in the every day work of the farm. 
 
 Important in this educational work were his two books, 
 How Crops Grow. A Treatise on the Chemical Composi- 
 tion, Structure and Life of the Plant, for all Students of 
 Agriculture; published in 1868, and How Crops Feed, 
 A Treatise on the Atmosphere and the Soil as Related to 
 the Nutrition of Agricultural Plants, published in 1870. 
 His object, as stated by himself, was "to digest the cum- 
 brous mass of evidence in which the truths of vegetable 
 nutrition lie buried out of the reach of the ordinary in- 
 
374 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 quirer and to set them forth in proper order and in plain 
 dress for their legitimate and sober uses." 
 
 At the instance of von Liebig the book was translated 
 into German by his son. It was reprinted in England, 
 translated into Italian, Russian, Swedish and Japanese 
 for use as a textbook in those countries. 
 
 Two Connecticut men, Jared Eliot in the eighteenth 
 and S. W. Johnson in the nineteenth century wrote books 
 on scientific agriculture, which probably had the widest 
 influence on farming in America of any during this 
 period. 
 
 In 1873 Prof. W. O. Atwater of Wesleyan University, 
 a former pupil and assistant of Johnson's, joined in 
 urging the establishment in the State of an Agricultural 
 Experiment Station and in their addresses before the 
 Board of Agriculture and frequent gatherings of farmers 
 through the State emphasized the advantage and need of 
 applying to the art of farming the teachings of natural 
 science and the wisdom of providing an agency whereby 
 the problems of the farm, which the farmer had neither 
 the time, the facilities, or the expert knowledge to solve 
 for himself, could be studied and possibly solved by ex- 
 perts in an institution specially fitted for this purpose. 
 
 In 1874 the Board of Agriculture, at the recommenda- 
 tion of a committee through its chairman, Prof. Johnson 
 appointed a permanent committee to urge on farmers and 
 the Legislature the immediate establishment of an agri- 
 cultural station. Later this committee reported that a 
 bill for this purpose had been introduced into the General 
 Assembly, held by the committee of the Assembly till 
 near the close of the session and then reported, recom- 
 .mending that it be laid over to the next session. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 375 
 
 Again in the Assembly of 1875 the attempt was made 
 unsuccessfully. 
 
 But Mr. Orange Judd, an agricultural editor and a 
 trustee of Wesleyan University, urged the formation of 
 an association to provide money for an agricultural sta- 
 tion by private subscription, a plan which was contrary 
 to the wishes of the committee of the Board of Agricul- 
 ture. He however, secured the passage of the following 
 resolution in the spring of 1875, thus establishing in Con- 
 necticut the first Agricultural Experiment Station in 
 America. 
 
 To Promote Agricultural Interests 
 
 Whereas, The trustees of the university at Middle- 
 town tender the free use of laboratories and other facili- 
 ties for establishing and carrying on an experiment sta- 
 tion for the general benefit and improvement of agricul- 
 ture and kindred interests of the State of Connecticut, 
 be it 
 
 Resolved by this Assembly, That the sum of seven 
 hundred dollars per quarter for two years, is hereby ap- 
 propriated to the University located at Middletown, 
 Middlesex County, to be used in employing competent 
 scientific men to carry on the work appropriate to an 
 agricultural station. 
 
 In addition to this appropriation Mr. Judd subscribed 
 one thousand dollars. A very full and admirable account 
 of the whole movement is given in "From the Letter 
 Files of S. W. Johnson," edited by his daughter, Eliza- 
 beth A. Osborne. 
 
 This station was under the exclusive control of the 
 trustees of Wesleyan University and an impression, 
 
2>76 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 founded upon Mr. Judd's utterances and personal atti- 
 tude was widespread that the purpose of this station was 
 for the analysis of commercial fertilizers alone. Such 
 however, was not at all the position of Prof. Atwater, 
 who was chosen as its director. In his first report he 
 says : "It has been felt from the first that more abstract 
 scientific investigation would afford not only the proper, 
 but also the most widely and permanently useful work 
 of an agricultural station. Such an institution will be 
 worthy of the name in proportion as it carries on accurate 
 and thorough investigation and experiment in agricul- 
 tural science." 
 
 But to prove to the farming public the present need of 
 an agricultural station and thus to secure for it a firmer 
 and more liberal basis, stress was first laid on the situa- 
 tion of the fertilizer trade — a continuation of Johnson's 
 work — in which there was "bitter need" of a better con- 
 dition. In the two following years a large part of the 
 station time was devoted to the examination of fertilizers. 
 Some examinations of dairy feed were also made, the 
 testing of agricultural seeds, effects of nitrogenous fer- 
 tilizers on the growth of corn, a study of the fertilizer 
 needs of the soil of the Wallingford plains, etc. 
 
 A prominent feature of the station work was co-op- 
 erative experiments with fertilizers on lands in different 
 parts of the State and later, under Prof. Atwater's di- 
 rections, in several other States, the results of which were 
 printed in the reports of the State Board of Agriculture, 
 from 1877 to 1881. Thus a new agency for the advance 
 of agriculture was founded and the example was speedily 
 followed by some other States. 
 
 Five, at least of Prof. Atwater's assistants in this work 
 soon became workers and leaders in other places ; W. Bal- 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE Z77 
 
 lentine, Professor of Agriculture in the Maine Agricul- 
 tural College; E. H. Jenkins, chemist and later director 
 of the Connecticut station; W. H. Jordan, director of 
 the Maine and then for many years director of the New 
 York, (Geneva) station; A. T. Neale, director of the 
 New Jersey and later of the Delaware station and C. D. 
 Woods, director of the Maine station. 
 
 Before the appropriation for the station had expired 
 the General Assembly passed "An Act Establishing the 
 Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station," "for the 
 purpose of promoting agriculture by scientific investiga- 
 tion and experiment," and granted $5,000 annually to its 
 support. In its organization this station differs from all 
 others. Besides having no organic connection with any 
 agricultural College it is an independent unit having most 
 of the rights of a corporation, with power to sue and be 
 sued, to receive gifts and to hold property. It is managed 
 by a Board of Control, consisting of the Governor, two 
 appointed by the Governor and one each by the State 
 Board of Agriculture, the State Agricultural Society, 
 Wesleyan University and the Sheffield Scientific School. 
 The director is ex ojfi.cio a member. Prof. Johnson was 
 chosen director and the station was placed at New Haven. 
 As it was not possible to secure permanent quarters from 
 the fund appropriated, the Sheffield Scientific School gave 
 the free use of laboratory and office room until 1882 
 when the State provided land and buildings which the 
 station has occupied ever since. In 1887 the first Federal 
 aid was given to the stations of the United States by the 
 Hatch Act which ultimately provided $15,000 to each 
 state to be by the state paid to such institution as it might 
 designate, the "object and duty of the station" being to 
 conduct original researches or verify experiments on the 
 
378 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 physiology of animals and plants. The General Assembly 
 gave one-half of this fund to the Connecticut Station and 
 half to the newly established Storrs Agricultural Station 
 to be noticed later. 
 
 In 1896, by the Adams Act of Congress, $15,000 ad- 
 ditional was given to each state and this sum was likewise 
 equally divided between the two Connecticut stations. 
 
 This appropriation was to be used only for pure re- 
 search work, a restriction which has greatly helped the 
 more fundamental v/ork of all the stations. The appro- 
 priations by the State to the Connecticut station gradually 
 increased as the scope of its work and the demands made 
 upon it have grown. A very brief notice of some of its 
 labors should here be given to indicate the scope and 
 nature of it. 
 
 It taught and proved by field trials the value of spray- 
 ing for the protection of field crops and orchards from 
 fungi and insects. 
 
 It has studied the life history of each new insect and 
 fungus pest as it has appeared and the best methods of 
 fighting it; the San Jose scale, the gyps}^ moth, the pine 
 blister rust, the elm leaf beetle, etc. 
 
 It has directed the work of mosquito elimination and 
 accomplished much with the insufficient means at its dis- 
 posal. 
 
 By its inspection and reports it has exposed the frauds 
 in food and fertilizers and drove most of them out of the 
 State before the Federal Government undertook any of 
 that work. 
 
 As a part of that work it has examined all the special 
 foods made and recommended for diabetic patients and 
 the reports on them are the standard reference for spe- 
 cialists in the treatment of this disease. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 379 
 
 The long" continued and fruitful researches of Dr. Os- 
 borne have identified and showed the ultimate and struc- 
 tural composition and properties of the principal vege- 
 table proteins. 
 
 An inquiry into their relative nutritive value has led 
 to extensive studies in nutrition, has perfected a new 
 and most fruitful method of experiment in this field, has 
 led to the discovery of vitamines and studies of their func- 
 tion and to medical studies on the cause of rickets, infer- 
 tility, etc. 
 
 The study of plant breeding here has shown the futility 
 of certain recommended methods of inbreeding and selec- 
 tion and by methods first adopted here has produced new 
 and improved strains of corn and tobacco and has demon- 
 strated methods of developing superior strains of field 
 crops which have secured general recognition. 
 
 It substituted for the very unfair method of payment 
 of cream by the space, the Babcock method of determin- 
 ing and paying for butter fat only, by adapting it for 
 cream gathering creameries and proving its value. 
 
 It made, at the request of dairymen, a comparison of 
 economy between the gravity and the separator systems 
 of raising cream for butter making creameries. 
 
 It introduced into the State the successful growing of 
 shade tobacco and the method of fermentation in bulk 
 and by its very elaborate field tests with fertilizers has 
 greatly advanced the tobacco growing industry in the 
 State. 
 
