1860. 



NEW ENGLAND FARMER. 



243 



For the New England Fanner. 

 THE "WILD LAWDS OF LOWa ISLAND. 

 LETTER FROM JUDGE FRENCH. 



Islip, Long Island, April 4, 1860. 



My Dear Mr. Brown : — Take the Long Island 

 Railroad at the South Ferry in Brooklyn, just 

 across from the great city of New York, and rattle 

 along about forty miles, and stop at North Islip 

 Station, and devote two or three days to agricul- 

 tural observation, and you may find as much to 

 interest you as you would be likely to meet were 

 you to travel a thousand miles in many direc- 

 tions. Young men, determined to prosper in the 

 world, do not hesitate to seek good and cheap 

 lands in Kansas and California, severing all the 

 dear ties of home and kindred, and risking health, 

 too, in the enterprise, when oftentimes there are 

 lands within the sound of the church-going bell, 

 as good and as cheap, close by good markets and 

 civilized society, which are overlooked, because 

 they are so near, and require so little enterprise 

 to attain. 



Whether any such lands are in this neighbor- 

 hood, our readers may judge from the facts I shall 

 state. 



Long Island is about 120 miles long, and from 

 eight to fourteen miles in width. The two ends 

 ■were settled nearly two hundred years ago, and 

 for nearly that time, roads have been opened along 

 both shores, and the land through nearly the 

 ■whole extent has been under good cultivation, yet 

 ■when the railroad was opened, about 1845, there 

 remained a tract some foi'ty miles long and four 

 to eight miles wide, with no more signs of culti- 

 vation or improvement than may be found in the 

 desert of Sahara. Even now, though the railway 

 passes nearly through its centre, the wild deer 

 have not been scared entirely from their haunts, 

 and trout abound in many streams. 



"What has doomed this land to desolation with- 

 in less than two hours, by rail, of the great com- 

 mercial city of New York, with its 700,000 inhab- 

 itants, daily offering their gold for the products 

 of the soil ? 



What's in a name? Through a rose by any 

 any other name may smell as sweet, yet were you 

 to advertise it for sale by the name of a skunk- 

 • cabbage, probably few noses would go out of their 

 ■way to test its fragrance. Whoever was author 

 of the names of places in this island probably 

 christened his boys Judas Iscariot and Benedict 

 Arnold, and named his homestead Sodom. King's 

 County and Queen's County are not names invit- 

 ing to revolutionary ears ; Flatbush and Bushville 

 and Hardscrabble are not suggestive of grand old 

 forests or vines and fig trees, or even of "green 

 pastures by still waters ; there is not much of 

 harmony or poetry in Quogue and Patchogue and 



Yaphank. Jerusalem and Bethpage have not 

 much of the Young America progressiveness in 

 their associations, and finally, when you see as a 

 principal place on the map, actually Babylon, the 

 matter begins to grow serious. They say Long 

 Island is of more recent formation than the world 

 about it. Some say it came up from below, and a 

 timid man might suspect that he who reigns over 

 the lower regions may have restored his favorite 

 city, which we read of as "fallen," to the earth, in a 

 new place. No, there is not much in a name, 

 but you and I would not advise a young farmer 

 to buy a farm in Hardscrabble, or to look for a 

 Avife among the ladies of Babylon. 



The railway excavations have a red and sandy 

 look ; the slight>y undulating, prairie-like surface, 

 is mostly covered with scrub-oaks, and has been 

 recently blackened by fire, so that one's judgment 

 is in no danger of being seduced by appeals to his 

 emotions of beauty. There is, much, however, to 

 interest a careful observer of this strange region, 

 and after a critical examination occupying several 

 days, spade in hand, I feel qualified to present 

 the condition of these lands to the consideration 

 of those who are looking for new homes, advising 

 no one, however, to purchase, without a thorough 

 personal investigation. Although Cobbett, ■who 

 was a prophet in agriculture, had his American 

 home on the island, and although some of the 

 wealthiest farmers in the country have elegant 

 homes and farms here, yet there is room for some 

 slight improvements in particular localities. For 

 instance, at Farmingdale station, to-day, ■we saw a 

 cow harnassed with a horse-collar and rope- 

 traces to a plow which was held by one man while 

 another led the animal, plowing a garden. In all 

 Europe, I never saw the beat of that for plowing. 

 Again, on the road from Babylon to Islip, I saw a 

 load of manure on a wagon drawn by four poor 

 oxen, driven by a man sitting on top of the load,, 

 with ropes fastened to the noses of the forward 

 yoke, halter-fashion, the driver holding the ends 

 of the ropes in his hand like reins. On the same 

 road we met a gentleman, or some other kind of 

 man, driving a poor thin ox in a single wagon, 

 probably on a pleasure excursion. A young friend 

 with us kept a sharp look-out for a lady of whom 

 he had read, who used to live in Babylon, and 

 di-essed in scarlet clothes, but she ■was not visible. 



Babylon is a good farming region, with taste- 

 ful parks and fertile fields. From there to Islip, 

 on a fine old road, are beautiful residences and 

 grounds, occupied in summer by New York mil- 

 lionaires. Several places were also pointed out 

 adorned with grape-houses, fish-ponds and ele- 

 gant mansions, which were valued at more than 

 $60,000 each. 



The lands, which I particularly examined, and 

 have spoken of as wild, lie four or five miles from 



