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ANTHR 1160 Final Project, James Rice Award
- 1. Land Use inCentral New York Survival of the fittest? S Emad Masroor 5/15/14 ANTHR 1160: Progress and Collapse in the Past and Future
- 2. Emad Masroor ANTHR 1160 FinalPaper: 05/15/14 While a constantly changing landscape is a hallmark of most settled regions in the world, the changes that have taken place in the landscape of Central New York are particularly interesting because they do not fit into the overall picture of continuous ‘development’ in the United States during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. As evidenced by the expansion of both urban and rural settlements all across the world during this period, ‘development’ usually involves a change in the landscape from natural to anthropogenic. Central New York, however, seems to have undergone the reverse – its landscape changed from largely human to largely natural. While not uncommon, this process does challenge conventional notions about economic development. In this paper, I will examine the changes in land use of Central New York over the past 150 years. In the mid-nineteenth century, this region had all the trappings of an agricultural utopia, and was intensively farmed as much as was physically possible. Today this region is largely a forest– a remarkable transformation. How and why did this change occur? Empirical data documenting the Decline of Farming For the purposes of this paper, I have focused on what is described as the ‘Central Plateau’ region of New York State, according to Agricultural Regions of New York State (Conklin and Hardy 1963), particularly the counties closest to the Finger Lakes region. During the late nineteenth century, this region was intensively farmed, with almost one hundred percent of the land area of some counties being used for cultivation. In three of the counties representative of this region – Tioga, Tompkins and Cortland – the extent of cultivated land has without a doubt fallen drastically over the past 150 years. Figure 1 documents this
- 3. Emad Masroor ANTHR 1160 FinalPaper: 05/15/14 steep decline, from about 300,000 acres in 1880 in each county to approximately 100,000 acres today. Figure 2, in turn, shows the proportion of land that was under cultivation over this period, which perhaps better captures the scale of loss in this region: from an almost hundred percent utilization in 1880, Tioga County’s percentage of cultivated land had fallen to 30% by 2007. 0 50,000 100,000 150,000 200,000 250,000 300,000 350,000 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 2020 NumberofAcresundercultivation Year Figure 1: Aggregate Farm Acreage over time Cortland Tioga Tompkins 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910 1920 1930 1940 1950 1959 1969 1982 1987 1997 2002 2007 Percentage Year Figure 2: Proportion of each County's land under cultivation (Source: Social Explorer) Percentage of Cortland County area Percentage of Tioga County Area Percentage of Tompkins County
- 4. Emad Masroor ANTHR 1160 FinalPaper: 05/15/14 It should be recognized that these trends capture what was essentially a State-wide phenomenon. Figure 3 shows that New York State as a whole, too, was experiencing a loss in cultivated area over the same time period. From 1880 to 1930, a total of 5.8 million acres of farm land was abandoned from New York farms (Croft 1932: 46). According to Croft, the rate of abandonment of farm land was only increasing at that time (i.e. 1932), which seemed to have prompted many stakeholders to try and find a solution to “The Land Problem in the State of New York” (Croft 1932: 45). All three of the counties I have considered lost at least 11%-25% of their farmland over this 50-year period. Croft also stated that Dr. George F. Warren, then head of the Department of Agricultural Economics at the New York State College of Agriculture, estimated in 1932 that “the peak of this disappearance of farm land will be reached during the next decade (1940s) if it has not already been passed,” and that “at least 3 million more acres of farm land will be discarded from crop use before the readjustment reaches a stabilized condition.” Figure 3 shows that in hindsight, both of these turned out to be highly conservative estimates because even after 1930, 0 5,000,000 10,000,000 15,000,000 20,000,000 25,000,000 NumberofAcres Year Figure 3: State of New York (Source: Social Explorer)