 The station established an experimental forest for the 
 study of forest problems, aided in the planting of private 
 and corporation forests, besides giving advice by ad- 
 dresses and field demonstrations in the management of 
 the farmer's wood lot. 
 
380 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 These illustrations, by no means a summary, give some 
 idea of the range of the station's work and show how it 
 has gradually become a public service agency. While de- 
 signed solely for the benefit of agriculture and while its 
 main effort is directed to that end, circumstances have 
 drawn it in several directions into the service of the whole 
 community. 
 
 The station has also from its staff, furnished teachers 
 and research men to other states and institutions. Some 
 of them are : 
 
 H. P. Armsby, Professor of Agricultural Chemistry 
 in the University of Wisconsin, Director of the Pennsyl- 
 vania Station and later Director of the Pennsylvania Bu- 
 reau of Animal Nutrition. 
 
 E. M. East, Professor of Genetics in Harvard Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 W. Mulford, Professor of Forestry, University of 
 California. 
 
 S. W. Spring, Professor of Forestry, Cornell Uni- 
 versity. 
 
 R. Thaxter, Professor of Cryptogamic Botany, Har- 
 vard University. 
 
 H. L. Wells, Professor of Analytical Chemistry, Yale 
 University. 
 
 E. H. Farrington, Professor of Dairy Husbandry, 
 Wisconsin Agricultural College. 
 
 The Storrs Agricultural Experiment Station. 
 In accepting the provisions of the Federal Hatch Act the 
 General Assembly provided that "the farm attached to 
 the Storrs Agricultural School may be used as an experi- 
 mental farm for the purposes specified" in the Federal 
 act and also provided that one-half of the Federal ap- 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 381 
 
 propriation which came to the State should be used by the 
 trustees of the school under the provisions of the act. 
 
 Prof. W. O. Atwater was chosen director and during 
 the eighteen years of his service, the field and farm work 
 of the station was done at the Storrs Agricultural School 
 and the more purely scientific investigations were carried 
 on in the laboratories of Wesleyan University. In 1903 
 the station w^as reorganized and its office was removed to 
 Storrs where a small building was erected for its use. 
 Prof. Atwater resigned his office and Prof. L. A, Clinton 
 became his successor. 
 
 Perhaps the most striking work of this station up to 
 this time was that of Atwater and Woods which proved 
 the assimilation of free nitrogen by leguminous crops. It 
 is believed that this work, done in 1881 and 1882 supplied, 
 by convincing evidence, the first proof of this function of 
 the legumes. It was reported briefly at the meeting of the 
 American Association for the Advancement of Science 
 in 1881 and at the meetings of the American and British 
 Associations in 1882, and in detail in the American 
 Chemical Journal in 1885. Before the latter date the 
 more elaborate work of European investigators on the 
 same subject was published in scientific journals. 
 
 The studies on the composition and value of foods for 
 human populations on w^hich Atwater was engaged in 
 1877, the introduction of the bomb calorimeter about 
 1890, of a respiration calorimeter in 1896, studies of di- 
 etaries with determination of energy values, digestion ex- 
 periments with animals, (1896), mark the beginning in 
 this country of the studies of foods and the food require- 
 ments of populations which now fill a large place in the 
 public regard and found a very special value in the world 
 war. Much of this work, reported in the publications of 
 
382 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 the Storrs station was done with funds contributed by 
 various outside institutions and individuals. It was not 
 until 1895 that the State appropriated $1,800 yearly for 
 studies of food economy and the bacteria of milk. 
 
 The studies of bacteria in relation to dairy practice, be- 
 gan at the station in 1888 by Dr. H. W. Conn and carried 
 on by him and his assistants into the next century, and 
 the introduction of the covered milk pail have been of 
 great educational value to the dairymen and the public and 
 have laid the foundation of the improvement in the sani- 
 tary quality of milk produced and sold in this State. 
 
 The nutrition studies of the station were discontinued 
 with the removal to Storrs, but the bacterial studies on 
 dairy products were continued. 
 
 The field tests of fertilizers in all parts of the State, be- 
 gun in 1875 were continued until into the next century. 
 
 Of importance was also an extensive study of the com- 
 position and fertilizer value of the roots and stubble of 
 crops. 
 
 The work in poultry, intensively carried on soon after 
 1900, has determined the nature and cause of bacillary 
 diarrhoea in poultry and shown the effective means for 
 combating it. 
 
 The use of pigmentation and other criteria for select- 
 ing laying hens has resulted in extensive rejection of un- 
 profitable birds and consequent reduction of the cost of 
 egg production. 
 
 The studies of the factors affecting artificial incuba- 
 tion, of the egg production of different breeds, and of the 
 means of controlling parasites of poultry, have all con- 
 tributed much to the profit of poultry raising. 
 
 The studies of infectious abortion, still in progress, 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 383 
 
 have already thrown much light on this obscure and very- 
 destructive disease. 
 
 A comparative test of the yield of the chief varieties 
 of corn grown in the State, made in co-operation with the 
 Connecticut station, and continued for nine years has in- 
 dicated which varieties are on the average the most pro- 
 ductive and which are best adapted to the different sec- 
 tions of the State. 
 
 This statement is made merely to give an impression 
 but no complete statement of the range of the station's 
 work. 
 
 Among those who have been on the station staff and 
 have since served important agricultural interests may be 
 mentioned, W. A. Stocking, Jr., now professor of dairv 
 bacteriology in Cornell University; Dr. Charles Thom,. 
 for years assigned to the station as mycologist by the 
 U. S. Department of Agriculture, who was later chief 
 mycologist of that Department; Dr. H. W. Conn, bac- 
 teriologist, a professor at Wesleyan University, chief of 
 the State Board of Health laboratory and a leading dairy 
 bacteriologist; C. L. Beach, formerly professor of dairy 
 husbandry at the station, then at the University of Ver- 
 mont and now president of the Connecticut Agricultural 
 College. 
 
 The Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry is an agency 
 which has helped to increase agricultural knowledge in 
 less formal ways than those already cited as well as to 
 promote social intercourse among farmers. 
 
 The National Grange of the Patrons of Husbandry 
 was organized Dec. 4, 1867. The founders "looked for 
 advantages to come to the farmers through social and in- 
 tellectual intercourse, not through political action." 
 
 The first local grange was organized in Washington, 
 
384 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 D. C, its members being largely government clerks and 
 employees. It was a weak organization until 1871 but the 
 panic of 1873 which fell on farmers with great severity, 
 greatly increased the grange activity and led to the wild 
 "granger" legislation at the west. In that year granges 
 were formed in all but four states, of which Connecticut 
 was one. The organization was at its maximum in 1875 
 when the membership was probably over one million, but 
 interest declined till in 1880 there were only 4,000 active. 
 
 The State grange in Connecticut was organized, April 
 15, 1875 but was not successful till about 1885 when a 
 new State grange was organized at South Glastonbury. 
 In that year there were sixteen granges in the State. But 
 the order grew rapidly. In 1892 there were eight Pomona 
 granges, 146 subordinate granges with 10,000 members. 
 From about that time the numbers decreased. Of 155 
 granges organized in Connecticut since the beginning 
 twenty per cent have died. 
 
 The grange in Connecticut has never been very suc- 
 cessful as a co-operative agency in marketing, nor has it 
 assumed political activity as a distinct party element. It 
 has been of very considerable value, however, in the way 
 contemplated by the founders noted above. It has pro- 
 moted social intercourse, mental improvement and exer- 
 cise in public speaking and writing. 
 
 It has drawn many from the isolation of their farms 
 into intercourse with a wider social circle, before the days 
 of improved roads, automobiles and by them the possi- 
 bility of sharing in the attractions of the city, lessened 
 the popularity and the need of the grange. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 385 
 
 The Development of Agricultural Tools 
 
 "The nineteenth century witnessed greater improve- 
 ments in agricuhural methods and machinery than any 
 — if not all — the centuries that had gone before." At 
 its beginning all agricultural tools were of the rudest 
 kind, designed almost wholly for hand labor and either 
 made on the farm with the aid of the blacksmith or of 
 some local carpenter. No two were exactly alike. 
 
 Thus up to 1790 wheat was sown by hand, cut with a 
 sickle, thrashed and winnowed by hand (66). The cradle 
 scythe was in common use before the beginning of the 
 century and Brewer states that between the time of the 
 declaration of independence and the introduction of the 
 cast iron plow, some fifty years later, the most important 
 improvements in agricultural machinery were the Ameri- 
 can cradle and the fanning mill for cleaning grain and 
 other seeds. 
 
 The plow was a very clumsy affair, with a mould board 
 hewn from wood, protected from wear by old scraps of 
 sheet iron or tin nailed to it. 
 
 The share was generally of iron with a hardened point. 
 The beam was a straight stick with upright handles cut 
 from branches of trees. 
 
 A powerful man was needed to hold it and twice the 
 draft required for a modern plow. Ex-president Jefferson 
 first laid down the mathematical principles by which 
 mould boards could be made by anyone with the certainty 
 of all being effective and alike. His ideas were put in 
 practice about 1793. Charles Newbold of New Jersey 
 made the first cast-iron plow in the country, all cast in 
 one piece, which was patented in 1 797. 
 
 But for a long time a farm tradition, which seems to 
 
386 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 have been imported from England, that the iron plow 
 "kills the life of the land" hindered its general use. Corn 
 land was thought to be specially injured by it and wooden 
 plows were used by some farmers for plowing corn land, 
 long after they were discarded for other uses. 
 
