MENTION of the Empire State calls up a vision of large cities, urban populations, and the smokestacks of industry. Yet in 1936 New York ranked seventh among the States in the value of its farm products. It led in the cash values of its ducks, cabbage, fluid milk, and onions; was second in the value of its potatoes, apples, cauliflower, maple products, hay, buckwheat, grapes, cherries, and beets; third in the value of its eggs, carrots, and lettuce; and fourth in the value of its pears and celery. New York’s production total of corn, wheat, barley, oats, rye, and buckwheat for 1936 was almost 50,000,000 bushels. Of buckwheat, a crop not widely grown elsewhere, the State raised some 2,000,000 bushels—about one third of the national production; and, incidentally, it enjoys a virtual monopoly of the production of dark, rich buckwheat honey. In canning, developed as an auxiliary industry to the growing of cash vegetable crops and fruits, the State ranked second in 1929, with 279 factories doing a gross business of $75,500,000.
Striking in the agricultural economy of the State is the fact that the 1935 figures for the number of farms and farm population approach those of 85 years ago. In round numbers, there were in 1850 some 170,000 farms totaling 19,100,000 acres; in 1935, there were 177,000 farms totaling 18,600,000 acres. But the value of farms in 1935 was almost double that of 1850; and the increase in invested capital is indicated by the rise in the value of livestock from $73,000,000 to $222,000,000 and of farm machinery and equipment from $22,000,000 to $173,000,000. The farm population in 1935 was 784,483.
In broad outline, the determining factors in the history of agriculture in the State were improvement in transportation, the rise of outside competition, and the growth of the metropolitan market. In the period during and after the Revolution, the Hudson, eastern Mohawk, and Schoharie Valleys were great wheat-growing districts, earning the title ‘the granary of the Revolution.’ When the Erie Canal and its feeders cut transportation costs, the wheat farmer of the Finger Lakes and the Genesee Valley was able to sell his grain in the eastern markets; and the eastern farmer turned to dairying and raising beef cattle. Accounts of the turnpike era in the development of transportation are enlivened with word pictures of drovers driving herds of beef cattle to slaughterhouses. It is said that Daniel Drew, financial buccaneer of Wall Street, laid the foundation of his one-time huge fortune by selling ‘pre-salted’ beef on the hoof in the city market. The story goes that Drew ordered that his cattle on the way to market be given no water but plenty of salt; then, just before they were put on sale, they were allowed to drink their fill, thereby improving their appearance and increasing their weight. Drew got top price for both beef and water. This business maneuver is said to have given rise to the term ‘watered stock.’
In the latter half of the nineteenth century wheat from the western prairies drove New York State grains out of the market; and farmers of the central and western parts of the State turned to cattle raising and dairying, becoming especially well known for their cheese. The next step resulted from improvements in railroad transportation, especially the introduction of the refrigerated car. Western packed beef and Wisconsin cheese invaded the eastern market, causing the upstate farmer to devote himself largely to supplying fluid milk for the metropolitan market and growing fruits and vegetables. In 1935 about half of the State’s farm land was devoted to crops and half to pasture; and dairying produced 50 per cent of the farm income.
The dairy industry grew rapidly with the expansion of the metropolitan milkshed. Its recent history is one of bitter controversy among producers, distributors, and consumers over the price spread between what the producer receives for milk and what the consumer pays for it. In August 1933, dairy farmers engaged in a general strike, blockading highways, dumping milk, and threatening to blow up milk plants and derail milk trains. In the ‘Battle of Boonville,’ 40 State troopers hurled tear-gas bombs and wielded riot sticks when 400 strikers attempted to block passage of milk trucks; eight strikers were beaten unconscious before a crowd of 800 spectators.
The State milk-control legislation of the next five years failed to settle the issue. On September 1, 1938, after approval by dairy farmers of the New York City milkshed, representing seven States, a new Federal-State milk-marketing program went into effect, aiming to help farmers get a fair and stable price for milk, prevent unfair competition among dealers, and assure consumers an adequate supply of milk at a reasonable cost. In midsummer of 1939 organized dairy farmers obtained higher milk prices by a brief, violent strike.