- 5. Emad Masroor ANTHR 1160 FinalPaper: 05/15/14 10 million acres of farmland were lost in New York State before stabilizing at about 7 million acres in the final decade of the twentieth century. Figure 4 shows that the decline of cultivated land cannot be explained simply by a United States – wide trend. New York State had been an important contributor to the agricultural needs of the country during the nineteenth century, but the share of the central plateau region in particular declined over time. Tioga, Tompkins and Cortland counties together comprised a .25 percent share of the total cultivated area of the United States in 1870, which by 1980 had fallen to about .05 percent, a fivefold decrease. While these percentages are quite small, the sharp downward trend is still indicative of the declining importance of agriculture in Central New York. It is interesting to note, however, that throughout this period of abandonment, the productivity of the remaining farmland in Central New York was never at risk. It appears that there seems to have been no dent in the prosperity of the lucky farms that survived. “The per acre and total yield of the principal crop produced in the State are higher to-day than ever before,” wrote Croft in 1932. “This is possibly due to the application of scientific methods in crop production and the adjustment of much of the farm land to 0.00000000 0.05000000 0.10000000 0.15000000 0.20000000 0.25000000 0.30000000 1840 1860 1880 1900 1920 1940 1960 1980 2000 PercentageofU.S.cultivatedarea Year figure 4: Percentage of total cultivated area in the U.S. held by Tompkins, Tioga and Cortland counties (Source: Social Explorer)
- 6. Emad Masroor ANTHR 1160 FinalPaper: 05/15/14 its most efficient use” (Croft 1932: 49). The productivity of land – in Central New York as much as throughout the State – was on a constant rise throughout the time during which cultivated area fell drastically, which of course meant that overall output of goods from the Central New York does not show a downward trend during this period. As Frank Walrath stated in 1927 about the farmers of a generation before his time, “A regular day’s work in harvest time was the cradling of 3 acres of grain… Today the average Tompkins County farmer cuts and binds 8 to 10 acres per day” (Walrath 1927: 204). Enter the Forests It is quite clear, through casual observation, that most of the land that was abandoned is today covered in forests. Tompkins, Tioga and Cortland counties alone are home to no less than 38 State Forests – lands that the State acquired at some time in the 20th century in order to plant with forests. Figure 5 shows the dramatic rise in the forested area of Tompkins County, from 19.4 percent in 1900 to 50.7 percent in 1980 (B. E. Smith et al, 1993: Table 1 p. 234). Governmental role in the re-emergence of forests 99.7 19.4 28.5 50.7 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 2000 Figure 5: Percentage of Forest Cover in Tompkins County (Smith. B.E. 1993)
- 7. Emad Masroor ANTHR 1160 FinalPaper: 05/15/14 The growth of forests in formerly-cultivated areas was a carefully-planned process that was implemented by the New York State government over several decades. For example, in 1894, Article VII, 7 of the constitution of the State of New York (Department of State, NY: 2014, XIV: 1) was amended to include that: ‘The lands of the State, now owned or hereinafter acquired, constituting the forest preserve as fixed by law, shall forever be kept as wild forest lands. They shall not be leased sold or exchanged, or be taken by any corporation, public or private, nor shall the timber thereon be sold, removed, or destroyed.’ At the same time, the government seems to have encouraged the growth of forests on privately-owned land, as well. For example, a 1912 legislation “provided a 35-year property tax exemption” for private landowners who planted up to a hundred acres of forests. What incentive did the Government have to increase forest cover in Central New York? The documentation for one of the State forests in the region, Shindagin Hollow State Forest, gives us some reasons officially posited by the government. ‘In order to reduce soil erosion, protect water quality, provide forest products and recreational opportunities, the State of New York began acquiring property for reforestation during the 1930's under the auspices of the State Reforestation Law of 1929 and the Hewitt Amendment of 1931. These laws allowed the Conservation Department to acquire land, by gift or purchase, for reforestation.’ (Department of Environmental Conservation, NY http://www.dec.ny.gov) Both of these factors – legislation and the encouragement of private forests – must have contributed to the growth of forests in New York State starting in the first half of the twentieth century. As far as growing forests with no economic value was a worthy objective, these policies and practices seem to