 "This ol' motor plow," said Kipling's bailiff not long 
 ago, "may be all right in Ameriky, but it don't turn the 
 earth not a spit deep — 'taint no good for the honor of the 
 land." These traditions, foolish as they may seem, are 
 yet signs of that care, love and almost reverence for the 
 soil, "The honor of the soil," which was ingrained in our 
 English forbears and happily runs in some measure in 
 the blood of their descendants and which is now leading 
 the most progressive back to more careful study of the 
 nature of the soil itself and the methods of caring for it. 
 For soil is seen to be not the dull, dead thing so many 
 imagine but teeming with life. It largely determines the 
 kind of crops which can be successfully raised in any re- 
 gion. While permanent exhaustion of soil is rare, an un- 
 derstanding of its nature, of the life within it and the 
 sanitation of this life are necessary if agriculture is to 
 meet the demands now made upon it. 
 
 The cast-iron plow was rarely used before 1820. The 
 Hawkes plow made in Hartford, became popular between 
 1830 and 1833 and at that time "everybody had them." 
 Fairbanks of St. Johnsbury also made iron plows in 1826 
 and their use spread rapidly down the Connecticut valley. 
 
 The cast-iron plow was much improved by Joel Nourse 
 and his partners in Massachusetts in 1836 and was in 
 great demand in the twenty years following. It is stated 
 that 20,000 plows were sold by them in a single year. The 
 number of patents on plows, prior to 1830 was 124, up to 
 1848 between 300 and 400. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 387 
 
 Apparently the steel and wrought-iron plow was 
 patented in 1808, a side hill plow in 1831, the coulter at- 
 tachment in 1834, jointer in 1884, and probably the 
 wheel, gang and steam plow somewhat earlier. 
 
 The sulky plow was in use in 1844. The steam tractor 
 plow was invented and used some time in the sixties. 
 Threshing machines were introduced early in the nine- 
 teenth century. 
 
 There are various contestants for the honor of invent- 
 ing the grain reaper but the record of the McCormick 
 reaper will sufficiently indicate the time of the introduc- 
 tion of this labor-saving machine which has made possible 
 the enormous expansion of wheat growing. 
 
 The invention began in 1809. It was not then a suc- 
 cess though it had the main features vital to all grain 
 cutting machines. Between 1820 and 1830 the machine 
 was made serviceable and was patented in 1834. A num- 
 ber were made prior to 1844. In that year twenty-five 
 were built, double that number in 1845 and the next year 
 a yet larger number. From 1845 to 1860 the model re- 
 mained unchanged except for the addition of seats for 
 the raker and driver. The machine cut the grain and left 
 it on the ground in loose bundles. The self-binder was 
 added in 1872 using wire binders. In 1880 twine was sub- 
 stituted. 
 
 A successful mowing machine was patented in 1822 by 
 Jeremiah Bailey of Pennsylvania, which "cut grass in 
 the neatest manner, where land was smooth, with a swath 
 about five feet wide and lays the grass in regular rows." 
 But the foundation of the present mower rests on the 
 patent of Hussey in 1833. Subsequent changes have been 
 improvements of his idea. Mowers were not in general 
 use before 1850. 
 
388 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 The period of the invention of other farming tools now 
 in use in greatly improved form was apparently in the 
 three decades following 1830. The horse cultivator was 
 devised by Jethro Tull of England early in the eighteenth 
 century and of a drill seeder in 1733. 
 
 Jared Eliot's seeder and manure distributor has al- 
 ready been noted, (page 344). The first patent for a corn 
 planter was granted to Eliakim Spooner of Vermont, in 
 1799. The first potato digger was invented about 1833. 
 
 The Connecticut Courant, July 31, 1821, announces "a 
 machine for sowing small seeds with perfect regularity 
 and in any desired quantity has lately been invented." But 
 the manufacture of grain drills began about 1840. 
 
 At the beginning of the century farm wagons were al- 
 most unknown, two-wheeled carts being more convenient 
 with oxen. Chaises and coaches then began to be used for 
 travel. Light, one-horse wagons came into use about 1830. 
 
 Commercial Fertilizers. Until the middle of the 
 century the fertilizers used in the State other than farm 
 manure were lime in various forms, land plaster, swamp 
 muck and marine mud and on the coast farms, fish, fol- 
 lowing the Indian practice. But soon after 1840, follow- 
 ing the appearance of von Liebig's work on Chemistry 
 in Its Applications to Agriculture, attention began to be 
 called to concentrated or commercial fertilizers. 
 
 Probably Peruvian guano was the first used. Then the 
 business of fertilizer manufacture began and chemical 
 manures "as good as Peruvian guano" were put on the 
 market. In 1856 the manufacture of dry fish manures be- 
 gan. The opening of mines of phosphate rock in South 
 Carolina and later in Florida and development of the 
 German potash industry early in the Sixties furnished the 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 389 
 
 material for an extensive use of soluble phosphates and 
 potash salts. The concentration of beef slaughtering for 
 the market in great establishments made necessary and 
 profitable the reduction of offal to an inoffensive and 
 transportable form, which at once found its use in nitrog- 
 enous manures. Nitrate of soda from Chili was also an 
 important addition to the fertilizer material and in re- 
 cent years the recovery of ammonia from the coke manu- 
 facture and the fixation of atmospheric nitrogen have 
 further added to it. 
 
 In the early years some were sceptical or denied the 
 value of commercial fertilizers and others had often too 
 much faith in them, as a kind of patent medicine, to cure 
 all defects of soil or tillage. The proper regulation of the 
 trade and the protection from frauds, as is noted on page 
 378 became very necessary and was a chief reason, in the 
 minds of many farmers, for the establishment of an 
 agricultural station. A law was passed in 1869 requiring 
 the labeling of commercial fertilizers with a statement of 
 composition. But with time the manufacture of fertilizers 
 has become as reliable as any other kind of manufacture, 
 the goods are sold largely on the basis of their content of 
 plant food and farmers have come to a better understand- 
 ing of the way in which they should be used. At the 
 present time 60,000 to 70,000 tons yearly are used in the 
 State, for which farmers pay probably not less than five 
 million dollars; by the census of 1919 about $4,900,000. 
 Calculating the amounts paid on the value of the dollar in 
 1913, the increase in the amount paid yearly for fertilizers 
 is the last decade has been about $360,000. 
 
 The foregoing shows the development of the educa- 
 tional and material aids to agriculture which were forced 
 
390 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 by the increasing demands made upon it by the growth of 
 population and the increasing diversity of employment. 
 
 It remains to notice the more important farming in- 
 terests which have from time to time flourished in the last 
 and the present centuries. 
 
 At no time have there been such large farms as in many 
 other states. 
 
 Never has Connecticut been a one-crop State, In each 
 period there have been a number of farming interests 
 which were moderately profitable and at the same time 
 others which were growing or decreasing in importance. 
 
 Horses and Mules. In the last century horses had 
 been exported from Connecticut to the West Indies and 
 the business was of considerable importance after the 
 close of the Revolution and into the early years of the new 
 century. The following, (43, 1855), from a correspond- 
 ent in Coventry illustrates the conditions : 
 
 "From the settlement to the close of the revolution 
 horses were of medium size, mostly pacers, small bones, 
 large muscles and great endurance. 
 
 "Farmers in Coventry rode to Boston, 72 miles in one 
 day and back the next. There was quite a business there, 
 (Coventry) in raising horses for the West Indies trade. 
 Every farmer of means kept five to ten horses, small 
 boned, active, good under the saddle, mostly pacers and 
 amblers. Then the raising of horses declined and mules 
 were raised instead. Then the western states supplied 
 the mule market at lower prices and that business ceased. 
 About that time the merino sheep business came in." 
 
 Beef and Pork. At the beginning of the century Gov. 
 Trumbull refers to the raising of beef and pork as a lead- 
 ing industry in the State. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 391 
 
 Much was packed for sale in foreign parts and for 
 years there was a good domestic demand for beef. In 
 Litchfield County droves of two-year-olds were brought 
 from Vermont and New York, fed during the winter on 
 ^rain and roughage, finished off on pasture during the 
 summer and sold in the fall. The same thing was done in 
 other parts of the State. Devons, Short Horns and Here- 
 fords were common, but since 1840 to 1850 the number 
 hoth of oxen and swine reported in the Census has shrunk 
 though swine have increased in the last twenty years, but 
 to only about half the number reported in 1840. 
 
 The introduction of dressed beef and pork by rail from 
 the west has put an end to any very considerable beef pro- 
 duction in this State. 
 
 Dairying and Dairy Stock. The original or so- 
 called "native" stock of Connecticut undoubtedly came 
 from Devonshire and the adjoining Counties of Somer- 
 setshire and Gloucestershire where the Devon breed pre- 
 vailed and where had been the home of many of the New 
 England settlers. This stock has been called mongrel or 
 inferior by some writers. But any inferiority was prob- 
 ably due rather to the inferior shelter, pasture and feed, 
 and lack of the chance to improve by breeding in the new 
 country than to anything inherent in the animals them- 
 selves. "The Commons, the Greens, the Parks, so fre- 
 quently found in our towns and cities, are landmarks of 
 those early times when each man's cows were gathered 
 into a common herd for better care and protection." 
 (Holt). 
 
 The "Town" bull, "Town" herdsman and a "Town" 
 brand also testifv to the care of the communitv for the 
 
392 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 individual owner of cows, as well as the constant mixture 
 of good and poor strains. 
 
