American Agriculturist, May 10,1924 
Delaware, Where the Dairy Co w Is Queen 
Red Soil, Green Pastures and Fine Folks Make a Great County 
ALWAYS when working on the far end of 
/\ the farm which happens to be the 
westerly end, 1 can lift up mine eyes to 
the hills of Otsego County—or to be 
more exact—to the hills of the township of 
Decatur which lies next beyond Hyndesville and 
the “Clove.” Decatur is a little, remote, hilly 
township that lies high above sea level so.that 
always “winter lingers in the lap of spring." 
These late April days I can still see big white 
patches of snow on the northern slopes. I 
remember once seeing a good sized snowbank 
nearly a dozen miles away when we were driving 
the young stock to pasture and we were by no 
means rushing the pasture season. 
My father was a man very little 
given to humorous stories but some¬ 
times, when in a reminiscent mood he 
would tell of the man who once worked 
on the farm many years ago. His 
previous term of servitude had been 
passed upon the Decatur hills and lie 
solemnly averred that one late summer 
day he “cradled oats with the snow 
up to his knees and when he went 
home to dinner they had the first new 
potatoes of the season.” I do not 
know if this historic snowfall repre¬ 
sented a belated flurry of spring or 
rather the first breath of the coming 
winter. So this is the land which 
constitutes my farthest farm horizon. 
But off to the south, hidden by our 
“mountain” and by the rampart of 
the Summit range, lie the tumbled, 
crisscross billows of a county which I 
like to think of—a county of many fine 
characteristics — a county where the 
dairy cow is supreme as she is nowhere 
else in our State—for aught I know 
anywhere else in the world. Some¬ 
times in a moment of facetiousness I 
have assured Delaware County folks 
that their county had one great 
advantage shared by only a few other 
counties of York State in that it 
bordered on Schoharie and that natu¬ 
rally some of the good things in my 
county would just naturally slop over 
into it. But nevertheless, down in my 
heart I know that Delaware needs no 
apologists and that she has developed 
a splendid farm civilization out of 
what are in many ways rather dis¬ 
couraging conditions. 
I have made a few comparisons 
based on the New York Emergency 
Agricultural Census of 1917. This 
census was completed within three 
days. It w r as accomplished by the 
cooperation of the Farm Bureaus, the school 
teachers and the school children of the State. The 
cost of this enumeration was insignificant and yet 
it is agreed that it was the most accurate and 
exhaustive agricultural census ever taken in the 
State. All female cattle two years old or older 
were classed as dairy cows, and as might be 
expected, St. Lawrence led every other county in 
New York State with a great host of more than 
97,000, with Delaware County coming next with 
more than 74,000 head. Measured, however, in 
terms of cattle to the farm, Delaware led with an 
average of more than 18 cows per farm while 
St. Lawrence had only 15. I suppose that so far 
as intensive cow-keeping is concerned this would 
establish Delaware’s premier position among the 
counties of the State. 
There are reasons for this. For one thing, 
dairying is the type of agriculture above all others 
best adapted to the county. Outside of two or 
three river valleys there are few broad and level 
fields while much of the land is stone-strewn and 
the hills very high and steep. To an extent true 
almost nowhere else in the State farming is 
largely a pasturage proposition. Moreover, these 
By JARED VAN WAGENEN, JR. 
hill pastures at their best have a unique value all 
their own. When first cleared the land was 
spontaneously occupied by short, sweet, native 
grasses and very many of the fields have never 
known the plow. It seems to me that some of the 
Delaware pastures might well be as famous in 
song and story as the Blue Grass region of 
Kentucky. I learn with sorrow that these 
pastures are no longer what once they were. 
Overstocking, too close grazing, gradual deple¬ 
tion of soil fertility and now and then years ol 
burning drought, which kills the grass plants, have 
surely reduced the number of cows that these 
“Some day I hope to go back again and ride over those noble hills and see the 
big barns and the cattle trailing down the roads and old farmhouses snuggled 
in the elbow of the valley.” 
hillsides can carry. The “brakes”—a species of 
fern I take it—is displacing the grasses and Dela¬ 
ware County has a special problem in connection 
with her most noteworthy natural heritage. 
