AND WHERE TO FIND ONE. 195 



taking the State Society s premium. One man had 

 fifty acres of clover in the very midst of the scrub- 

 oak barrens, as fine clover as ever grew. He gave 

 the figures of a thirty-acre farm, which gave a profit 

 for the year of $9,300. There were ten acres in 

 cucumbers. Another farmer raised 4,000 bushels 

 of potatoes, which he sold for $7,000. 



A member of the Club having asserted that &quot; it 

 was impossible for any poor man to occupy such 

 land, because he could not improve it,&quot; another said 

 in reply : 



&quot; The Long Island lands were no poorer than those along 

 the Camden and Amboy Railroad, which have been made 

 the garden spot of New Jersey, and made so by the labor 

 of poor men. He deprecated this continual attack upon 

 Long Island, this constantly telling poor men not to go to 

 that poverty-stricken region to starve. It was this oft- 

 repeated assertion that the lands are barren which keeps 

 them so ; it is not because they are so, for it has been 

 proved by the most incontestable evidence that these plains, 

 or barrens, as they are called, can be profitably cultivated. 

 He thought it would prove a great blessing to a great many 

 poor men if they should go out upon the island and culti 

 vate it like a garden. It is no use to talk about capitalists 

 undertaking the work of renovation, if they have got to 

 buy the land and spend a hundred dollars an acre to im 

 prove it before they begin to realize a profit. Such men of 

 money are much more likely to spend it in Wall street 

 speculations. For the improvement of Long Island we 

 must look to the laborers, the hard-working poor men, such 

 as the gentleman, in his old-fogy argument, would discour 

 age from the attempt to better their condition.&quot; 



Another member related an interesting anecdote 