Poultry raising, second largest source of the State’s agricultural income, is now largely concentrated on Long Island. In 1935 the 21,724,000 chickens raised in New York State, valued at an average of 68¢ each, together with the 1,323,000,000 eggs produced, placed New York fourth among the States in the value of its poultry industry. Ducks are raised extensively on Long Island, and ‘Long Island duckling’ has become a familiar item on the menus of quality restaurants.
Truck crops, forming the next important agricultural enterprise in the State, are grown intensively on Long Island, in Orange County, and on a wide strip of land just south of the ridge that runs parallel to and a few miles inland from the shore of Lake Ontario. Wayne County, at the eastern end of this area, ranks first among the counties of the Nation in the production of celery. North of this strip of truck land is the famous lake-shore fruit belt.
Until the middle of the nineteenth century, potatoes were not widely known in America, were grown in small beds as a garden crop, and were not considered proper food to serve at good tables. In the early 1840’s an epidemic of potato blight swept the North American crop. Scientists were baffled. The Reverend Chauncey E. Goodrich of Utica believed that the potato could be rehabilitated by reverting to the seed. He sent to South America, habitat of the plant, for seed, from which he grew a new variety called ‘Rough Purple Chile.’ From this stock he produced Garnet Chile, the parent in 1861 of the Early Rose. From these two have been developed the 200 or more varieties that now constitute the potato flora of the United States. In 1936 New York produced 26,400,000 bushels of potatoes.
Onions are grown in Orange, Madison, Oswego, and Wayne Counties; in 1936 New York produced 3,248,000 bags (of 100 pounds each). In the same year the State grew 1,430,000 acres of commercial carrot crop, 5,940 acres of cauliflower, 3,960 acres of celery, and 8,900 acres of cabbage.
One of the most interesting farm enterprises in New York State is the maple-sugar industry, producing in an average season about 1,000,000 gallons of syrup and more than 500,000 pounds of sugar. St. Lawrence County in the north, Cattaraugus, Allegany, and Broome Counties in the Southern Tier, Cortland and Chenango Counties in the central part of the State, and Wyoming County in the west are the principal producers. A large portion of the New York product is exported to Vermont, where it is resold as ‘Vermont’ maple syrup.
Fruit growing is concentrated along Lakes Ontario and Erie, the Finger Lakes, and the Hudson-Champlain Valley. The New York apple crop is second in size to that of Washington. In 1935 orchards of the State contained more than 7,683,831 trees of bearing age and produced more than 16,875,000 bushels. Nearly 60 per cent of the crop is made up of three varieties: Baldwin, McIntosh, and Rhode Island Greening. Until recently the apple crop was marketed in barrels; now most of it is packed in bushel crates. Under depression prices, growers attempted to secure a larger proportion of the consumer’s dollar by cutting freight costs through the use of trucks. The 43-per cent decline in the number of apple-bearing trees since 1890 represents a transition from a period when apples were generally grown to supplement the farm food supply, with the surplus for local sale, to the specialized commercial apple production of the present. Until recently orchards were not generally cultivated and were seldom pruned, and insecticides were unknown. Today, largely as the result of State-subsidized study and experiment, the scientific treatment of trees has become an important part of pomology.
Peaches have long been an important product of western New York orchards. In 1833 Lewis F. Allen purchased several thousand acres of land on Grand Island in the Niagara River, on which he planted peach trees and grew large crops. Eventually yellows destroyed these orchards; and the fruit industry moved from Grand Island to the mainland of Niagara County, which now produces more than twice as many peaches as any other New York county. The State production in 1936 was 700,000 bushels.
From 1825 to 1870 pears were a rarity and sold at as high as $1 apiece. Now they are grown generally throughout the State, with western New York producing the largest part of the crop. The 1928–32 average exceeded 1,000,000 bushels. The total production of cherries in 1935 was 22,500 tons.
Grapes, although small in the general total, are an important source of income in Chautauqua County and in the region bordering Keuka Lake. In 1936 the product amounted to 41,800 tons, which is about half the five-year average production. Chautauqua grapes, comprising about half the State crop, are marketed largely as table grapes and as unfermented juice. The growers in the Keuka district produce a large percentage of wine grapes, including the Concord, Catawba, Niagara, and Delaware. Ten wineries in this region produce still wines, which are highly flavored and command a premium in the market. The champagne industry, however, has made this region famous. Hammondsport produces 90 per cent of the ‘fermented-in-the-bottle’ champagne made in the United States.