- 8. Emad Masroor ANTHR 1160 FinalPaper: 05/15/14 have had considerable success. At the turn of the nineteenth century, the ‘Forest Preserve’ of New York State grew from 685,259 acres in 1883 to 2,193,627 acres in 1930 (Croft 1932: 67). Today, 18.9 million acres of New York State is forested, a growth pattern similar to that of Central New York (Croft 1932: 67). A ‘natural’ transformation or a contrived one? I believe that there can be two ways of analyzing these changes. The first mirrors the views of Frank Josiah Walrath, who in 1927 noted that: ‘Agriculture has passed through an evolution. As the agriculture of the county changed, rural life changed. The change has been from a country filled with farm people leading a simple life to a country sparsely peopled. Economic pressure has wrought this change. Fewer people produce more than the people of a generation or two ago. More people are free to go to the city. Soil depletion has lowered yields until much land is no longer economically used. It has passed out of agriculture. The best lands produce more than ever before under modern methods of cultivation. The poor lands produce less than ever. It requires a long time to convince owners of the poorer land that their efforts will always be poorly repaid and that they should give up the tilling of the poor land for a better region or for employment in the ever-growing industry of our villages and cities.’ (Walrath, Frank J. 1927: 265) Walrath espouses the view that these changes were the inevitable result of the mechanization of farm labor and the increasing attraction of cities. He claims that in places where a lot of soil depletion took place, the land just did not have the fertility required by commercial agriculture. According to Walrath, the owners of poorer land will always be poorly repaid, and this increasing economic pressure was what forced people to give up much of the land.
- 9. Emad Masroor ANTHR 1160 FinalPaper: 05/15/14 According to this view, the State then began to step in as land was being abandoned, in an attempt to regularize – and, perhaps, justify – the depopulation of what had been declared ‘sub-marginal’ lands. It was in this backdrop that much of the legislation about forests in New York State came about; people were worried about all the abandoned land, and the State philanthropically decided to acquire it in order to forest this land for the common good. Evidence of state manipulation However, there can be another construal of the same events which defined the transition from an agrarian to a forest landscape. Maps produced by the State during the period of most rapid abandonment – such as Economic Viability of Farm Areas (1969) by Howard E Conklin and Robert E Linton – classified land according to its ‘viability’ for farming. The following series of images serve to show that, as far as Central New York was concerned, the State wished to encourage the trend of abandonment.
- 10. Emad Masroor ANTHR 1160 FinalPaper: 05/15/14 Figure 6 (Nobe, K.C. et al 1960 and Conklin H.E. et al 1969)
- 11. Emad Masroor ANTHR 1160 FinalPaper: 05/15/14 Figure 6 shows two sets of maps. Those on the right are part of the State-produced Economic Viability of Farm Areas, while those on the left are actual agricultural survey maps. The former, produced by the ‘Office of Planning Coordination’ in the State of New York, has areas of ‘high viability’ that correspond more or less exactly with the regions of intensive commercial farming as shown in the latter. The blue lines encircle these areas of interest. I believe that the correspondence between these maps shows that the reforestation of Central New York was not necessarily a natural product of prevailing conditions. In fact, this reforestation and land- abandonment may well have been caused by the policies of the state. By using language such as ‘high, medium or low viability’ of farm areas, the State clearly reveals its bias in favor of farm abandonment in this part of New York even up to the 1960s. Moreover, in some parts of Central New York, the government proceeded to carry out its reforestation program without regard to the condition of the land’s inhabitants. While it was common for scholars such as Frank Walrath to question the agrarian use of ‘sub-marginal’ lands, there are many documented instances of this classification being applied to entirely healthy farmsteads. Inside what is now the Finger Lakes National Forest of Schuyler County, it has been found that in nine out of eighteen farms studied by archaeologists (Wurst and Ridarsky 2014: 227), costly capital improvements were still occurring well into the twentieth century. This casts doubt on the official narrative that reforestation was carried out only in areas that were abandoned by the farmers themselves. Wurst and Ridarsky have found evidence not only of house construction a few years before farms were purchased by the government, but also of a vast array of consumer good being used by the residents of these farms. Even more significantly, Wurst found that a house which was valued under the 1930 census at $4,000 was in 1935 evaluated at just $300 (Wurst 2014: 233), no doubt to speed up the process of reforestation.