 Meadows and pastures first had some intelligent care 
 with the opening of the new century. A writer in 1813 
 says: "The introduction of clover . . . has within the 
 last ten years made a very sensible improvement in the 
 agriculture of this country. Indeed it is only within the 
 last twenty years that any grass seed has been sown, and 
 it will be no exaggeration to say that more clover seed has 
 been put in within the last eight years than has ever been 
 since the country was inhabited," 
 
 It is true that there was little, if any thoroughbred 
 stock in Connecticut until near the middle of the century, 
 but on the other hand the stock brought over by immi- 
 grants would naturally have been as carefully selected as 
 was possible and the records of butter and cheese made 
 and sold in the early part of the century indicate that 
 there were many "good milkers" — as is always the case 
 — among these "native" cattle. 
 
 In 1819 the first full-blood Devon bull was imported 
 and in 1820 two full-blood heifers by S. and L. Hurlburt 
 of Winchester Center, (who were the originators. I be- 
 lieve, of the Hurlburt apple). From this stock the first 
 working cattle came which commanded high prices. 
 
 The Hurlburt's raised and sold 1,500 of them. At the 
 Hartford fair in 1825 the Hurlburts showed some fine 
 Devonshire bulls and Ayrshire and Holderness steers and 
 heifers. In a report of the Hartford fair it is said that 
 "probably no section of our country can produce a finer 
 race of native cattle than this County. Most of the for- 
 eign breeds of known and established excellence are now 
 propagated within the limits of this Society, half blooded 
 Holderness, Ayrshire and Devonshire cows took prem- 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 393 
 
 iums." The first pure herd book, of which I find notice, 
 is of short horn cattle, begun in 1835 at East Windsor. 
 The early importations of Jersey cattle are most difficult 
 to trace. The animals were called indifferently Jerseys, 
 Guernseys or Alderneys and they were interbred indis- 
 criminately. The marked differences between Guernsey 
 and Jersey today are largely changes which have developed 
 by careful selection and breeding since 1870. 
 
 It is stated, (41, Vol. IV), that "nearly, if not quite the 
 earliest importation of Jersey cows into Connecticut was 
 in 1846 when J. A. Taintor brought into Hartford County 
 twelve of the best cows that he could find on the Island of 
 Jersey." The earliest imported Jerseys to become regis- 
 tered later were brought over in 1850 by Messrs. Buell 
 and Norton to Connecticut. Somewhat later C. R. Alsop 
 imported two Jerseys which he sold to Lyman A. Mills of 
 Middlefield in 1869 and which appear in Vol. I of the 
 Jersey Register. He continued as a breeder of Jerseys 
 until 1896 when he sold his herd of 32 head to C. I. Hood 
 of the Hood farm. 
 
 Says a recent writer: "When the "Great West" first 
 began to make itself vocal in Jersey Club affairs, there 
 were more Jerseys in Connecticut than in all the great 
 west." 
 
 The first Guernseys, the records of which were kept 
 so that they could be recorded in the registry, were im- 
 ported in 1830 or 1831 by Mr. Prince of Boston. About 
 1874 a number of importations of Guernseys into Con- 
 necticut were made by C. M. Beach of West Hartford, 
 which were the foundation of the herd of E. Norton of 
 Farmington, who was the secretary of the Guernsey 
 registry. The Guernsey herd book was established in 
 Farminsfton. 
 
394 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 The first thoroughbred herd of Holstein-Friesian stock 
 was imported into this country about 1860 when W. W. 
 Chenery of Behnont, Mass., imported a bull and four 
 cows which founded the breed in this country. One of 
 ;he earliest importers into this State was M. L. Stoddard 
 of Newington. From him A. B. Pierpont of Waterbury 
 bought a bull which, with other pure bloods, founded a 
 fine thoroughbred herd. As this breed is distinctly high 
 milk-producing it has become very popular since fresh 
 milk rather than butter has become the chief product of 
 dairy farms. A total of 7,757 Holsteins have been im- 
 ported, most of them between 1879 and 1890 and from 
 them our present thoroughbred stock has descended. The 
 number of registered Holsteins in the country in 1915 
 was 92,048. 
 
 The first blooded Ayrshires brought to the United 
 States, came to Connecticut in 1822. In 1837 the Massa- 
 chusetts Society for promoting Agriculture established 
 its first herd of Ayrshires. 
 
 Flint states (27), that "in the opinion of many good 
 judges the dairy stock of New England has not been im- 
 proved in its intrinsic good qualities during the last thirty 
 or forty years. Cows of the very highest order as milkers 
 were as frequently met with, they say, in 1825 as at the 
 present, 1858." 
 
 The general conditions seem to have been these. Early 
 in the century English cattle were imported, Durhams, 
 Devons, Aberdeens, Herefords and Shorthorns and later, 
 when dairy products, rather than beef and draft cattle 
 became necessary, came Ayrshires, Jerseys, Guernseys 
 and later Holsteins. But these were used at first chiefly 
 for "breeding up" the dairy stock with little attention to 
 establishing thoroughbred herds. Phelps says (53), 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 395 
 
 Shorthorns and Devonshires, prior to 1870 were leading 
 breeds (in Litchfield County) "but when dairying as a 
 business came in, Connecticut became the home of some 
 of the best old world breeds. 
 
 In fact there was no science of breeding until Darwin 
 laid the foundations in his series of books on biology, be- 
 ginning in 1859. 
 
 Cheese Manufacture. In 1792 Alexander Norton of 
 Goshen, being sent to the South for his health, bought 
 cheese to sell again at the South. The venture was so suc- 
 cessful that he continued the business, packing it first in 
 hogsheads, but later in round boxes which he devised, 
 each carrying two cheeses. This was the beginning of an 
 important cheese making industry in this section. In 1845 
 Litchfield County made more than 2^ million pounds of 
 cheese annually, and Windham County 850,000 pounds. 
 Dwight says, (24, Vol. II), "The inhabitants of Goshen 
 are probably more wealthy than any other collection of 
 farmers in New England equally numerous. The quantity 
 of cheese made by them is estimated at 400,000 pounds. 
 This place seems to have been a pioneer in the cheese man- 
 ufacture on a large scale and no other place in the State 
 did more than a very limited business in cheese making." 
 
 The first pineapple cheese was made by Lewis M. Nor- 
 ton of Goshen in 1808 and in 1810 a patent was obtained 
 for the form. He continued till 1844 making cheese from 
 his own herd of fifty cows. He then began buying curd 
 from other dairies and built what is believed to be the first 
 cheese factory in the country. Other factories soon 
 started. Norton's son established one in New York State. 
 The two made 65,000 to 70,000 pounds as late as 1889. 
 
396 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 Large herds of Durhams and Ayrshires developed in con- 
 nection with the cheese industry. 
 
 Up to 1780 making butter and cheese at home were the 
 chief branches of dairy industry and cheese formed a 
 considerable part of dairy production till near the close 
 of the century, in places remote from railroad transporta- 
 tion. 
 
 From Connecticut the cheese industry and dairy farm- 
 ing in general was carried to the West. "The Connecticut 
 Yankee brought a cheese hoop with him and wherever he 
 went made cheese. Western Reserve has continued to be 
 the dairy section of the State. There the old home made 
 cheese trade developed, there the cheese factory had its 
 beginnings, there the creamery had its development, and 
 there is now the market milk center of the State." 
 
 Butter Making, Co-operative Creameries. Butter 
 was made in families from the beginning and home-made 
 butter became an article of trade as soon as the market 
 permitted. Thus in 1845 Litchfield County made 1,290,000 
 pounds, Hartford and Fairfield Counties almost as much. 
 As the trade increased and uniformity and excellence of 
 quality became more necessary, there developed the 
 creamery system and especially the co-operative creamery. 
 
 The Farmington Creamery, if not the very first, es- 
 tablished, was certainly the one which incited the general 
 movement. This was organized as a joint stock company 
 in 1869-1870 with a capital of $4,000, afterwards in- 
 creased to $4,500. In 1871 it received milk from 200 
 cows and in 1881 from 750. In 1889 there were five joint 
 stock companies and two private creameries within a few 
 miles of Farmington and sixty-three in the State. Wapp- 
 ing Creamery was organized in 1883, Windsor in 1885. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 397 
 
 In 1889 Lebanon Creamery "sent tons of home-made but- 
 ter to Providence," but this became unprofitable and a 
 co-operative creamery was estabhshed to make cheese. 
 But all the other creameries, it is believed, were engaged 
 solely in making and marketing butter, the skim-milk be- 
 ing either returned to the farms or in many cases poured 
 into the river. 
 
 The advent of the cream gathering system with deep 
 setting left the skimmed milk on the farm, paying by the 
 "space" of cream was supplanted by testing each patron's 
 cream and basing payment on pounds of butter fat de- 
 livered. The use of the separator on the farm added to 
 the economy of butter production. But the business of 
 these creameries became unprofitable and they disap- 
 peared as rapidly as they had grown in numbers and im- 
 portance. The reason is obvious. Prior to about 1878 the 
 consumption of fresh milk in cities and towns was light 
 and was supplied within a short radius of farms. At least 
 the demand for fresh milk did not anywhere meet the sup- 
 ply. The surplus was used for butter making in the 
 family, and sold to individuals or to the village store. 
 
 Then came the co-operative creamery as has been noted 
 and an increasing demand for high-grade butter. But 
 soon came the ruinous western competition in butter and 
 the introduction of butter substitutes, which closed the 
 butter factories of Connecticut. (In 1889 there were 63 
 of them, now only very few remain. ) 
 
 The industry in condensed milk in this country began 
 in Litchfield County. A Mr. Gale of Burrville put up 
 milk under the first patent for condensing milk and em- 
 ploying sugar in the process. The Borden Condensed 
 Milk Company, organized in 1863, did business in Win- 
 sted until 1866. 
 
