SPECIAL CROPS IN OHIO BEFORE 1850
BY ROBERT LESLIE JONES
A noteworthy aspect of agriculture in
Ohio before 1850 was
the attention paid to a number of minor
crops--rice, cotton, hemp,
flax, clover seed, white beans, castor
beans, hops, madder, mustard,
broom corn, cow cabbage, sugar beets,
Rohan potatoes and tobacco.
The farmers were actually carrying on an
American tradition, for
their colonial ancestors had
experimented with most of these
special crops and with others besides.
The colonists found that
climatic differences between Europe and
the Atlantic seaboard
made it necessary for them to try out
every plant of the Old
World on its merits in the New. They
universally desired to
develop a staple other than wheat or
forest products, and, like
their nineteenth century descendants,
they were subjected to a suc-
cession of agricultural crazes. By a
process of trial and error they
gradually ran through the entire list of
European cultivated plants
and even some East Indian exotics.
Commonly enough a crop was
tried generation after generation in one
locality without the slight-
est reward, and even oftener a failure
in one region seemed merely
to encourage similar ill-starred effort
elsewhere. "So extensively
did these experiments go on, and so
completely had they been
tried," William Brewer wrote in
1883, "that not a single species of
domestic animal, and but one species of
domesticated plant
(sorghum), has been introduced since the
Revolutionary War of
sufficient importance to be enumerated
in the census tables."1
Pioneers with this colonial background
were much less startled
than modern students by Manasseh
Cutler's solemn claim of 1787
that the Ohio Country was suited to rice
culture. "Where the large
bottoms are interspersed with small
streams," he asserted, "they
are well adapted to the growth of rice,
which may be produced in
any quantities. . . . It is found, in
this country, that stagnant
waters are by no means necessary to the
growth of rice; the com-
1 William H. Brewer, "Report on the Cereal Production of the
United States,"
Tenth Census
of the United States (Washington,
1883), III, 135.
(127)
128 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
mon rich bottoms produce this crop in as
great perfection as the
best rice swamps of the Southern
States."2 Either because they
were influenced by Cutler's views or
because they were merely
seeking a staple for the western
country, the settlers of eastern
Ohio did experiment with rice. It was
noticed growing at Marietta
in 1789 and at Gallipolis in 1792, and
the Belpre community had
patches of the upland variety for a
number of years. Nowhere was
there ever any commercial production.3
Cotton was likewise grown by the New
England settlers
around Marietta as early as 1788, but
only in small quantities. At
this time cotton had not become a
southern staple, and was worth
from
40c to 50c a pound. At first it did fairly well on the bottom
lands, and within a dozen years or so,
enough was produced to
make it worth while to erect a crude gin
for cleaning it. Un-
fortunately, the fiber was so coarse
that it was suitable only for
stockings or rough homespun, and the
crop here was rendered
precarious by late spring or early
autumn frosts.4 In the southern-
most tier of Ohio counties the patch of
Green Seed cotton char-
acteristic of the first clearances
persisted till at least 1838.5 Almost
everywhere else in Ohio cotton culture
had by this time long since
come to an end, and nothing more was
heard of it till after the
closing of the Mississippi in the early
days of the Civil War.6
Hemp had been the object of frequent
experimentation in the
seventeenth and eighteenth century
colonies, sometimes with en-
couragement from legislative bounties,
but it had universally
proved a disappointment. Though it had a
market overseas, hemp
2 William
P. Cutler and Julia P. Cutler, Life, Journals and Correspondence of Rev.
Manasseh Cutler, L. L. D. (Cincinnati, 1888), II, 400.
3 Richard
S. Edes and William M. Darlington, eds., Journal and Letters of Col.
John May, of Boston, Relative to Two
Journeys to the Ohio Country in 1788 and
'89
(Cincinnati, 1873), 136; John W. Jordan,
"Narrative of John Heckewelder's Journey
to the Wabash in 1792," Pennsylvania
Magazine of History and Biography (Phila-
delphia), XII (1888), 36; Samuel P.
Hildreth, Pioneer History; being an Account of
the First Examinations of the Ohio
Valley, and the Early Settlement of the Northwest
Territory (Cincinnati, 1848), 393.
4 Journal and Letters of Col. John
May, 60, 136; Christian Schultz, Travels
on an
Inland Voyage through the States of
New-York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Kentucky, and
Tennessee (New York, 1810), I, 144; E. Dana, Geographical
Sketches on the Western
Country (Cincinnati, 1819), 85; Hildreth, Pioneer History, 393.
5 Fortescue
Cuming, Sketches of a Tour to the Western Country, through the
States of Ohio and Kentucky, in R. G. Thwaites, ed., Early Western Travels (Cleve-
land, 1904), 154; John Melish, Travels through the
United States of America in the
Years 1806 & 1807, and 1809, 1810 &
1811 (Philadelphia, 1816), 356; Caleb At-
water, A History of the State of Ohio,
Natural and Civil (Cincinnati, 1838), 89.