Do not confound the best of Delaware with 
the typical hill land of the Southern Tier. Much 
of her land is wonderfully rough and steep but 
the best of it is a red or chocolate colored soil 
formed by the breaking down of the very soft, 
red Catskill shale and it is much better stuff than 
the gray-yellow Lordstown loam of some neigh¬ 
boring counties. I am no Sherlock Holmes, but 
when at the Cobleskill Fair I see a car splashed 
with almost brick-red mud, I have no difficulty 
in doping out the fact that it is driven by an 
honest Delaware County farmer. I might add 
that this particular soil type reaches out little 
extensions into Greene, Southern Schoharie and 
Chenango Counties. Madison County readers 
will remember an area of red soil just west of 
Oneida resulting from the disintegration of the 
beds of iron ore in that part of the State. 
Delaware County has, however, serious handi¬ 
caps as a dairy section. Much of it lies high 
above sea level—too high to grow corn easily. 
As a matter of fact the silo has never attained the 
almost universal use accorded it in other dairy 
regions. These men in many cases insist that 
grass rather than corn is their best dependence 
and I believe they are right. Then, too, it is in 
no way an alfalfa country because both lime and 
perfect drainage are lacking and these are both 
prime essentials to the growing of that peerless 
crop. In spite of these drawbacks, Delaware 
dairying is marvelously developed. 
This is one of the few sections of the State where 
the Jersey cow has maintained a place for herself 
and still survives in considerable numbers—a relic 
of the good old days before the milk shipper came 
and when the “long Delaware dairies” in native 
oak ferkins topped the butter market 
in New York. Eventually, however, 
unless we get some more equitable 
differential for rich milk the black- 
and-white cow will drive everything 
else off the New York milk shed. 
One of the famous townships of the 
county is Bovina. It is said (I can not 
verify this) that in the old days there 
was not a mortgaged farm in the 
township. There are not lacking 
thoughtful, intelligent men who believe 
that the displacing of the system of 
farm butter-making by milk shipping 
has been by no means an unmixed 
blessing. One of the best informed of 
them said to me that in those old 
days every Bovina farmer sold butter 
and veal calves and heifers, and every 
fall a load or two of pork and there 
were very 7 few feed bills. It was a 
slow and modest and yet sure pros¬ 
perity 7 . To-day while, of course, more 
money 7 is handled yet it seemed to him 
that there was less thrift and saving. 
Perhaps all of us are at times inclined 
to look fondly 7 into the past and to see 
in it a sort of Golden Age. I might 
mention that here on Hillside Farm 
we have not yet learned to join the 
morning procession of milk rigs. We 
still cling to old manners and sell 
cream and pork. 
Delaware County people are fine 
folks. There is a big Scotch element 
in some sections and they are good 
citizens, good farmers and very zealous 
for the Presbyterian Church. There is 
no better measure of the moral ideals 
of a community than their position on 
the liquor question. I like to remem¬ 
ber that long before the 18th Amend¬ 
ment—long before even the days of 
the Raines Law 7 , most of Delaware 
County was dry 7 
I have sometimes said that there w 7 as hardly a 
county in the State where it w 7 ould not be possible 
to point to some unique agricultural crop or 
practice. In Delaware County, this would be 
the little area of high, cool land wffiere has been 
developed an important cauliflower industry. 
There is no doubt that the very best cauliflower 
that reaches the New 7 York market comes from 
here and it would be possible to tell some pretty 
wonderful stories about the possible net returns 
per acre. I only hope that the men who are 
doing this will not become too enthusiastic and 
increase their acreage too rapidly, because they 
are dealing with a crop which has a relatively 
limited market. 
Cauliflower is grown with the use of very large 
it might seem excessive—applications of complete 
commercial fertilizer. I understand that in some 
cases as much as tw 7 o tons per acre has been used 
and it is said that these large applications result 
in a larger percentage of No. 1 heads, the men 
who are doing this are aw r ake and are working on 
the question of standardizing grades and package. 
So some w 7 ay I like my Delaware County 
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