398 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 But with the concentration of population in cities and 
 with increased attention to sanitation and the importance 
 of rational nutrition there has come a greatly increased 
 demand for clean fresh milk made under sanitary condi- 
 tions, and since 1900 about three-fourths of the milk pro- 
 duced has been sold fresh. The production and proper 
 marketing of such milk is now the only profitable branch 
 of dairy industry. Shipping stations for fresh milk have 
 taken the place of creameries, and while very little fresh 
 milk is brought into Connecticut approximately twenty- 
 five million quarts are yearly shipped from Connecticut 
 to neighboring states. 
 
 Milk has also been made a safer food by pasteurization, 
 seventy per cent of the fluid milk consumed in the State 
 being treated in this way. 
 
 Better still is the production of certified milk from 
 tested cows, with all sanitary precautions in the handling 
 of the milk under rigid inspection by state officials. 
 
 The manufacture of ice cream, a recent but rapidly 
 growing business (there are at least twenty factories of 
 good repute in the State), is of great advantage to the 
 dairy business by taking up its surplus milk in periods of 
 over-production. 
 
 The number of milk cows in the State, over 85,000 in 
 1850, was nearly 128,000 in 1890 to 1900, but in 1920 
 sharply declined to 112,600, due to reduction of stock 
 during the war, but rose in 1923 to 141,000. 
 
 Four inventions have made the present development of 
 the milk business possible. The silo is the first, which 
 gives a supply of green, succulent feed through the entire 
 year and greatly reduces the need of pasture land. The 
 practice of ensilaging green fodder is very ancient, but 
 its general introduction into dairy practice is very modern. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 399 
 
 In 1870 Goffert published in France a Manual of the Cul- 
 ture and Siloing of Maize and other green crops, which 
 brought it to general attention and he may be called the 
 Father of Modern Silage. The earhest silos in the United 
 States were built by Miles in Michigan in 1875 and by 
 F. Morris in Maryland in 1876. Their use in this State 
 immediately followed. The round silo resulted from the 
 work of King in Wisconsin, 1892-1895. In 1882 there 
 were less than 100 silos in the United States. It is esti- 
 mated that now there are a quarter of a million in use. 
 
 The second, and later invention is the milking machine 
 which has greatly reduced the labor requirement. 
 
 The third is the corn harvester which harvests and 
 binds the crop, ready to be cut and put into the silo by 
 machinery with a further reduction of labor. 
 
 The fourth invention is the Babcock test to determine 
 the amount of butter fat in milk as a basis of payment, or 
 as a check on adulteration. 
 
 In 1891 this was first used in the State to fix the pay- 
 ment for mJlk by its content of butter fat. Soon after, 
 it was adopted by the creameries as a basis of payment, 
 replacing other systems which gave a chance for dis- 
 honesty and discouraged the producers of high quality 
 cream. At present it is useful as a test of the quality of 
 market milk in the State and as a help to breeders in judg- 
 ing of the performance of individual cows. 
 
 The two most insidious and dangerous diseases of dairy 
 stock are tuberculosis and infectious abortion. The 
 danger to the public and loss to the farmer caused by 
 tuberculosis is well understood, but infectious abortion 
 causes more loss to the dairyman than is generally known. 
 
 The means of preventing it are now being studied at 
 the Storrs Agricultural Station with encouraging results. 
 
400 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 Good progress is now made in ridding the State of tu- 
 berculous cattle and of stopping their entry into it. 
 
 As a result of the work of the commissioner of do- 
 mestic animals, the dairy commissioner and federal offi- 
 cials there are now 1,405 herds, containing 31,764 dairy 
 cattle in the State proved to be free from tuberculosis. 
 Of these 410 herds, numbering 8,797 head have been 
 found free for two years or more. This of course, is only 
 a small fraction of the total number of cows in the State, 
 but it marks the early stages of a movement to entirely 
 wipe out bovine tuberculosis and by so doing to lessen 
 the disease in the human race. 
 
 The Sheep Industry. In the nineteenth century 
 Connecticut developed an extensive sheep industry, 
 brought into the State and country the merino sheep which 
 were the foundation of the best flocks everywhere, and 
 finally has seen the steady decline of sheep raising almost 
 to the vanishing point. 
 
 The introduction of Spanish merino sheep is of special 
 interest because it was the work of a Connecticut citizen 
 and Connecticut was the center from which this breed 
 was distributed, being the foundation of the improved 
 Vermont merinos and the American merinos which have 
 been of inestimable value to the country. 
 
 It is said that two merino ewes and a ram were sent to 
 a gentleman in Cambridge in 1798, which were butchered 
 and eaten. In 1801 a merino ram, Dom Pedro, reached 
 this country and was used as a sire in New York and 
 Delaware. In 1801 Seth Adams imported a merino ram 
 and ewe and received a prize from the Massachusetts 
 Agricultural Society for the importation of a pair of 
 superior breed, But for the establishment of the breed 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 401 
 
 on American farms the country is indebted to Gen. David 
 Humphreys, diplomatist, poet and farmer. In a discourse 
 delivered in 1816, he indulges the hope that ''this acquisi- 
 tion of the golden fleece is an event of some importance" 
 and that "it will possibly be remembered when I shall be 
 no more." He was awarded a gold medal by the Massa- 
 chusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture and later 
 Connecticut gave him a testimonial in recognition of his 
 services. 
 
 In 1802, (54), Gen. David Humphrey, U. S. Minister 
 at Madrid, retired from office with the close of the Adams 
 administration. He had become a special favorite among 
 the grandees from some of whom he had acquired a deep 
 interest in the Spanish sheep. Being contrary to Ameri- 
 can custom he could not accept the present usually be- 
 stowed on a departing minister but at his suggestion he 
 was tacitly permitted to send a flock of pure blooded 
 merinos to his farm at Derby, Conn. This consisted of 
 75 ewes and 25 rams, nine animals having died on the 
 voyage. 
 
 His farm at once became the center of the wool grow- 
 ing interest. 
 
 At first farmers were not greatly interested, but when 
 America was shut off from foreign wool the interest in 
 wool increased. In 1806 Humphrey was glad to get $300 
 for a ram and two ewes. In 1808 he sold a ram for 
 $1,000. Crossing merinos with common sheep was found 
 to double the shearing of wool. Connecticut became the 
 center of a sheep mania and in 1813 there were estimated 
 to be 400,000 sheep within the State. From there the 
 merino stock was distributed through the sheep raising 
 sections of the country. 
 
 In 1810 merino wool sold in Hartford at the following 
 
402 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 prices: Full-bred, $2.75 per pound. Half-bred, $1.00. 
 Quarter-bred, 62 cents. 
 
 Regarding the yield per head little data appears. The 
 fleece of a pure merino lamb in New Milford, (1810) was 
 said to weight nine pounds, the carcass, sixty- three 
 pounds. 
 
 In 1824 the Saxon merinos were brought in and largely 
 raised. 
 
 About 1815 the tariff on wool was removed and a de- 
 cline in the sheep industry followed, lasting till 1825. 
 Then for twenty years the production of fine wool greatly 
 increased. 
 
 In 1840 there were over 400,000 sheep in Connecticut 
 (U. S. Census) and a production of nearly 900,000 
 pounds of wool. The production steadily decreased from 
 that date until, in 1920 there were less than 12,000 sheep 
 in the State with a wool production of about 42,000 
 pounds. 
 
 In 1810 and 1811, while Spain was at war with 
 Napoleon, her flocks were broken up, eaten by ravaging 
 armies, stolen by the French and thousands were smug- 
 gled through Portugal to England. The Junta, in order 
 to get fimds, sold the choicest stock and it is estimated 
 that 20,000 full blooded sheep came to America. Most 
 of them probably were used for grading up native stock 
 rather than for building pure blooded flocks. The prices 
 here fell to one-tenth of the prices charged at the height 
 of the excitement following their introduction. 
 
 Carding machines for this fine wool were soon found 
 in every hamlet and Congress increased the ad valorem 
 duty on wool from five to thirty-five per cent. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 403 
 
 Fruit Growing. While the fruit crop was consider- 
 able at the close of the preceding century, choice varieties 
 were few. Most fruit trees had been raised from seed. 
 The apples were of all colors and flavors, but of these 
 "native" kinds some were choice and have held their place. 
 Thus the Hurlburt, as already noticed, was a Connecticut 
 seedling. It is said that the original Northern Spy in New 
 York came from seed from Salisbury, Conn. Hadwin 
 states that the first variety of apple developed in New 
 England was the Rhode Island Greening in Portsmouth, 
 R. I. The original tree stood near an ancient tavern 
 known, in 1765, as Green's Inn, and for years its fruit 
 was called "Green's Inn apple." 
 
 The Roxbury Russet probably originated in Roxbury, 
 Mass., soon after the settlement of the country. The first 
 settlers at Stonington came from Roxbury in 1649 and 
 it is said brought this variety with them. It is undoubt- 
 edly the oldest of native sorts. The original Baldwin 
 stood in Wilmington, Mass., and was first recognized 
 as a favorite fruit about the middle of the eighteenth 
 century. 
 