6 Ohio State Board of Agriculture, Annual
Report for the Year 1862 (Columbus),
xxxvii-xxxviii. Hereafter this authority
is cited as Ohio Agricultural Report.
SPECIAL CROPS IN OHIO BEFORE 1850 129
required so much time that few farmers
felt justified in producing
it when their labor would go much
farther in growing grain. It
took a day of back-breaking work for a
husky man to pull a quar-
ter of an acre. After this, there were
the slow processes of leaving
the hemp on the ground to cure, of
stripping the leaves from the
stalks, of stacking the bundles, of
dew-rotting, and finally and most
difficult, of breaking. In spite of this
history, hemp was for a time
an important crop in parts of the new
West. The first settlers near
the mouth of the Muskingum grew it in
small quantities and had
it manufactured into bags and other
coarse cloth by the women
living in garrison.7 The
shipbuilding begun at Marietta about 1800
provided a local outlet. In 1802, there
were two ropewalks at
Marietta, and a traveler was told that
hemp was "raised very
plenty here."8 Within a few years, cordage was being manu-
factured much in excess of the needs of
the ship builders, and the
surplus was exported to the seaboard by
way of the Ohio and the
Mississippi. The ropewalks went out of
business in 1808 as a
consequence of the Embargo, and the
local market for hemp there-
upon collapsed.9 Before the
outbreak of the War of 1812, how-
ever, hemp was again in demand at
Marietta, and was likewise
being grown for sale near Zanesville,
near Chillicothe and on the
bottom lands of the Miami Valley. Most
of that not used locally
probably went to the rope and bagging
factories at places like
Louisville, for very little raw hemp was
exported via the Missis-
sippi at this time.10 After
the end of the War of 1812, hemp lost
its popularity. Skilled labor was
unobtainable and unskilled labor
was costly on account of the losses it
occasioned. There was no
longer a worthwhile market at the points
of production, and with
prices seldom over $100 a ton, freight, commissions and other
overhead expenses left little profit in
shipping to external mar-
7 Hildreth, Pioneer History, 392.
8 "Journal of Nathaniel W.
Little," The "Old Northwest" Genealogical Quarterly
(Columbus), X (1907), 243.
9 The American Pioneer, a Monthly Periodical, devoted to the Objects
of the
Logan Historical Society (Cincinnati), I (1842), 90; Samuel P. Hildreth, Biographical
and Historical Memoirs of the Early Pioneer Settlers of
Ohio, with Narratives of In-
cidents and Occurrences in 1775 (Cincinnati, 1852), 309.
10 Melish, Travels through the United
States, 432; Chillicothe Supporter, Septem-
ber 22, 1810; Marietta Western
Spectator, January 11, 1812; Daniel Drake, Natural
and Statistical View, or Picture of
Cincinnati and the Miami Country (Cincinnati,
1815), 55; Patent Office, Report for
1853, Senate Executive Documents, 33 Cong., 1
Sess., No. 27 (Serial 697), 201.
130
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
kets.11 So, though editors sometimes
wistfully advocated hemp
culture, or bemoaned its unpopularity or
tried to explain it--
"nothing but a demand for the
article has prevented its cultivation
here upon a large scale"12--the
farmers were content to let the
Kentuckians and Missourians with their
slave labor establish a
virtual monopoly of hemp production in
the West. About 1845, it
was estimated that Ohio raised only from
500 to 1,000 tons of
hemp a year, while Kentucky raised about
15,000 and Missouri
from 6,000 to 8,000.13 During the
late 1840's most of the Ohio
hemp was grown in Delaware County.
"A number of farmers in
the township of Genoa and the southern
part of Berkshire," it was
reported in 1848, "raise
considerable quantities of hemp annually
for the New York market, and they
consider this the most profit-
able crop they raise on their dry
bottom lands."14 By
1851, hemp
was going out of production even here
because the former hired
men were working on the new railroads or
were off to California.15
Flax was everywhere grown by the first
settlers for the pur-
pose of making bags, towels,
linsey-woolsey and similar articles.
Every farm had its patch, a quarter acre
or so, which was sown
in March, harvested in June, and then
planted with potatoes.16 By
1830 coarse linens were replaced by
cheap cottons, so that the
cultivation of flax had declined
greatly, and was continuing to
decline. By 1850 the only growers of
flax for fiber were "old
matrons" who used it for making
thread or towels, and a few
farmers who sold it to the paper mills
at from 6c to 8c a pound.l7
11 Ohio Agricultural Report for 1859, 507-8.
12 Chillicothe Scioto Gazette, December
2, 1829.
13 P. W. Bidwell and J. I. Falconer, History of Agriculture in the
Northern United
States (Washington, 1925), 363.
14 Ohio Agricultural Report for 1848, 45.
15 Patent Office, Report for 1851, Senate Executive
Documents, 32 Cong., 1 Sess.,
No. 118 (Serial 625), 388.
16 William C. Howells, Recollections
of Life in Ohio, from 1813 to 1840 (Cin-
cinnati, 1895), 123.
