CROPS IN TIIF EARLY DAYS 



in the corn fields in midsummer, and made good growth 

 through the fall, after the corn was cut. 



Carrots were another root crop whose feeding value 

 was early recognized. Before the days of patent butter 

 colors, carrots were commonly fed to milking cows, 

 when they were not on pasture feed, in order to impart 

 a "June color" to the butter. Carrots, too, were com- 

 monly fed to horses before the days of western grain 

 feeds. They were found to be especially valuable as a 

 tonic and corrective. 



America gave to the world two of the most useful 

 food plants— corn and the potato — and in addition the 

 worthless and yet commercially valuable weed, tobacco. 

 This plant was found by the first settlers, being cul- 

 tivated by the Indians in Virginia, and they taught 

 the white man the use of the soothing narcotic. While 

 tobacco was grow-n as a garden crop in Connecticut in 

 colonial days, it was not cultivated for market until 

 about 1830. It was grown in the Connecticut Valley 

 for about twenty years before it came into the Housa- 

 tonic Valley. Up to about thirty years ago the Con- 

 necticut broad leaf, introduced from Maryland into this 

 State in the early thirties, was the leading variety grown 

 for the trade. For the past thirty years the highest 

 grade of Havana wrapper leaf has been grown with 

 good profit on the sandy loam soils of the Housatonic 

 Valley. 



[41] 