- 12. Emad Masroor ANTHR 1160 FinalPaper: 05/15/14 Social Darwinism? It cannot be emphasized enough here that the contraction of cultivated land is an act that is far from being limited to the re-drawing of maps. It involves the displacement and relocation of people, many of whom were tied to the land and would have had nowhere else to turn to for work except for the overcrowded cities of the United States. Croft’s statements, for example, that “it requires a long time to convince owners of the poorer land that their efforts will always be poorly repaid” and that “they should give up the tilling of the poor land for a better region or for employment in … industry” clearly show a complete disregard for those who would be most affected by the decisions about reforestation. By offering financial incentives to farmers who planted forests (instead of cultivating the land), and by promoting the classification of certain parts of New York as being ‘unviable’ for farming, the State actively helped bring about the collapse of a way of life for thousands of people. The reforestation of Central New York clearly favored large commercial farms over smaller, less profitable farms in a process that can only be called social Darwinism. Those who found their property to be suddenly worthless as a result of the government classifying their land as ‘sub-marginal’ or ‘unviable’ are the unsung victims of the region’s Reforestation programs. It seems that the state went to great lengths to discourage extensive farming to the benefit of the larger commercial farms that remained, with less successful farms being sacrificed to create artificial forests that would provide marginal benefits to the remaining farms. As Croft noted in 1932, ‘If Conservation may be defined as ‘wise use’, it follows naturally that from the point of view of utilization, a forest cannot be left completely to the forces of nature and be expected to produce the greatest public benefits, however useful it may be for protection and recreation,
- 13. Emad Masroor ANTHR 1160 FinalPaper: 05/15/14 such a policy seems more likely to serve the purposes of a very exclusive and restricted minority.’ Conclusion While natural factors such as a decline in productivity may certainly have played a part in the change from farms to forests in Central New York, I think that the above pieces of evidence are sufficient to prove that the state was an active participant in this process. It is unclear whether the government was an orchestrator of these changes or simply a facilitator, but the more important question is why the state would consider this change of land use to be a goal worth pursuing in the first place. Foresting a previously-farmed area does not make economic sense for those who till the soil, no matter how much an economist would tell the farmer otherwise. It only benefits those who live off the newly- created forests, because they can then enjoy their recreational use as well as other spillover benefits, such as improved drainage and soil protection. While more investigative work needs to be done in the rest of Central New York before the conclusions of Schuyler, Tioga, Tompkins and Cortland Counties can be generalized to the whole region, I believe that the state was certainly trying to ‘serve the purposes of a very exclusive and restricted minority’ through reforestation programs.
- 14. Emad Masroor ANTHR 1160 FinalPaper: 05/15/14 References Cited Walrath, Frank J. 1927 A History of the Agriculture of Tompkins County, New York. A thesis presented to the faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Croft, Alfred R. 1932 Some Aspects of the Reforestation Problem in the State of New York. A thesis presented to the faculty of the Graduate School of Cornell University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy U.S. Census Bureau 1790-2000 Social Explorer; Michael R. Haines. Historical, Demographic, Economic, and Social Data: The United States Nobe, K.C., Hardy, E.E. and Conklin, H.E. 1960 The Extent and Intensity of Farming in Western New York State, An Extension Publication of the New York StateCollege of Agriculture. Conklin, Howard E. and Linton, Robert E. 1969 Economic Viability of Farm Areas, State of New York, Office of Planning Coordination.
- 15. Emad Masroor ANTHR 1160 FinalPaper: 05/15/14 U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census 1860 – 2007 Census of Agriculture 1860 – 2010 Census of Population and Housing Smith, Bryce E., Marks, P.L. and Gardescu, Sana 1993 Bulletin of the Torrey Botanical Club, Vol. 120, No. 3 (Jul. - Sep., 1993), pp. 229- 247: Two Hundred Years of Forest Cover Changes in Tompkins County, New York Wurst, LouAnn and Ridarsky, Christina L. 2014 International Journal of Historical Archaeology Vol. 18 No. 2 (Jun. 2014) pp. 224- 241 The Second time as Farce: Archaeological Reflections on the New Deal.