17 Zanesville Ohio Republican, Spring
1831, in Ohio Agricultural Report for 1859,
491; Atwater, History of the State of
Ohio, 89; Ohio Agricultural Report for 1849,
47, 97-8, 202. A Massillon correspondent
of the Cultivator gave the following de-
scription of the preparation of flax for
the paper mills: "The farmers near Cuyahoga
Falls, in Summit county, are in the
practice of growing flax to considerable extent.
When the seed is ripe, they go into the grounds that
have been well and smoothly
laid down, and cradle the flax. When it
is sufficiently dried, they run it through a
threshing machine which takes off the
seed. The stalks or stems are then carried to
a piece of grass-ground and spread out
as hay is spread to dry. It there lies till it gets
sufficiently rotten. They then get out
their horses, colts and light wagons, and the
boys drive over it; and it being turned
once or twice, the sheaves are broken up and
shook out--all of which requires but a
few hours work. It is then loaded and carried
to the paper mill, and there sold at
twelve dollars per ton, which with the seed makes
it a profitable crop." Cultivator
(Albany), n. s. VII (1850), 308.
SPECIAL CROPS IN OHIO BEFORE 1850 131
Other farmers, however, grew flax with
the intention of selling
the seed rather than the fiber. The
trade in flaxseed was not new.
Linseed-oil mills had provided a local
outlet shortly after the
settlement of the Ohio Country. One such
mill at Chillicothe was
offering in 1810 to buy flaxseed; a mill
at the same place in 1820
crushed annually 3,000 bushels of
flaxseed; and another in Wash-
ington County in 1822 crushed 2,000.18 In addition,
the flaxseed
of Ohio was in fair demand before 1830
for shipping abroad,
seemingly mainly to Ireland, though it
had a reputation inferior
to the flaxseed of the seaboard states.19
Flaxseed production grew
in importance after 1830, and especially
in the late 1840's. Though
several crop shortages (with a
consequent rise in price from about
80?? a bushel to as high as $1.35) had a
stimulating influence, the
most important factor was the erection
of several new mills. By
1850 the manufacturing of linseed oil at
Cincinnati was so well
established that there was a large
surplus for export, and Dayton
was crushing annually about 200,000
bushels.20 In the late 1840's,
Preble County was the recognized center
of the Ohio flaxseed
industry; it produced between 15,000 and
20,000 bushels in 1845,
and about 80,000 in 1851.21 Several
other regions were engaged
in it on a smaller scale. It was said in
1851, for example, that
between Youngstown and Warren there was
as much ground sown
to flax as to wheat.22 Growing
flaxseed was considered moder-
ately profitable with yields of about
ten bushels to the acre and a
price of 85c or 90c a bushel. It had the
additional advantage that
the ground was left in good order for
fall wheat, the crop which
usually followed. That the yield was not
more than ten bushels to
the acre is to be accounted for by the
slovenly cultivation which
satisfied most farmers.23
18 Chillicothe
Supporter, October 6, 1810; Marietta American Friend, September
20, 1822; William T. Utter, The
Frontier State, 1803-1825, in Carl Wittke, ed., The
History of the State of Ohio (Columbus, 1941-44), II (1942), 247.
19 Drake, Natural and Statistical
View, 55; Ohio Agricultural Report for 1859,
491.
20 Ohio Agricultural Report for 1849,
176; Ohio Cultivator (Columbus), VII
(1851), 23; James Hall, The West; its
Soil, Surface and Productions (Cincinnati,
1848), 137.
21 Ohio Cultivator, I (1845),
158; ibid., VIII (1852), 216.
22 Western Agriculturist (Columbus),
I (1851), 250.
23 Ohio Cultivator, I (1845), 158;
ibid., V (1849), 213; ibid., VII (1851), 38;
Ohio Agricultural Report for 1846, 56; Ohio Agricultural Report for 1849, 176; Ohio
Agricultural Report for 1851, 441.
132 OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND
HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Another special crop was clover seed.
This began to be an
article of export in parts of New York
about 1800. After the
opening of the Erie Canal it was also of
considerable importance
in Ohio. The Ohio seed was in favor at
Liverpool because it was
free from "ripple" or
"buckweed," which was not the case with its
Pennsylvania competitor.24 There was no difficulty in harvesting
the clover, for the first crop was cut
for fodder and the second
allowed to ripen till September, when it
was cut for seed, but
threshing out the seed with a flail was
exceedingly disagreeable, on
account of the dust. For this reason
growing clover seed did not
become really popular till about 1840,
when the clover huller or
"concave" came into use. This
was merely a shaft covered with
pieces of tin punched full of holes
which was rotated inside a
cylinder similarly covered with tin. It
was dirty to operate, but
much faster than threshing, for a man
and a horse could hull one
bushel of clean clover seed a day.
