page_title: Agriculture in Connecticut
section_title: 19th century
hierarchical_section_title: Agriculture in Connecticut / History / 19th century
caption_attribution_description: Samuel William Johnson Agricultural chemist
context_page_description: Agriculture played a major role in the early growth of Connecticut as one of the original 13 colonies that would form the United States of America, particularly in the Connecticut River valley which provided fertile soil, temperate climate and easy access to markets. As the Industrial Revolution helped focus capital on mercantile centers in the 19th century, Connecticut farmers over time ceded their relative economic and political influence.
  In the 21st century, farming remains a relatively small but still significant industry in Connecticut, employing some 12,000 people as of 2010. Ending years of steady declines, between 2002 and 2012 the number of Connecticut farms increased 43 percent, with one possible cause an increased consumer appetite for locally sourced food, drawing some younger people to start up small farms. Connecticut had nearly 6,000 farms with 437,000 acres of land as of 2012, producing $551 million in revenue that year. In 2012, the total value of Connecticut farmland and buildings was $4.4 billion, down 3.5% from 2011.
context_section_description: Despite limited success in exports, entering the 19th century Connecticut farmers generally adhered to a model of subsistence farming and barter, with poor roads hampering the transport of produce to market and Long Island and New Jersey farmers competing for trade with burgeoning New York City. By one estimate, settlers had cleared two-thirds of the Connecticut's available land.
  That would change in the first half of the century, in part due to Connecticut's own metropolitan centers swelling in size, as well as improved machinery that enabled farmers to plant and harvest more crops, including the Hawkes Plow manufactured in Hartford beginning in the 1830s.
  The tobacco industry also saw its first significant growth in the first half of the 19th century, as farmers in the Connecticut River valley and later the Housatonic River valley found success with their leaves as cigar wrappers. By 1810, cigar and plug factories were established in East Windsor and Suffield.
  Farmers also sought to introduce better stocks of cattle, including Devonshires beginning in 1819; Ayrshires in 1822; Guernseys in 1830; Shorthorns in 1835; Jerseys in 1846; and Holsteins some time after 1860. From 85,000 milk cows in the state as of 1850, the herd would increase to 128,000 by the end of the century.
  By the middle part of the century, Litchfield County had a booming cheese production business that produced an estimated 2.7 million pounds annually, with Lewis Norton creating the country's first cheese factory that relied on curd from other farms in addition to his own cows. In 1857, Gail Borden would establish a condensed milk manufacturing company that would evolve into Borden. In 1871, the Farmington Creamery was organized as a joint stock company to churn out butter, but after a brief spurt of growth competition from western creameries and the introduction of butter substitutes would stifle butter production in Connecticut by the end of the century.
  Agricultural advances were occurring throughout the states, particularly in the south and west, and with Connecticut's soil comparatively poor, the state's farmers increasingly focused on producing perishable goods for nearby populations that would not be subject to competing products from other faraway locales. Increasingly, farmers in various parts of the state focused on a few cash crops that proved successful for export. Apple and peach orchards were blossoming by the middle of the century, but would be subject to the vagaries of pests, weather, and competitors in other states.
  Farmers also began to organize in associations and later granges in order to share ideas and coordinate in getting produce to markets, and to organize fairs. As early as 1794, a Society for Promoting Agriculture in the State of Connecticut was formed,  renamed in 1818 the Agricultural Society of New Haven. A similar group was started in Hartford in 1817 and in other counties of the state between 1839 and 1854. The organization extended to the town level, as farmers' clubs sprouted locally starting in Middletown in 1842.
  In 1839 as head of the U.S. Patent Office, Hartford resident Henry Leavitt Ellsworth secured the first Congressional appropriation in support of agriculture and established a bureau supporting the industry. Leavitt is regarded as the father of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which was created in 1862 four years after his death.
  In 1845, the Cream Hill Agricultural School was founded in West Cornwall in Litchfield County, with a farm totaling 200 acres. The school touted its access to New York City on the Housatonic Railroad. Tuition was $200 a year for the some 22 students that attended annually on average. The school closed in 1869.
  In 1846, John Norton and Benjamin Silliman opened a laboratory at Yale focused on scientific applications in agriculture. Norton would publish in 1850 Elements of Scientific Agriculture, only to die two years later of tuberculosis. Norton's protege Samuel William Johnson would become a leading expert in agricultural education, organizing a national conference that contribu
caption: Samuel William Johnson, credited with helping spur the funding for land-grant universities in the United States, as well as agricultural experiment stations.
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