A Study of New Jersey and Jersey men 
wogg 
O NE ought to be able to obtain a good idea of 
the people and products of a State at a great 
State fair or exposition. The old-fashioned cattle 
show gives a good index of the character of local 
farmers and farming. In a larger way the State 
fair ought to do much the same. So we went to the 
New Jersey State Fair at Trenton to make a study of 
the Jerseyman and his State. Years ago a State 
fair was really a local institution, drawing most of 
its patronage by railroad traffic from within 50 miles. 
That day has passed. These are gasoline days. 
There were 10,000 or more cars 
parked inside the fair grounds or 
close by. They had come from all 
over the State, and they repre¬ 
sented an investment of least 
$0,000,000. There were more cars 
at Trenton than at the New York 
State Fair at Syracuse and, as 
the Trenton grounds are smaller, 
the crowd was closely packed. 
New Jersey and the Jerse.vmen 
are both peculiar in their make¬ 
up. and the crowd shows this 
peculiarity. The State is really 
an island, with only a narrow 
band connecting it with the 
mainland. It stands out like a 
thumb into the Atlantic. The 
upper part was evidently de¬ 
posited from ice sheets which 
slowly slid down the slope, melt¬ 
ing off into the water and de¬ 
positing rocks and soil as they 
passed on. The southern part 
was evidently pushed up out of 
the ocean. The accompanying 
map shows what fantastic tricks 
Nature played when she fash¬ 
ioned the State. When the 
waters of the Delaware River 
broke through and slowly carved 
their way to the ocean they cut 
out of the rock the strong fea¬ 
tures of a woman. Then Nature 
packed the minerals away in the 
earth so as to form a gaily- 
trimmed hat, an ear. and two 
strips of brick clay just where 
the river carved out the lips of 
this face. It is all there, even to 
the small red nostril and the 
pimple on the nose. This geo¬ 
logic map shows it all clearly in 
colors. See how the waters of 
Raritan Bay work in to give 
shape to the neck and lower 
head. 'From the shoulder at 
Sandy Hook across the breast 
and down the river is a mantle 
or scarf of dark green — the 
famous green sand or potash 
land—probably the best potato 
soil in the country. And right 
where the river curves in to 
form the lower throat stands 
Trenton, the capital city. It 
seems very appropriate that the 
voice of New Jersey should be 
located right at this throat. The 
truth is that no other State or 
country can show the map per¬ 
sonality which the artist has 
made to appear on the face of 
New Jersey by straightening out 
the lines of the Delaware River 
and scratching a few black marks on the map. 
And the Jerseyman is. like his State, a human 
conglomerate, made up of many definite stocks and 
put solidly together. The Dutch came across the 
river from Manhattan Island and spread over 
Northern Jersey. The French Huguenots, driven 
from their native country, followed the Dutch. 
Yankees from Connecticut settled at Newark and 
spread out through the land. To the south came the 
Swedes, the Germans and the English; no State in 
its early history had such a mixing of sound, well- 
bred human stocks. And each one of them was 
forced to come to New Jersey by a spirit of adven¬ 
ture and a determination to be free and independent. 
So it is natural that oil this thumb of land, this near 
island, the Jerseyman has developed solidly with a 
stubborn independence and a solid thrift that have 
become characteristic. Most of the Eastern States 
were settled by one or at most two separate human 
stocks. The Jerseyman combines half a dozen, vary¬ 
ing from the solid, phlegmatic Dutchman to the 
bright and laughter-loving Frenchman and the quick¬ 
brained Irishman. The result is a sound, many- 
sided man, and a State not as nimble perhaps as 
the fingers on the hand, but as firm and solid as the 
more important thumb. We may compare the breed- 
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“The Goddess of 
colors and shades 
Netv Jersey,” engraved from the geologic map printed originally in forty-five 
to represent soil and mineral formations. No wonder “The Jersey Girls ” are 
famous the toorld over. 
ing of the Jerseyman with that of the Yankee, who 
was nearly purebred British. The census shows 
that out of 3.155.374 people in New Jersey only G,370 
native Americans are illiterate, that is, unable to 
read and write. 
