DEVELOPMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



43 



to dry for crackling. All-day he labored in the fields. In the long autumn 

 and winter evenings he husked corn and shelled the ears over the edge of 

 his spade. No horse-rake; no corn sheller; no horse pitch-fork; no horse- 

 mower or reaper — the life of the farmer was literally a battle against the 

 forces of nature for little more than the actual necessities of subsistence, and 

 with the most rude and unwieldy supply of weapons for the war. The mo- 

 notony of ^his life was relieved by hunting and fishing in their season. The 

 farmer raised rye and corn, rarely wheat, for bread. He ate fresh pork 

 while it lasted, and salt pork while that lasted. Corn was pounded into 

 samp; ground into hominy and meal; baked or boiled into johnny-cake, 

 Indian bread, griddle-cakes, pudding, or what the Dutch called "sup- 

 pawn " and the Yankee "hasty pudding;" and in a variety of ways eaten 

 with or without milk. In some shape corn was a chief article of diet. Rye 

 bread, the chief bread, and wheat bread a rare luxury. Oysters, clams, 

 eels and other fish, with game of the forest or fowl of the air, helped out the 

 supply of food in the olden time. The statistics of ancient agriculture, if to 

 be found at all, is not accessible to me. I turn to the State census reports 

 of 1865 and find: 

 Improved acres in New York State, 14,827,437 



" " " SuiTolk County, 148,661 



Unimproved acres in New York State, 10,411,863 



" " " Suffolk County, 230,5561-2 



Showing that Suffolk County contains a trifle less than one-hundredth part 

 of all the improved lands in the State, and over one-fiftieth of all its unim- 

 proved lands. The extensive beaches and woodlands of the county consti- 

 tute its unimproved lands. 



The same census reports thus: 



New York State, neat cattle, 

 Suffolk County, " 



1,824,221 

 18,792 