Clover hullers were fairly
common in Ohio by 1850, and were said to
be quite reliable.25 It
was doubtless largely owing to their
introduction that it could be
stated in 1845 that in Ohio "clover
is a profitable crop raised for
seed at four dollars a bushel, more
profitable, in fact, than any
kind of grain."26 The
greatest clover seed counties of Ohio were
Crawford, Morrow, Hancock and others in
their vicinity. Craw-
ford County exported about 15,000
bushels in 1852.27 In
the
1850's, the clover seed which was not
marketed within the State
went mostly to Kentucky, Tennessee and
the sandy areas of Michi-
gan and Indiana, and doubtless the same
was true of the 1840's.28
In Washington County white beans were
something of a
staple during the 1830's. It was
reported in 1836 that "there were
thousands of bushels of white beans
raised in the county."29 Here
24 Ohio Republican, Spring 1831, quoted in Ohio Agricultural
Report for 1859,
491.
25 Patent Office, Report for
1851, Senate Executive Documents, 32 Cong., 1 Sess.,
No. 118 (Serial 625), 376; Charles Cist, Cincinnati
in 1841: its Early Annals and Fu-
ture Prospects (Cincinnati,
1841), advertisement; Ohio Agricultural Report for 1847,
88; Ohio Agricultural Report for
1849, 28.
26 Western Farmer and Gardener (Cincinnati), V (1844-5), 233.
27 Ohio Agricultural Report for 1852, 178; Ohio Agricultural Report for 1858,
257.
28 Lewis C. Gray and Esther K. Thompson,
History of Agriculture in the South-
ern United States to 1860 (Washington, 1933), II, 823; Ohio Agricultural
Report
for 1860, Part
II, 477.
29 Marietta Gazette, November 11,
1836.
SPECIAL CROPS IN OHIO BEFORE 1850 133
too, in the 1840's, they were produced
"in much greater abundance
than we have seen anywhere else in the
state."30 In other parts of
Ohio the potato rot caused many farmers
to turn to them after
1843, but not sufficiently to bring
about any worthwhile produc-
tion.31 In any case, bean growing was
not considered a mark of
good farming, as the following extract
shows:
Sometimes we read a book, written in a
sort of rambling way, and on
the very bottom of the last page are the
words in large letters, "The End,"
thus notifying to the reader that he is
through with that book. When I
was a boy living in the eastern part of
Ohio well do I remember the rota-
tion of crops in farming. Cost what it
would corn would be planted year
after year until the crop would begin to
not "pay," as it was termed; then
oats would be sown, followed by wheat
and sown in grass seed and if
grass failed, as it often did, the field
was plowed up and sown in buck-
wheat; then as a last resort it was
planted in beans, and whenever you saw
a field planted in beans, in the words
of the instructive author, the beans
meant "the end."32
Castor beans formed a minor crop in
parts of Ohio down to
mid-century. They were in demand at
Cincinnati in 1822 for a
new castor-oil factory. They were grown
a little later in south-
eastern Ohio, especially in the lower
Muskingum Valley, but when,
in the late 1830'S, castor oil dropped
from its earlier price of about
$1.00 a gallon to 70c the farmers here
turned to wheat. In south-
western Ohio castor beans were grown as
far north as Champaign
County in the 1830'S, but the most
important region was Clermont
County. The yield here averaged about
twenty bushels an acre.
The industry was crippled by the burning
in 1839 of the mill at
Cincinnati which furnished the sole
outlet.33 The bean neverthe-
less continued to be experimented with
from time to time after
1840. Most of those who tried it were
disappointed. Some, like a
group of neighbors in Portage County,
found that it did not ripen.
Others, in Franklin County, had much
difficulty and expense in
harvesting. The average farmer seems to
have been convinced
that it was a crop offering
uncertainties and nothing else. In this
30 Ohio Cultivator, II (1846), 113.
31 Ohio Agricultural Report for 1849,
202.
32 Ohio Agricultural Report for 1898,
581.
33 Cincinnati Western Spy, May
18, 1822; Marietta American Friend & Marietta
Gazette, April
8, 1825; Marietta Gazette, November 23, 1833; Ohio Cultivator, VI
(1850), 49, 89; Ohio Agricultural
Report for 1850, 393.
134
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
opinion he was supported by the
agricultural journals, which
pointed out that a longer growing season
than that of most of Ohio
was required to mature the bean.
Accordingly, though there was
a new castor-oil mill in operation at
Cincinnati in 1849, and though
the offer of seed encouraged some
farmers in the Miami and
Scioto valleys to sow fairly large
fields of castor beans, little came
of the effort. The center of the
industry remained, as always, at
St. Louis, and the product of Ohio was
noticed only as a
curiosity.34
Hops were a garden crop of some
importance in the pioneer
era, though the amount grown was
restricted by the abundance of
wild hops. On the other hand, the
erection of breweries created a
market for the cultivated variety. As
early as 1806 a Cincinnati
brewer was advertising for 500 pounds.
Beginning about 1815
the brewing industry of Pittsburgh and
Wheeling encouraged hop
growing in Belmont County. Other
counties which had hop yards
of varying size before mid-century were
Medina, Lorain and Ash-
tabula. Limited outlets were not solely
responsible for the com-
parative smallness of the enterprise
wherever it was undertaken.
A good deal of labor was needed, for the
hops had to be picked,
carried into the "dry house,"
and cured by heat from a stove.