 In the early part of the century, James Hillhouse of 
 New Haven, (44, Vol. I), received scions from the 
 King's gardener in France and grafted 150 varieties of 
 apples and 40 of pears. President Dwight of Yale Col- 
 lege, early in the century, (24) gives a list of twenty lead- 
 ing varieties of apples grown in New England, from which 
 fruit may be had in every month of the year except July. 
 Gold states that in the early part of the century Pearmain 
 and Seeknofurther were common and that the Baldwin 
 came into general use later. 
 
 At the beginning of the century the apple product was 
 mainly consumed as cider. Soon after, and perhaps in 
 
404 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 consequence of the closing of trade with the West Indies 
 which stopped the importation of rum, the manufacture 
 of cider brandy developed rapidly. Many farmers in 
 Hartford County made 300 to 600 barrels of cider and 
 some few 1 ,000 barrels yearly, eight to ten barrels making 
 one of brandy. 
 
 There followed a temperance revival which in a few 
 years arrested this manufacture. Many cut down their 
 orchards and all neglected them. 
 
 The more careful selection and improvement of varie- 
 ties of apples probably began about 1835 to 1840. In 
 1842 Titus Gaylord of Cheshire had an orchard of 250 
 trees of "engrafted" winter apples. Since that time the 
 planting of orchards of carefully selected kinds of apples 
 has developed into a special agricultural industry. The 
 crop seems to have reached a maximum in 1900 with a 
 production of 3,708,900 bushels which fell according to 
 the Census of 1920 to 1,395,100 bushels. The quality of 
 the fruit and the careful grading of it were never so good 
 as today. 
 
 The pests which attack orchards are many. The two 
 which have proved most injurious are the coddling moth 
 and the San Jose scale. The former is everywhere present 
 and persistent and must be controlled every year by spray- 
 ing. The San Jose scale, brought into the state on nursery 
 stock was first found by the botanist of the Agricultural 
 Station in 1885. 
 
 It spread rapidly and by 1901 was found in seventy- 
 eight places in the State. Many orchards were ruined, 
 many others seriously damaged and the whole industry 
 threatened with ruin. It was finally controlled by a rigid 
 inspection of nursery stock and by the use of sprays. Para- 
 sites also developed which destroyed a great deal of the 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 405 
 
 scale on neglected wild growth. By 1914 the pest was no 
 longer prevalent but lately there has been a fresh de- 
 velopment of it. 
 
 Excellent seedling peaches were grown in the State be- 
 fore 1800 and long afterwards. Piatt, (18), says that 
 about 1840 peaches were as common about our farms as 
 apples, and seedling trees 90 or 100 years old were re- 
 ported. Later it was believed that the day of peaches was 
 past for trees lived hardly long enough to give a single 
 crop. 
 
 In the Seventies peach growing was at its lowest ebb ; 
 yet between 1845 and 1875 there were at least thirty or- 
 chards in the State, one in Southington of twenty acres. 
 In 1893 Piatt estimated that there were about 160,000 
 peach trees in the State, about half of them set within the 
 last three years. 
 
 Peach "yellows," known as early as 1815, (23, 1845),. 
 became very destructive and in 1842, is said to threaten 
 the destruction of all peaches. Complaint is also made of 
 the "curl." Rareripes, Admirables, Royal Kensington and 
 Noblesse are mentioned as popular varieties and probably 
 by that time the peach was somewhat generally grown. 
 
 In 1875 J. H. Hale of Glastonbury planted the first 
 commercial peach orchard and introduced and greatly 
 fostered this branch of farming in the State. 
 
 In 1878 P. M. Augur of Middlefield planted a second 
 orchard of 1,500 trees, but because of frost injury the 
 first considerable crop of peaches was not gathered until 
 1887, and from then on the business rapidly increased. 
 
 The industry has had very serious setbacks, due to in- 
 sect and fungus invasions and the vagaries of our winter 
 climate, but partly owing to the fact that the Connecticut 
 peach is at its best when those from other orchards 
 
406 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 further south are out of market, the business is fairly 
 successful. The peak production was in 1914-1915, prob- 
 ably 500,000 baskets. Hale states that in 1901 there were 
 less than 100,000 peach trees in Connecticut while ten 
 years later there were three million. 
 
 This, however, must have been a peach stampede, like 
 the '49 rush for gold in California, which quickly sub- 
 sided, leaving dead and neglected orchards. 
 
 The perishable small fruits have been grown since the 
 early days of the Colony but only became of commercial 
 importance late in the century when quick transportation 
 and the demands of nearby cities made any considerable 
 production profitable. 
 
 Since the passage of the Volstead Act, and in conse- 
 quence of it, the growing of grapes in this vState has in- 
 creased enormously though there are no statistics to show 
 this expansion. 
 
 The Seed-Growing Business. While before the Rev- 
 olution some garden seeds were imported from London 
 by dealers and ship owners, yet most families saved seed 
 of their own raising for their use. The oldest seed firms 
 were established in Philadelphia, the first being David 
 Landreth, established in 1784. 
 
 The Shaker colony in Enfield probably started late in 
 the eighteenth century. 
 
 The Shakers prepared for market medicinal herbs and 
 garden seeds and their gardens are said to have been very 
 profitable, because their products were everywhere sought, 
 being esteemed better than any other. 
 
 They frequently had large orders from Europe for 
 medicinal herbs. 
 
 In two sections where vegetables were grown to some 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 407 
 
 extent for market the possibility of commercial seed 
 growing was recognized. One of these sections was 
 Wethersfield. As has been noted, Wethersfield had long 
 been a center for onion growing and vegetable gardening. 
 Gradually it became a center for seed production rather 
 than truck farming. 
 
 The seed business has continued there strong up to the 
 present, in spite of the great changes in commercial and 
 local conditions. 
 
 The first general seed business in Wethersfield is be- 
 lieved to have been started about 1820 by James L. Bel- 
 den. It proved to be profitable and in 1838 was sold to 
 Franklin G. Comstock and his son William G. Comstock. 
 
 Later W. G. Comstock with Henry Ferre founded 
 Comstock, Ferre & Company, incorporated in 1853. For 
 86 years the business has been carried on under the Com- 
 stock name and for at least 104 years there has been the 
 same established business on their property. Other firms 
 were later established all of which had a country-wide 
 reputation. Thomas Griswold & Company, established in 
 1845; Johnson, Robbins & Company, in 1855; William 
 Meggat, in 1866; and Hart, Welles & Company, in 1894, 
 which was succeeded in 1916 by the Charles C. Hart Seed 
 Company. 
 
 William B. Comstock, a strong, aggressive man, built 
 up a fine seed trade in the South, having for a time a 
 branch store in New Orleans and he pushed out on the 
 frontier in the days when St. Louis, Chicago and Minne- 
 apolis were the extreme "West," almost in advance of 
 railroads. He seems to have started the commission box 
 business. He devised seed bags, with printed cultural 
 directions and wax seals, the different colors of which 
 represented the year of packing, so that the seeds longest 
 
408 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 viable, cucumbers, beets, etc., could be carried for five 
 years and others for shorter periods, depending on the 
 duration of their vitality. Comstock laid out the first 
 route of his seed wagons, up the Connecticut valley to 
 Springfield, Vermont and later they covered New Eng- 
 land and parts of Canada and other states. Later he put 
 up seeds for the southern trade, shipped to the principal 
 cities from Washington to New Orleans. This branch 
 of the business was dropped by Comstock, Ferre & Com- 
 pany, in 1888 so as to specialize in wholesale trade, but is 
 still carried on by the Chas. C. Hart Seed Company of 
 Wethersfield, probably the only firm in the State specializ- 
 ing in that line. 
 
 Onion growing reached its height in the period from 
 1860 to 1885 and for some years represented many 
 thousands of dollars in farming operations. 
 
 In less than fifty years seed growing has swung across 
 the continent and the Pacific and western states have for 
 years been able to produce for a less price, largely be- 
 cause of cheaper labor and greater yields with less lia- 
 bility of loss from insect pests, storms, etc., and while 
 Wethersfield is still a center of a large seed trade, seed 
 growing has shrunk to a very moderate amount. The 
 secret of the development of an extensive seed business in 
 Wethersfield, as in the Milford and Orange region, lies 
 in the fact that the men engaged in it were first of all ex- 
 tensive vegetable growers who had for years carefully 
 selected types of one or more vegetables to secure purity 
 and quality, which were recognized as superior and were 
 in demand. It was skillful selection and growing, rather 
 than selling, which made the great reputation of the place. 
 
 The entire seed trade acknowledges its obligation to 
 these growers. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 409 
 
 The foregoing facts are taken from an address to the 
 Wethersfield Business Men's Association in 1916 by Mr. 
 S. F. Willard. 
 
 The other seed growing and seed trade center of the 
 State is the region of Milford and Orange and in the town 
 of Westport where onion seed as well as onions were at 
 one time extensively raised. 
 
 Seed growing as a business was perhaps practiced here 
 in the Forties. 
 
 In 1857 E. B. Clark of Milford, succeeded by the 
 Everett B. Clark Seed Company, began the seed trade in- 
 dustry in that section of the State, and inaugurated the 
 growing of sweet corn seed as a business. S. D. Wood- 
 ruff of Orange, succeeded by S. D. Woodruff & Sons, 
 were also prominently engaged in both growing and 
 trading in seed. 
 
 There followed a great expansion of the business, but 
 since 1880 the business has followed the same course as 
 in Wethersfield, viz., great shrinkage in seed production, 
 while the trade in seeds has increased. 
 
 A considerable number of varieties of seeds is still 
 grown in Connecticut, largely in the Milford and Orange 
 districts, several of which are not grown elsewhere of as 
 high quality, namely onions, beets, and sweet corn. The 
 Connecticut sweet corn seed is in demand as "stock" 
 seed from regions in the West and South, where home- 
 grown seed degenerates in a few years and fresh stock 
 must be introduced. 
 
