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NEW JERSEY
A Guide To Its Present And Past
Compiled and Written by the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration for the State of New Jersey
American Guide Series

Originally published in 1939
Some of this information may no longer be current and in that case is presented for historical interest only.

Edited by GET NJ, COPYRIGHT 2002

Agriculture
Part 1

NEW JERSEY is rightly called "The Garden State." Its truck-farms, extending from the northern mountains to the southern plain, are mere garden patches when compared with the western prairies or southern plantations. But these gardens produce a large proportion of the fruits and vegetables consumed in New York and Philadelphia. For these millions as well as for its own, New Jersey has developed exceptionally prosperous small farms and some of the highest types of agricultural specialization.

The State has three main soil and topographical farm belts. Underlain largely with limestone and other glacial rock, the northern counties :are hilly and in some places even mountainous. Here dairying and the raising of grains and other field crops predominate, with scattered centers for market gardening. Although found in all sections of the State, commercial poultry farms are concentrated in the northern and central areas.

In the middle counties are fertile loam lands, level or rolling, with a rich subsoil of greensand marl. Of first rank in this section are truck crops and potatoes. Grain, hay, fruits, and milk are secondary.

The southern counties of the level sandy coastal area contain, in addition to a broad expanse of pine barrens, large fertile areas that yield excellent apples, peaches, cranberries, and other small fruits and vegetables. Peach blossoms in Burlington and Cumberland Counties make this section the agricultural show-place of the State in spring.

When the early settlers arrived they found the Indians growing corn, pumpkins, gourds, tobacco, and beans. Taking a lesson from the natives, they cleared the lands, and with the help of seeds and livestock imported from the old country, soon made New Jersey an important agricultural colony.

Although its large wheat yield ranked New Jersey as one of the "bread colonies" before the Revolution, the farmers were already anticipating the present-day variety in products. Large farms had been established in the south on which Negro slaves performed most of the work. This system was readily adapted to flax-raising, a major pre-Revolutionary crop. Although white labor predominated in the north, Negroes were commonly seen in the small fields and large orchards, which produced fruits, vegetables, and cider.

The hill country specialized in grazing, and about 1750 New Jersey was reckoned the leading sheep-raising Colony. By the time the armies of Washington and the British were criss-crossing the State, New Jersey offered a ready supply of horses and pork from the north, flour and grain from the central part, and fruits and thread materials from the south.

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