Most important, prices fluctuated
suddenly and widely within a
range of from 12 1/2C to 50c a pound.35
Till the advent of aniline dyes there
was a steady demand
from the dyeing industry for madder, the
roots of which were
used to make a scarlet dye. Madder was
grown on a small scale
for domestic use at Marietta as early as
1789.
Nothing more
concerning it is to be found till 1838,
when a farmer at Birming-
ham in Erie County planted nine acres,
which he harvested in
1842. The yield was about 2,000 pounds per acre, worth about
15c a pound. The costs of labor were so
great that the profits
were only about $200 an acre, that
is, $50 an acre for each year
the land was in use. In fact labor was
so difficult to obtain that
this pioneer of the industry abandoned
it by 1848. Other attempts
34 Ohio Cultivator, VI (1850),
17, 89, 281; Department of Agriculture, Year-
book, 1904, House Documents, 58 Cong., 3 Sess., No. 424 (Serial 4880), 293-4.
35 Cincinnati Liberty Hall, August
4, 1806; Ohio Agricultural Report for 1850,
80; Ohio Agricultural Report for
1853, 613; Ohio Agricultural Report for 1866, Part
II, 126; Ohio Agricultural Report for
1868, 257-8.
SPECIAL CROPS IN OHIO BEFORE 1850 135
were made to grow madder near Columbus
in the late 1840's, but
these failed on account of the
unsuitability of the soil. However,
it seems to have continued to be grown
in a few other localities
till the outbreak of the Civil War.36
One of the minor speculations of Ohio
farmers was the grow-.
ing of mustard seed. It seems that in
the 1830's there was at
Granville a mustard factory which
provided a market for mustard
seed produced locally. It was noted in
1844 that there was a con-
siderable demand in Ohio for mustard
seed, and that cultivating
it had already been found profitable at
several places. In 1845,
there were devoted to this crop about 36
acres of land at or near
Zanesville, 15 acres near Chillicothe, 7
acres near Canton, and a
few other plots amounting in all to
probably 12 acres -- a total of
about 70 acres. The average price at
this time for seed exported
to New York was 8c a pound and the
product of the State was
about 40,000 pounds. The 1848 crop was
poor on account of
drought and inexperience, and the price
at New York fell to 4 1/2c
or 5c a pound owing to an alteration in
the tariff, as a result of
which mustard from abroad was admitted
free of duty. In 1847,
there were only a few men left in the
business and even these
had given up by 1850.37
During the early 1800's broom corn
was a special crop of
some profit in the Connecticut Valley
and a little later in the
Mohawk Valley. The date at which it
first began to be grown in
Ohio is not determinable. It may have
been introduced into the
Miami Valley by the Shakers in Warren
County, for their com-
munity had, in 1843, a recognized
superiority in the Cincinnati
market over its western competitors in
broom making, and for
many years afterwards the broom-corn
growers of the Scioto
Valley were obtaining their seed from
the Shakers in New
York.38 When, in the early
1840's, broom corn began to attract
36 Journal and Letters of Col. John
May, 136; Western Farmer and Gardener,
V (1844-5),
59; Ohio Cultivator, VI (1850), 33; Ohio Agricultural Report for
1859,
509.
37 Henry Bushnell, History of
Granville, Licking County, Ohio (Columbus, 1890),
284; Western Farmer and Gardener, V
(1844-5), 222; Ohio Cultivator, I (1845),
144; ibid., II (1846), 148; ibid.,
III (1847), 27; ibid., IV (1848), 20; Ohio Agri-
cultural Report for 1850, 393; Patent Office, Report for 1845, Senate
Executive Docu-
ments, 29 Cong., 1 Sess., No. 307 (Serial 475), 960-1.
38 Western Farmer and Gardener, IV (1843-4), 96; Ohio
Cultivator, VII (1851),
153.
136
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
attention in Ohio, the chief areas of
production were the lower
Muskingum Valley and the Scioto Valley.
In Washington County
in 1844 slightly over 100 acres of broom
corn were cultivated
under contract to a Marietta broom
manufacturer. The next
year this firm had 400 acres under
contract and another near
Beverly had 350. The industry in
Washington County appears
to have collapsed before 1850, however,
as did a smaller-scale one
in adjacent Morgan County.39 The Scioto Valley counties inter-
ested in broom corn were Fairfield,
Franklin and Pickaway, with
the last preeminent. In 1846, when about
1,000 acres in Pick-
away County were devoted to broom corn,
426,374 pounds were
exported from Circleville, which was
already established as the
leading shipping center.40 Broom
corn was planted in the Scioto
Valley during May and hoed or cultivated
like Indian corn. It
was cut in August, as soon as the seed
had formed and while the
brush was still green. It was then
cleaned by machinery, dried
either on scaffolds or in kilns,
assorted, and either compressed into
bales for sale or at once manufactured
into brooms. These opera
tions made the estimated costs of
cultivating broom corn and
preparing it for market about three
times those of Indian corn.