 For the two seed trade centers sweet corn seed is grown 
 in various parts of the State and it is in large demand from 
 the canneries of the country for it is a surer crop here 
 than in the canning districts, besides being of superior 
 quality. 
 
410 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 Probably 1,200 acres are planted at present to sweet 
 corn for seed, very little to onions and perhaps 75,000 
 pounds of beet seed of exceptionally fine quality are yearly 
 grown in the State. 
 
 Vegetable Growing, a very profitable farming indus- 
 try in the earlier part of the nineteenth century, did not 
 apparently meet much serious competition from other 
 states until the last quarter of the century. As early as 
 1 847 a small quantity of lettuce, radishes, mint and straw- 
 berries were brought to New York from the South, but in 
 the spring of 1885 the first all-rail shipment of Southern 
 garden truck came to New York. 
 
 In the Eighties also came the first car loads of oranges 
 from Florida and strawberries in large quantities. At 
 present not only are the more solid fruits and vegetables 
 brought into Connecticut from other states but also the 
 very perishable things, like lettuce, asparagus and spinach 
 from the far south fill our markets at certain seasons. 
 
 In spite of outside competition, however, the production 
 and sale of strictly fresh vegetables for our home market, 
 seems likely to be an enduring business. 
 
 Potatoes were said to have been raised in the western 
 part of the State in 1802 (58), from seed balls, the second 
 or third year from the ball. 
 
 About 1842 (20, III), potatoes were a principal crop 
 in Greenwich. The average yield was 200 bushels per 
 acre and they were shipped to New York. For many years 
 Greenwich sent more potatoes to New York than all the 
 other coast towns of Connecticut and they made Green- 
 wich the richest town in the State in proportion to its 
 population. 
 
 The Census of 1840 reports a larger yield of potatoes 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 411 
 
 than in any decade except 1900 and the production has 
 fallen from about three and a half million bushels in that 
 year to less than half that amount in 1920. 
 
 Poor seed and a number of rather obscure plant dis- 
 eases account in large part for the decline. 
 
 Onions. These were at first grown wholly as a vege- 
 table and Wethersfield became the center of the business 
 in the eighteenth century. 
 
 In 1823 Dwight reports that the growing of onions 
 there is still profitable but not so extensively practiced as 
 earlier because of competition. 
 
 Gradually the business shifted to onion seed production 
 as noted elsewhere. 
 
 Later onion growing became extensive in the Fairfield 
 region, being specially profitable during the Civil War 
 when the "Southport Globe" was raised and sold for ten 
 dollars a barrel. It was the best keeping variety ever put 
 on the market. Probably 100,000 barrels were raised 
 there in the war time. In 1871, onions are reported as 
 the chief crop in Westport and Southport, yielding an 
 average of 500 bushels per acre and the highest recorded 
 yield, 900 bushels. 300,000 to 500,000 bushels were yearly 
 raised in that town. In 1885, a tract six miles square in 
 Westport grew 80,000 barrels of onions which was only 
 two-thirds of a normal crop. 
 
 Soon after, the price of onions fell greatly. The white 
 onion was more in demand and was extensively grown. 
 But the difficulty of keeping them, the prevalence of fun- 
 gous diseases, labor scarcity and a great rise in real es- 
 tate values together nearly extinguished the onion grow- 
 ing business. 
 
 Tomatoes were scarcely grown in the State until the 
 
412 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 second quarter of the nineteenth century, T. S. Gold re- 
 ports that in 1830 he planted tomatoes in his flower gar- 
 den in Goshen and got an abundant crop. They were 
 called "love apples" and he was told that "they eat them in 
 France" — no one in Goshen did. They are now very ex- 
 tensively grown in the State, both for marketing and for 
 canning. 
 
 Tobacco is the one crop which has shown steadily in- 
 creased production from the begiiming of the century to 
 the present. For the last fifty years at least it has met 
 with serious competition from Florida and Georgia, and 
 from Sumatra (since 1881), but in spite of this it has 
 almost constantly held its place as a superior grade of 
 leaf for cigar wrappers. Its growth, rather general 
 through the State in the earlier years, afterwards became 
 limited to the light, sandy soils of the northern Connecti- 
 cut valley and to the somewhat stronger soils of the 
 Housatonic valley. On such soils alone can tobacco be 
 grown which has the qualities required by the trade for 
 cigar wrappers or binders; the only uses to which it is 
 adapted. In 1840 the production was 235.8 tons, in 1920 
 2109.6 tons, a nine-fold increase. 
 
 Prior to 1801 not more than ten tons of tobacco were 
 grown in Connecticut yearly, and was mostly shipped to 
 the West Indies in hogsheads. The growers got from 
 $3.00 to $3.33 per hundredweight. This was a narrow, 
 so-called "shoestring" tobacco. About that time plug and 
 twist tobacco were made in East Windsor, (at first by a 
 Mrs. Prout from Virginia), and also cigars, known as 
 "paste" cigars and later as "long nines" or "Windsor par- 
 ticulars." (68, 1856).'^ 
 
 23 Col. Israel Putnam, of Wolf Den fame, is credited with the introduc- 
 tion of cigars into Connecticut. It is said that he went as Lieut. Col. of the 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 413 
 
 In 1810 factories were established in East Windsor 
 and Siiffield which also used both Spanish and Connecti- 
 cut tobacco in their cigars and peddled them through the 
 country from wagons. 
 
 About 1824-1825 a packing house was established and 
 the leaf, in bales of 100 pounds, (another writer says 400 
 pounds ) , were enclosed in boards on four sides with the 
 ends exposed. 
 
 Till 1833 "shoestring" tobacco was grown. But about 
 this time a broadleaf strain was brought by B. P. Bar- 
 bour of East Windsor, from Maryland, which was far 
 l)etter suited to cigar manufacture, by its shape, texture 
 and neutral flavor. The somewhat careful sorting of the 
 leaf before sale began about 1840. 
 
 The first tobacco was grown in the Housatonic valley, 
 at Kent, in 1845 and soon after in New Milford. By 
 1870 it became a leading product. 
 
 In 1890 tobacco was first grown under shade in this 
 State by the Connecticut Agricultural Station and the sta- 
 tion also introduced witji it the method for the rapid fer- 
 mentation of the leaf in bulk instead of in cases. Both 
 practices immediately gained favor and in 1893, 645 
 acres were grown under shade in the Connecticut valley. 
 
 Then, owing to lack of experience in curing and fer- 
 mentation and the use of unselected "Sumatra" seed, the 
 raising of shade tobacco suffered eclipse and the acreage 
 of the next three years ran from 40 to 70 acres, but 
 rapidly increased with increased skill in raising and hand- 
 ling the crop to 6,100 acres in 1918, the larger part of it 
 
 first Connecticut regiment in the expedition against Havana in 1762. Shortly- 
 after its capture, while on a scouting expedition, he saw nearly every native 
 smoking a big, roughly rolled cigar. A trial of them so pleased him that 
 Tie brought home a quantity, "as much as three donkeys could pack". Later 
 he kept a tavern in Pomf ret and distributed his cigars which soon became 
 very popular. 
 
414 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 in Connecticut. The shaded tobacco under favorable con- 
 ditions commands a much higher price than that grown 
 in the open. In 1924 the acreage was 5250. 
 
 In 1856, (43, Vol. I), an effort was made to induce 
 growers to put their crops in a general warehouse in or- 
 der to rid themselves of the speculative system of buying 
 and selling. 
 
 It was claimed that in the three years during which it 
 had been practiced, on a limited scale, growers had got 
 from 50 to 75 per cent more for their crop than had been 
 obtained from "speculators," and had also raised the 
 speculators' prices. Apparently an organization was ef- 
 fected which continued for some years. How much it 
 actually accomplished or how long a course it ran, does 
 not seem to have been recorded. 
 
 In the fall of 1922 The Connecticut Valley Tobacco 
 Association was formed, its members binding themselves 
 for five years to sell to the Association all of the tobacco 
 raised by or for them. It operates 104 warehouses, grades 
 all the tobacco from its members, sells it and as sales are 
 made pays the members according to the grading of their 
 crop, after paying the expenses of the organization. At 
 present it controls 87 per cent of the acreage of New Eng- 
 land tobacco which is grown in the open. 
 
 Corn. We have seen that maize was the staple crop 
 and staple cereal food of the settlers in the seventeenth 
 century. Gradually wheat displaced it, at first only among 
 the more prosperous in the centers. 
 
 But baked in thin cakes, forerunner of the "hoe cake" 
 of the South, cooked as "hasty pudding," with molasses 
 as a sauce, later made into bread with rye ("rye and 
 Injin"), corn meal was widely used in the country in the 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 415 
 
 eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and now, while 
 it has almost passed as a family food, it has not passed 
 from some of us as a not unpleasant boyhood memory. 
 
 We have also noticed that corn has become a chief 
 reliance of dairymen to make good the lack of pasturage 
 in summer and to provide a succulent food in the long 
 winters. While the silo did not come into general use 
 before 1880, the value of the corn plant for fodder was 
 understood long before. A writer in the "Connecticut 
 Courant" in 1821 calls attention to corn fodder and claims 
 that, properly cured, it is as good as hay. He cuts it when 
 it is about ready to spindle and cuts it high enough so that 
 it will "spread again" and give a second crop. 
 
 The production of the grain increased steadily since 
 1840 till 1909. 
 
