688 [Assembly 



that a man could know everything, however great in many, there- 

 fore being called, he would present some of the results of his re- 

 searches and inquiries in relation to these extensive uncultivated 

 lands. 



It might not be uninteresting to some here present, to give some 

 account of the extent of this part of the island, although, to the peo- 

 ple and to the inhabitants of Suffolk county, it will not be new in- 

 formation to say, that this county is more than 110 miles long, by 

 an average breadth of more than 10 miles, containing more than 

 1000 square miles; more than 640,000 acres of land. By the census 

 of 1845, a little more than 200,000 acres were returned as cultivated, 

 •with a population of 34,579; leaving as uncultivated or unoccupied 

 450,000 acres, the greater portion of this vast tract, as you have seen 

 to day, lays along the borders of the railroad between Farmingdale 

 and Riverhead, a distance of 40 miles, and being in width about 

 seven miles, containing, therefore, about 280 square miles, or ISO, 

 000 acres of land, with the railroad passing through and near the 

 centre of it, bringing it almost into immediate and constant contact 

 and communication with the great cities of Brooklyn and New- 

 York. 



Thus the extent of these lands is remarkable on this island, so de- 

 lightfully situated as to climate and contiguity to the continent, and 

 the best of markets also; that there should be such a tract of land as we 

 had many of us passed through this day, was, he confessed, when he 

 first heard it, a matter of great surprise and wonder. To his inquiry 

 why is it so? He received the answer that they could not be cultiva- 

 ted, they were barren. His own experience in tillage, and acquaint- 

 ance with land, when he had ascertained the nature of the soil of 

 this vast extent of land, and examined it to his satisfaction, told him 

 that it could not be so; that it was valuable for farms and ought to 

 be brought under cultivation. Being so extensive, a tract of many 

 thousand acres, and surrounded by a well cultivated portion on both 

 sides, it was an inquiry of some curiosity as to the origin of this 

 disparaging notion of these lands. He found from history, that this 

 was not their reputation in the last part of the 17th and in the early 

 part of the last century. A work of 1670, proved this, a rare and 

 curious work, " Denton's History; or a brief Description of New- 

 York, formerly called New-Netherlands." (This has been called one 

 of the germs of American History, being the first printed description, 

 in the English language, of what is now the great, wealthy and pop- 

 ulous State of New-York.) 