It was stated that with the ordinary
yield of about a third of a
ton an acre, the profit after allowing
for labor and rent would
run from $15 to $30 an acre, depending
on prices. These un-
fortunately fluctuated, with the
season's production, for the de-
mand for broom corn was inelastic.
Though the crop was there-
fore speculative, it was increasing in
acreage in the Scioto Valley
about 1850.41 There were two out-of-state
markets--Great Britain,
where American broom corn had the
advantage of being admitted
duty free, and New York and New England,
where Ohio broom
corn had the reputation of being much
superior to that of the
Connecticut Valley.42
Several other crops (like a few of those
already mentioned)
39 Ibid., 1,
1845, 65; Marietta Intelligencer, quoted in ibid., 84; ibid., II
(1846),
106; Ohio Agricultural Report for
1848, 89; Ohio Agricultural Report for 1850, 393.
40 Ohio
Agricultural Report for 1846, 60; Ohio
Agricultural Report for 1852,
189; Henry Howe, Historical
Collections of Ohio .... (Cincinnati, 1849), 412.
41 Ohio
Cultivator, VII (1851), 153; Ohio
Agricultural Report for 1849, 14; Cul-
tivator, n. s. IX (1852), 238.
42 American Agriculturist, quoted in Western Farmer and Gardener, V
(1844-5),
146; Ohio Cultivator, I (1845),
65; Bidwell and Falconer, History of Agriculture in
the Northern United States, 246.
SPECIAL CROPS IN OHIO BEFORE 1850 137
deserve notice merely because they gave
rise to fads which re-
peated on a smaller scale the frenzy
associated with the intro-
duction of the Chinese mulberry as a
basis for silkworm culture.43
There was, for example, the cow cabbage,
a large variety intended
for forage. Interest in it was mostly
whipped up by the editor
of the Farmer's Reporter of
Cincinnati. Early in 1831, he recom-
mended the introduction of the plant
into the Ohio Valley, and
later in the year claimed that there
were specimens growing at Cin-
cinnati no less than five feet high.
Despite his efforts, few farm-
ers would have anything to do with cow
cabbage, and the name
shortly became a byword for unproved
plants probably unsuitable
for Ohio.44 A few years later
a less ephemeral craze, this time in
sugar beets, arose from newspaper
accounts of French successes
in manufacturing sugar from beets. Two
firms at least in Ohio
rashly embarked on sugar making, though
their proprietors had
not the slightest technical knowledge of
the process. Twenty
acres of sugar beets were grown near
Columbus for a local fac-
tory in 1835, and a smaller amount near
Granville for another
about the same time. It was impossible
to crystallize the sugar
properly by the methods employed, with
the result that it tasted
beety, and so was unsaleable. Before
1840 the industry was
abandoned, and such sugar beets as
farmers grew were fed to
milch cows. Nothing more was heard of
beet-sugar manufactur-
ing in Ohio till after the outbreak of
the Civil War.45 A third
fad was associated with the Rohan
potato, a variety which was
so coarse-grained as to be unfit for the
table, but which was ex-
ceedingly productive. Unfortunately its
sponsors emphasized only
its phenomenal yields, which, according
to them, might reach a
bushel a hill. Many Ohio farmers were
enticed into paying high
prices for seed, and then, like their
gullible fellows elsewhere in
the United States, were so disappointed
in the crop they received
43 For the history of the silkworm craze
in Ohio, see Robert Price, "Morus Mul-
ticaulis, or Silkworms Must Eat," Ohio
State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly
(Columbus), XLV (1936), 265-72.
44 Farmer's Reporter and United
States Agriculturist (Cincinnati), I
(1830-1), 32;
ibid., II
(1831-2), 8; Ohio Agricultural Report for 1859, 506.
45 Ibid., 502-4; Western Farmer and Gardener, II (1840-1),
84; Bushnell, History
of Granville, 284.
138
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
that they turned from their venture in
disgust. The craze began
in 1838, and ran its course within two
years.46
Tobacco was the special crop which most
nearly duplicated
the frenzy of morus multicaulis. It had been a garden crop in
the first settlements along the Ohio
River; Manasseh Cutler, for
example, found in 1788 that Colonel
Ebenezer Zane was already
growing it on the bottom land near
Wheeling. Later, immigrants
from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Kentucky
and Connecticut brought
with them tobacco seed and a knowledge
of suitable cultural
methods. Yet tobacco remained of
negligible commercial impor-
tance as late as 1819, the reason
assigned being the absence of
slavery.47 The tobacco craze
in the hilly counties of central and
southeastern Ohio began about 1822, the year
definitely given for
its inception in Licking County.48 From
the smallest of beginnings
it grew rapidly. In Washington County in
1825 it
was said that
"the growing of tobacco is at this
time more profitable than any
kind of farm produce by ten fold."49
A Zanesville correspondent
of the American Farmer, writing
on December 7, 1825, stated:
There is a new business just started
here, to a prodigious extent and
of great promise, the raising of light
or yellow tobacco. Present prices
are from $6 to $40 per cwt., and from
seven to nine cwt. are raised on an
acre. . . . It is peculiarly fitted to
our light, thin rolling, warm oakhill
soil. . . . The profits of the crop last
year were beyond all example. The
farmers netted from 50 to 100 dollars an
acre, clear profit. . . .
