Connecticut Agriculture

By David M. Roth

During the years between the Civil War and World War I, Connecticut agriculture underwent a reduction in acreage under cultivation and a marked shift to specialized production. Fierce competition from the fertile lands of the West forced a great many farmers from the land, with the result that Connecticut experienced a reduction in the total number of acres under cultivation. Between 1860 and 1910, for example, farm acreage dropped from 2.5 million acres to 2.1 million acres. More revealing is the fact that in 1860 some 26.9 percent of the land was identified as unimproved, while in 1910 the unimproved figure had risen to 55 percent. Much of that marginal farmland that had been pressed into use in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was thus in the process of being returned to woodland. Between 1910 and 1945 the percentage of Connecticut land in forest would rise from 42% to over 60%.

At the same time that agricultural acreage was shrinking, the explosive growth of cities in the Northeast provided Connecticut farmers with the opportunity to market perishable items such as fruits, vegetables, and dairy products. In 1860, Connecticut farmers sold little fresh milk; by 1890 annual milk sales were 60 million gallons. Dairy herds which had consisted of Ayrshires, Guernseys, and Jerseys were improved with the more productive Holstein, and farmers turned increasingly to innovations such as the silo (making possible a supply of green feed during the winter) and the milking machine. Egg production also rose in these decades, with sales increasing from 5.2 million dozen in 1880 to 8.5 million dozen in 1909. Between 1879 and 1909 the dollar value of Connecticut orchard products went from $455,000 to over $1.3 million.

Another major development was the emergence by 1920 of tobacco as Connecticut's most valuable cash crop. The Connecticut sale of broadleaf tobacco for cigar-making reached a peak in 1880 with production of 14 million pounds. Yet, Connecticut broadleaf sales were threatened in the 1880s and 1890s by a fine, light strain of cigar-leaf tobacco grown in Sumatra. Despite the fact that the United States levied a tariff of $2 a pound on Sumatra tobacco in 1890, annual American purchases of Sumatra tobacco in the 1890s approached $6 million. Salvation for Connecticut tobacco came via efforts of the United States Deportment of Agriculture and the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. A variety of tobacco comparable to the Sumatra strain was successfully grown under a shed in the Connecticut River Valley at the turn of the century. Expanded production took place at once, and Connecticut shade-grown tobacco was on its way to becoming a crucial item in the gross agricultural production of the state.

Thus, while Connecticut agriculture's vulnerability to competition from the West was evident in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the development of specialized production proved to be a boon for the state's farmers. The value of farm products per acre increased from $10 in 1880 to $48.57 in 1920, and in the same four decades the value of annual production per farm rose from $535 to over $1,700.

For Further Reading

Irland, Lloyd C. Wildlands and Woodlots: The Story of New England's Forests. Hanover, New Hampshire, 1982.

Russell, Howard S. A Long, Deep Furrow: Three Centuries of Farming in New England. Hanover, New Hampshire, 1982.

* Entry under revision.