All this was evident at the State Fair—in the 
great throngs of people and the piled-up farm pro¬ 
ducts on exhibition. Few of those who joke about 
“Jersey mosquitoes” realize the varied possibilities 
of the State. The map shows how the soil was 
stirred up like a mud pie—with an abundance of 
plums. In the hills of Bergen and Sussex counties 
the finest of Baldwin and Northern Spy apples are 
grown, while the tail of the State is so tempered and 
warmed by the ocean that cotton may be matured at 
Cape May. And in between all the products of the 
temperate zone grow near to perfection. The dis¬ 
plays of corn and potatoes were bewildering. Sev¬ 
eral farmers have through years of selection evolved 
strains of dent corn—both white and yellow—that 
are remarkable. New Jersey ranks close to New 
England in high yield of corn per acre, and there 
are cornfields which rank in size with any to be 
found in Iowa or Illinois. We have heard Western 
farmers boast of their rich, black land, saying that 
it could be scraped up, shipped East and used for 
fertilizing the poor soils of 
Eastern .farms! As a matter of 
fact, thousands of tons of black 
soil from Jersey swamps have 
been bagged and sent over the 
entire country as fertilizer! 
Those very Western farmers who 
brag about their soil have bought 
it. We will scrape up two tons 
of plain Jersey dirt from the 
green sand section of New Jer¬ 
sey, carry it to Illinois, spread it 
on some of that long cultivated 
black land and increase the yield 
of corn five bushels per acre! 
As for potatoes, there is probably 
no better natural potato land in 
the world than the strip of pot¬ 
ash soil running from Sandy 
Hook across to the Delaware and 
down along the river. We met 
one farmer in this district who 
sold this year 14.000 bushels of 
potatoes at $1.35 per bushel! All 
through this section potatoes, if 
not the main crop, are part of 
the rotation. They are grown 
scientifically with certified seed, 
an abundance of fertilizer and 
all needed machinery. We saw 
potato diggers with small gaso¬ 
line engines mounted on them to 
work the machine parts, so that 
all the horses need to do is to 
pull the digger ahead. The 
smooth, level fields of rich open 
soil stretch away like the West¬ 
ern prairies. At this season they 
are covered with a green coat for 
rye. or rye and vetch are seeded 
after potato digging to provide a 
cover crop. 
There were, in 1920, 3,155,374 
people in New Jersey, 573,611 of 
them living on farms or in rural 
communities. If we except South¬ 
eastern New England, there is no 
place of equal area in the coun¬ 
try where market facilities are 
better, or where farmers can 
more easily reach the town peo¬ 
ple direct. This has made co¬ 
operative and direct marketing 
easier, and it is probable that, 
taking the average of the entire 
State, the New Jersey farmer 
gets a fairer share of the con¬ 
sumer’s dollar than any other 
class of farmers of equal size in 
the country. For we must remem¬ 
ber that New Jersey is really 
the pathway between two of the 
largest cities in the world, and 
the front yard for one of them. 
At the mouth of the Hudson 
are nearly 7,000,000 people, while along the banks 
of the Delaware are some 4,000,000 more. Along the 
side of the road connecting these rivers are more 
than 3,000,000 Jerseymeu, while each year several 
millions more come down out of the interior and 
play and spend money along the Jersey coast. Per¬ 
haps SO per cent of these millions do not produce 
enough to feed a canary bird, while they are like 
gluttons in their demand for food. Thousands of 
their cars go speeding along the Jersey roads, and 
roadside stands everywhere cater to their trade. 
Inside of a circle 75 miles out from Trenton may be 
found more people than are located in any other 
space of equal size in the world! And we realize, 
too, that this circle will cover much of the Atlantic 