There is a general tobacco mania. Labour
is in demand, and rising in
consequence of it. . . . Our most
intelligent, prudent men are preparing to
raise next year from 4 to 40 acres
each--some talk of still more.50
In the following winter a land
speculator at Marietta ad-
vertised that he would "sell any
quantity of land very low, . . .
FOR TOBACCO, TO BE GROWN UPON THE SAID
LAND."51 With
wheat bringing only 25c or 30c a bushel, it is
no wonder that farmers all over the
hilly part of the State thought
46 Ohio Agricultural Report for 1859, 502; Arthur H. Cole, "Agricultural Crazes:
a Neglected Chapter in American Economic History,"
American Economic Review
(Evanston), XVI (1926), 633-4.
47 Cutler and Cutler, Life of Rev.
Manasseh Cutler, I, 410; Dana, Geographical
Sketches on the Western Country, 85.
48 Bushnell, History of Granville, 127.
49 Marietta American Friend & Marietta
Gazette, August 19, 1825.
50 American Farmer (Baltimore), VII (1825-6), 348-9.
51 Marietta American Friend
& Marietta Gazette, March 30, 1826.
SPECIAL CROPS IN OHIO BEFORE 1850 139
tobacco "the sure road to wealth,
and neglected other crops for
that of the 'yellow leaf'."52 Tobacco
was grown on new land,
amidst the stumps in the deadenings, and
a fairly small patch
might bring in considerable cash, for
the "spangled" or "yellow-
leaf" variety sown sold for a
number of years at higher prices
than other kinds in the Baltimore
market. For these reasons
it was extensively cultivated in such
counties as Muskingum,
Stark, Belmont, Guernsey, Licking,
Perry, Hocking, Fairfield,
Washington, Tuscarawas and Coshocton,
and even in some of
those of the Western Reserve. But
disappointment soon fol-
lowed. About 1830 so much tobacco was
being produced in Ohio
and other regions tributary to Baltimore
that there was a glut;
prices fell to 3c and even 2c a pound,
and farmers and dealers
who had been counting on an absolute
minimum of 4c were ruined.
The consequence was that those in the
least favored areas, like
the Western Reserve, soon abandoned
tobacco and concentrated
on dairying or other branches of
agriculture.53 In eastern Ohio,
however, tobacco growing remained fairly
important during the
1830's and 1840's. It was spoken of as
the staple, with wheat,
of a group of counties including Morgan,
Washington, Belmont,
Perry and Guernsey. Guernsey County
produced in the 1840's
an average of 2,000 to 2,500 hogsheads a
year, 800 pounds to the
hogshead, and Belmont 12,000 to 14,000
hogsheads. At the small
village of Lowell 600 hogsheads were
exported in 1843 and I,000
in 1844.54 It would appear that in the Muskingum
and Hocking
valleys tobacco was still predominantly
associated with newly-
cleared land; in Washington County, for
instance, there was a
steady migration to such land on the
part of growers.55 Tobacco
52
[Samuel P. Hildreth], "Ten Days in Ohio: from the Diary of a
Naturalist,"
American Journal of Arts and Sciences (New Haven), XXVI (1834), 232.
53 Ibid.; Atwater, History of the State of Ohio, 88; American
Farmer, VIII (1826-7),
336; The Hesperian: or Western
Monthly Magazine (Columbus), I (1838), 102.
It is curious that the people of eastern
Ohio knew little about the ultimate des-
tination of their tobacco in the 1820's.
William C. Howells remarked of Harrison
County that "there was great
speculation among the people who cultivated it, as to
what it was used for; though the general impression was
that it was sent to a Ger-
man market, and used in dyeing." Recollections
of Life in Ohio, 134. Actually there
should have been no mystery about it.
The cheaper grades were sold in Holland for
local consumption, and the better ones
in Bremen and sometimes the other Hanse
cities for export to Sweden and especially Russia,
where they were used in manu-
facturing both snuff and smoking tobacco. Marietta American
Friend & Marietta
Gazette, March 30, 1826; American Farmer, IX (1827-8),
88.
54 Marietta Intelligencer, July
31, 1845; Ohio Agricultural Report for 1851, 233;
Ohio Agricultural Report for 1853, 561.
55 Ohio Agricultural Report for 1846, 67.
140
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
encountered several objections as a
staple in eastern Ohio, in ad-
dition to the moral one which was not
infrequently advanced.