In 1790 William Prince, nurseryman of Flushing, Long Island, planted the pits of 25 quarts of Green Gage plums, which later produced trees yielding fruit of every color. The Imperial Gage, Red Gage, Prince’s Gage, and Washington plum are all descendants. In 1828 the Prince Nursery offered for sale 140 kinds of plums. To this nursery belongs the credit for giving plum growing in America its greatest impetus.
No American raspberries, strawberries, currants, or gooseberries were grown in New York before the middle of the nineteenth century. In 1850 H.H. Doolittle of Oaks Corners, Ontario County, found that the black raspberry could easily be propagated from tips. Growing this berry for the evaporator soon developed into a sizable industry concentrated in Wayne and a part of Yates Counties, and reached its height in the 1890’s.
The marketing of farm products, which plays an important part in the State’s agricultural economy, has become highly developed during the past 20 years. The Dairymen’s League, fluid milk co-operative, is owned and managed entirely by dairymen, and grosses over $50,000,000 a year. The Sheffield Producers’ Association, negotiating prices and conditions of sale, markets the milk of 15,000 members. The business of these and smaller co-operatives amounts to nearly $100,000,000 annually. New York State farmers lead the country in the co-operative purchase of farm supplies. The Co-operative Grange League Federation Exchange, Inc. (known familiarly as the GLF), an organization specializing in the purchase of feed, seed, and fertilizers for farmers, has its own mills for milling and mixing, 150 retail stores, and more than 400 dealers, who handle more than 1,000,000 tons of produce a year.
The State College of Agriculture at Cornell University, together with the experiment station at Geneva and six other State schools of agriculture, teaches the principles and practices of scientific farming to the oncoming generations of farmers, carries on scientific experimentation, makes local and State-wide surveys, gives winter short courses and provides extension work, conducts special radio programs for farmers, and prints and distributes pamphlets dealing with a wide variety of agricultural and farm home problems. Courses in agriculture are given in 200 of the high schools of the State. The aims of all these activities are to encourage soil conservation by crop rotation, the use of fertilizer, and the acquisition of submarginal land by the State; to instruct the farmer how to increase his income by more efficient farm management; to improve rural education and enrich farm life. The field representative of these activities is the county farm agent, employed by county farm bureaus with financial assistance from the State and Federal governments, who acts as clearing house for new developments and experiments, serves the farmer with his expert knowledge, and directs the organized activities of the younger generation, especially the 4-H Clubs.
Another and much older device by which the State distributes information to farmers and encourages agricultural progress is the system of State and county fairs. Although an agricultural society was formed in Albany in 1791, the fair did not come into existence in New York until 1816, when the Otsego County Fair was held at Cooperstown. Organized and promoted by Elkanah Watson, this first in the long procession of the State’s agricultural fairs distributed the modest sum of $100 in premiums. In 1936, State subsidies totaling $250,000 were received by 34 county and 14 town fairs. The State fair, first held in Syracuse in 1841 with an appropriation of $700 and a handful of exhibits, has progressed steadily during its 99 renewals. In 1937, with an all-time record attendance of 271,152 and about 19,000 exhibits, $57,500 was awarded in prizes.
Equally humble were the beginnings of what is now the important State Department of Agriculture and Markets. Influenced by Watson’s zealous missionary work for the advancement of agriculture and the approbation which the first county fairs received throughout the State, Governor Clinton in 1819 recommended the establishment of a State agricultural society, a board of agriculture, and a model farm. The farm, Watson’s dream of what later developed into agricultural experiment stations, was blocked by legislative bickering, but an annual appropriation of $10,000 was made for agricultural societies and fairs under a board of agriculture. In 1884 a dairy commission was organized, which in 1893 became the Department of Agriculture. Today, with 15 bureaus in its headquarters in Albany, and branch offices in New York, Cortland, Buffalo, and Rochester, the State Department of Agriculture and Markets plays an important role in the economic life of the Empire State.