 The yield in 1919, 2,062,495 bushels, was 468,000 
 bushels less than in the preceding census, and may be ex- 
 plained by a poor season and in part by the larger produc- 
 tion of wheat after the war. This larger production of 
 shelled corn includes a very considerable amount of sweet 
 corn seed shipped out of the State to canneries and seed 
 dealers. 
 
 Rye and Oats. The crop of oats, which in 1840 nearly 
 equalled that of corn, has steadily declined to the present 
 time. 
 
 The production of rye, always grown in smaller amount 
 than oats, has likewise steadily declined, though it is still 
 used quite extensively as a cover crop and green manure. 
 
 Wheat. Connecticut has never been a considerable 
 grain producing State. Even in the eighteenth centur}' its 
 wheat supply was drawn largely from New York and 
 
416 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 Pennsylvania, and after 1850 the "golden West" almost 
 monopolized the business. Yet the State has been slow to 
 quite abandon the growing of wheat. Thus in 1845 a 
 writer in the "Cultivation" says that more or less wheat 
 has been grown on his farm in Cheshire for forty-five 
 years, and the crop was a failure not more than three times 
 in this period. For the fifteen years since he has owned the 
 farm there has been no insect injury. His wheat runs 62 
 pounds to the bushel. 
 
 As late as 1871 wheat growing was not uncommon. 
 Thus 100 acres were grown in Westport, with an average 
 yield of 30 bushels per acre. 
 
 Greenwich at the same time reported that the majority 
 of farmers raised enough to supply them with bread. 
 
 It is interesting to note that in the financial crash of 
 IS36-37 so wide a ruin of wheat was wrought by the Hes- 
 sian fly that more than 1,360,000 bushels of wheat were 
 imported into this country from Europe. 
 
 From 1850 to 1880 38,000 to 50,000 bushels of wheat 
 were yearly raised in Connecticut. Then the production 
 fell to about 7,000, 9,000 and 12,000 bushels in the three 
 following decades, but rose to 50,000 bushels in 1919, a 
 larger crop than at any time since 1840. This was a war 
 time emergency. Very many farmers raised satisfactory 
 crops of wheat and found that on good land a yield of 40 
 bushels per acre was quite possible. 
 
 With the great increase in poultry keeping, it is not 
 likely that wheat growing will immediately fall to the 
 pre-war basis. It is quite likely that to supply feed for 
 poultry and for dairy stock it may find a place with profit 
 in farm rotations. 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 417 
 
 Hemp. As has been noted, hemp was grown from the 
 early days, being encouraged by bounties. About 1810 
 it seems to have been quite successful on the fertile banks 
 of the Connecticut River and on warm uplands. 
 
 Long Meadow, just over the Massachusetts line (19. 
 1810), is stated to have sold the year's crop in Boston, 
 New Haven and New York for $35,000. Three to twelve 
 hundred pounds per acre could be raised, and it was 
 quoted at $412 per ton in Boston, but $200 was a fair 
 price when trade with Russia was open. Dwight says 
 (24, Vol. I). "Hemp has lately excited the attention in 
 earnest. At Long Meadow and at Enfield, Conn., and at 
 some other places in the neighborhood, it grows luxuri- 
 antly and is undoubtedly the most profitable crop that can 
 be raised." In 1804 the General Assembly put a bounty 
 of $10 a ton on domestic hemp or flax which was later 
 repealed. But as late as 1829 land on which hemp was 
 raised was exempt from taxation. 
 
 Probably the business never attained any great vol- 
 ume. The census of 1860 reports the Connecticut produc- 
 tion of hemp as three tons, and it is not reported later. 
 
 Flax was widely grown in this State in the first quar- 
 ter of the century and in some places in rather large 
 amount, both for the fiber and for the seed. Thus in 1802 
 Milford raised 100,000 pounds of flax and 4,000 bushels 
 of flax seed. In 1807 (36. II) Fairfield exported about 
 20,000 bushels of flax seed a year, and later more flax was 
 grown there than in the whole of New England beside 
 (24, III) . The average crop of flax was about 200 pounds 
 with 6-S bushels of seed. 
 
 In 1810 (9), while flax in the country exceeded both 
 wool and cotton as textile fibers, it was not suited to New 
 
418 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 England conditions because of the labor and fertilization 
 required, but as it was needed for the making of tow 
 cloth and linen, a small area on the farm was generally 
 planted to flax, until about the middle of the century, and 
 by 1880 the growing of flax had practically ceased in 
 this State. 
 
 The course of Connecticut farming since about 1880 
 and its present condition have been admirably set forth 
 by Prof. I. G. Davis of the Connecticut Agricultural Col- 
 lege in the "Agricultural College Review," March, 1924. 
 
 What follows is chiefly an abstract of his conclusions : 
 
 During the last forty years, in the rapid changes in 
 economic conditions, Connecticut agriculture has been 
 forced to continual readjustment to meet these conditions. 
 This has resulted in more intense methods of farming 
 and elimination of the less productive and more remote 
 farm lands. 
 
 "Our agriculture of forty years ago was a livestock in- 
 dustry, based on hay and pasture." These are crops re- 
 quiring a broad acreage. But when the seemingly ex- 
 haustless, fertile lands of the West were opened, wool, 
 mutton and beef, easily produced and easily carried or 
 driven to shipping points, was brought to market at prices 
 with which Connecticut farmers, with small fields and 
 brush pastures, could not compete and make a living. So 
 these lines of farming had to be given up, and, as in every 
 other business, changed conditions had to be met by 
 changed methods and changed production. 
 
 The extensive production of beef, sheep and dairy man- 
 ufactures (cheese and butter) was therefore gradually 
 abandoned. But these are hay- and grass-consuming in- 
 dustries requiring extensive acreage, and their abandon- 
 ment inevitably caused the decrease by more than one- 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 419 
 
 half in improved farm acreage. The use of motor ve- 
 hicles for local transportation instead of horses accounts 
 for a further reduction in hay acreage. 
 
 What has been the result ? 
 
 1. The production of livestock products, which are 
 easily transported (meats, wool, butter and low-grade 
 eggs) has rapidly declined, while the production of things 
 which, because of extreme perishability, can be produced 
 only where they can reach the consumer quickly, in per- 
 fect condition, has increased. Fresh milk and high-grade 
 eggs, produced for local market, show this decided in- 
 crease. Dairying does not require extensive pasture land. 
 Grain feeding, the use of soiling crops and the extensive 
 use of corn silage are substitutes for grazing land. The 
 fact that corn is the only food crop which has not declined 
 but actually increased since 1880, is explained by its ex- 
 tensive use in dairy feeding. 
 
 2. The growing of cash crops which have a high weight 
 per unit of value, such as hay for sale, potatoes and cab- 
 bage, declined during the period. 
 
 Low freight rates tended to discourage raising them 
 here, but the higher freight rates now prevailing may 
 bring them in again. There are signs of this revival helped 
 by better methods of production which the Agricultural 
 College is introducing. 
 
 3. An advance has been made in raising crops in which 
 we have distinct soil, climatic or seasonal advantages, 
 which enables us to more than meet the quality or prices 
 of our competitors. Such are tobacco, sweet corn (for 
 immediate consumption or for seed), apples, peaches and 
 perhaps tomatoes. Thus the production of tobacco has 
 increased three-fold since 1880. Peach orchards have 
 been almost entirely developed in the last forty years. The 
 
420 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
 farm apple orchard has been slowly dying, but the busi- 
 ness apple orchard, with modern methods of production 
 and marketing, is making sound and consistent progress, 
 and the outlook is very promising. 
 
 4. Growing extremely perishable cash crops, in which 
 the marketing expense of competitors is very high, due to 
 distance and perishability, certain vegetables for instance, 
 is increasing. It may be added that the more enlightened 
 taste of consumers will be a help to this industry. 
 
 They are learning that slightly wilted vegetables are 
 better fitted for cattle than for the "home circle," and 
 that sweet corn, after twenty-four hours' keeping, may 
 serve for "roughage," but is not a delicacy. 
 
 Now, what has been the result as shown by statistics ? 
 Does it justify the opinion so often expressed, that Con- 
 necticut agriculture is ready to perish, or at least is con- 
 tinuing in a dead-and-alive condition ? 
 
 Prof. Davis, who has had exceptional opportunity to 
 study the question, makes the following statements : 
 
 "Even when all corrections have been made for the 
 fluctuations of the dollar for the past forty years, Con- 
 necticut agriculture shows a five-fold increase in the value 
 of its products per acre, and a three-fold increase of the 
 value of the products per farm, and the total value of the 
 products of the State has doubled. Specifically, the in- 
 crease in the value of the products of the farm since 1880 
 has been from $10 per acre to $48.60 per acre, and the 
 value of products per farm from $540 to $3,100." ^* 
 
 The average Connecticut farm is producing somewhat 
 more than the average in the United States. 
 
 Prophecy regarding business ventures is futile. Faith 
 in the future, based on the. record of the past, which is 
 
 ** Changed by E. H. J. to prices as per commodity index, (1913-100) 
 
CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 421 
 
 the sentiment of the legend on the seal of this State, is 
 reasonable, and necessary to success. 
 
 'There certainly has never been a time within sixty 
 years," says Prof. Davis, "when the opportunity for a 
 man with the right training and character, to farm with 
 the prospect of getting a good income and attaining a 
 high standard of life for himself and his family is as 
 ^ood as it is today." 
 
422 HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT 
 
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CONNECTICUT AGRICULTURE 423 
 
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University of 
 Connecticut 
 
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