It was liable to considerable variations
in yield from year to
year. It required much labor to worm it,
to sucker it and to pre-
pare it for market. Most important,
prices were never high and
were always erratic. From 1830 to 1840
they ranged from 4c
to 7c a pound and from 1842 to 1846 from
3 1/2c to 6c. It was
stated that the heavy crops of 1844,
1845 and 1846 did not sell
for enough to pay the freight to
Baltimore. The low prices of
these and following years, with the
ravages of the tobacco worm,
caused more and more farmers to devote
their efforts mostly to
wheat.56 Tobacco ruined many
dealers--for whom little sympathy
was expressed--and well-nigh ruined many
farmers. According
to a Noble County rural economist,
"this crop is decidely more
uncertain and less profitable than small
grain, and it wears out
the soil fifty per cent faster, as well
as renders the land very poor,
and furthermore, as a general thing,
where this is the principal
crop, it not only keeps the producer and
purchaser, but the general
community, far below the average wealth
of grain growing dis-
tracts."57 By 1850, it
was generally conceded that tobacco grow-
ing in eastern Ohio was an enterprise of
dubious merit; indeed, in
this region, tobacco shortly assumed the
status of an extra crop
rather than that of a staple.
Western Ohio escaped the tobacco mania
of the hill counties
in the 1820's, and owed nothing to it.
It was not till 1838 that a
Connecticut Valley emigrant began to
plant seed-leaf tobacco in
Miami Township in Montgomery County.
Though this was the
beginning of a substantial industry,
only 75 pounds of tobacco
were reported in the 1840 census as the
product of the Miami
Valley. By 1846 the substantial profits
being made by the first
tobacco growing on the "Miami
bottoms" of Montgomery County
encouraged a rapid increase in acreage.
According to the census,
Montgomery County in 1850 produced 196,971
pounds, and its
neighbors Butler, Clinton, Darke, Miami
and Warren 2,500, 1,460,
56 J. B. Killebrew, "Report on the Culture and Curing of Tobacco in
the United
States," Tenth Census of the
United States (Washington, 1883), III, 141-2; Marietta
Intelligencer, June
3, 1847; Ohio Agricultural Report for 1847, 60; Ohio Agricultural
Report for 1852, 318.
57 Ibid.,
316.
SPECIAL CROPS IN OHIO BEFORE 1850 141
7,132, 2,500 and 2,601 respectively.58 Very
little of this tobacco
was other than seed-leaf. Judson
Popenoe, a Montgomery County
farmer who wrote in 1862 a detailed
essay on tobacco culture,
incorporating his observations of a
fifteen-year period, explained
that theretofore other varieties had
been found inferior in curing
to seed-leaf, and consequently less
saleable. The methods employed
in the Miami Valley differed from those
of eastern Ohio. The
crop was not primarily one for new land,
but was grown on
black bottoms, second bottoms and
heavily-manured uplands. As
the first bottoms produced a rather rank
tobacco, and as the up-
lands were somewhat deficient in yield,
the favorite soil was that
of the second bottoms. The crop was in
general cultivated, har-
vested, cured, bulked and packed, in the
fashion prevailing in
Connecticut, whereas eastern Ohio
followed Maryland technique.59
About 1850, the Miami Valley tobacco
grower was satisfied to
obtain from 3c to 6c a pound for his
seed-leaf "all round," that
is, an average price for the good and
inferior leaves, though he
might get more if his product was of
exceptional quality. The
usual crop was about 1,300 pounds an
acre, though the range was
between 1,000 and 1,600 pounds.60 Though
there was, strictly
speaking, never any tobacco craze in the
Miami Valley, the crop
had proved so satisfactory in the late
1840's that in the 1850's its
acreage expanded steadily.
The historian finds a fascination in the
rise and decline of
these special crops, but he admits that,
except for tobacco, their
importance in Ohio agriculture before
1850 was not very great.
While sometimes experimentation was the
mark of initiative, too
often it was a thoughtless following of
a popular whim, or a
jealous imitation of a close-mouthed
neighbor who was supposed
to be getting rich by trying a novelty.
The best farmers seldom
got themselves into a position where
everything depended on a
special crop. They agreed with the
mature opinion expressed
by an Erie County resident in 1852:
I believe, in nine cases out of ten,
those do best who pursue the even
58 Killebrew, "Report on the
Culture and Curing of Tobacco," 132; Ohio Agri-
cultural Report for 1846, 54.
59 American Agriculturist (New York), XXIII (1863), 108-10.
60 Ohio Cultivator, V (1849), 275; Ohio Agricultural Report for 1852, 306.
142
OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
tenor of their way, taking care to have
"a little of all sorts," so that if
one or two kinds fail, there will be
others to fall back on--slacking up on
those branches which are overdone, and
"letting out a link" on those which
promise better--carefully adopting new
improvements, and experimenting,
on a small scale, with a view to new
discoveries. Raising extravagant ex-
pectations, by overdrawn estimates,
sends many people from one branch
of industry to another, in a sort of
jack o'-lantern chase after wealth,
through the bogs and quagmires of
disappointment and poverty. Those of
my acquaintances who have for a series
of years patiently pursued their
course--carefully doing well whatever
they have undertaken, and practising
frugality and sobriety withal--have
attained to competence; while those who
have been chasing one scheme after
another that held out the promise of
sudden wealth, have "come
up," like the Dutchman's hogs, "among the
missing."61
61 Patent Office, Report for 1852,
Senate Executive Documents, 32 Cong., 2 Sess.,
No. 55, Part II (Serial 667), 247.