FARMING
Following his taste for outdoor life, and with the approval of his
father, Frederick Olmsted determined to become a farmer at the time his
brother was determining on a doctor’s career if his health permitted.
It was through their friend Frederick Kingsbury that Frederick Olmsted
was directed to the farm of Mr. Joseph Welton in Waterbury, where he
began the serious study of agriculture in May, 1845.[6]
In June of that year he wrote to Charles Brace from Waterbury:
For myself I have every reason to be satisfied with my prospects. I
grow more contented or more fond of my business every day,--really,
for a man that has any inclination for agriculture, the occupation is
very interesting, and if you look closely you will be surprised to
see how much honorable attention and investigation is being connected
with it. The _Cultivator_ has now five regular monthly European
correspondents. Scientific men of highest distinction are there
devoting their undivided attention to its advance; and I think here,
the coming year will show a remarkable progress.
A day or two later Frederick wrote his brother John:
For my part I believe that our farmers are, and have cause to be, the
most contented men in the world; and for the matter of profit, it is
sufficient to know that they live and bring up their families in
what they consider comfortable circumstances, with the usual system
and management. I should think by the use of the proper tools and
machinery which a man of intelligence and information could procure
and invent, at least half of the most disagreeable and hard labor
of our old-fashioned farmers might be dispensed with to advantage.
But I doubt whether taste for its peculiar pleasures, or inclination
or ability for its manual exertions, will make you a farmer. If
you could, however,--and of this you are the best judge,--become
interested in its operations for a year or two, and connect yourself
with its present rapid advance as an honorable and learned profession,
you would not only find it a sufficient means of support, but an
agreeable and healthful pursuit.
From notices in farm journals, such as the _Cultivator_, Frederick
Olmsted was led to select the farm of Mr. George Geddes called
“Fairmount,” near Owego, N. Y., as the place to pursue further his
apprenticeship in agriculture, since Mr. Geddes[7] had been awarded
first prize for the best-ordered farm in New York State.
On March 19, 1846, Frederick wrote to his brother from Hartford:
I shall start I think directly after the election, I presume going to
Albany first, and then on west to Syracuse, etc., with letters from
Mr. Norton and Tucker of the _Cultivator_. Father has obtained 15
new subscribers for the _Cultivator_ here.[8] Perhaps, and I should
prefer to, come per New Haven and N. Y. and first with Professor O’s
letter to Owego. Please do say what you think about it. I should like
to make you a visit again before I go for good and I shall probably
spend next winter on [the] farm.
In June he wrote to Frederick Kingsbury from “Fairmount”:
I want to make myself useful in the world, to make others happy, to
help to advance the condition of Society, and hasten the preparation
for the Millennium, as well as other things too numerous to mention.
Now, how shall I prepare myself to exercise the greatest and best
influence in the situation of life I am likely to be placed in. You
know perhaps as well as I what that is--I suppose it’s not very great
stretch of ambition to anticipate my being a Country Squire in Old
Connecticut in the course of fifteen years. I should like to help then
as far as I could [to foster] in the popular mind generosity, charity,
taste and etc.,--independence of thought of voting and of acting.
The education of the _ignoble vulgus_ ought to be much improved and
extended.
The Agricultural Interest greatly preponderates in number and wealth
in the state, but perhaps has the least influence in Legislation.
Lawyers whose sense of right and truth is blunted by profession--the
sense of law--and traffickers who value themselves as they can make
their own interest appear--whether truly or not--the interest of
another, make our laws, make public opinion, because they have had
their intellectual faculties sharpened by practice and education. Now
the people-farmers and mechanics--the producing classes that the rest
live on--want to think and judge for themselves, to cultivate the
intellectual.
There is happily a reminiscence written by Mrs. Frederick Law Olmsted
in 1920[9] of her husband’s establishment on his own farm at Staten
Island and of the meeting of the Olmsted and Perkins families.
“In the summer of 1847 Mr. John Olmsted of Hartford, Conn., was
staying, with his family, at the Sachem’s Head Hotel where he met
Mr. John Bowne of New York. Mr. Bowne’s wife was the daughter of Dr.
Akerly late of Staten Island, whose family were desirous of selling
the farm left by Dr. Akerly. Mr. Olmsted and his son Frederick, being
dissatisfied with the prospect for success in the small farm at
Guilford, bought not long before for Frederick, accepted Mr. Bowne’s
invitation to go to Staten Island, South Side, and inspect the Akerly
farm. Their impression was so favorable that Mr. Olmsted bought the
place, 130 acres, paying for it $12,000.00 and took possession the
following winter. The farm stretched from the Main Road to the shore
of Prince’s Bay about a mile in length.
“Leaving the main road one entered a very pretty wood of trees of fair
size,--oaks, maples, sweet and sour gum, sassafras, holly, etc. After
about a quarter of a mile one came out upon the cleared land on the
top of a small rise. The soil was heavy red clay, very suitable for
wheat, etc., yielding up to 40 bushels per acre. There was a sort of
plateau from which the land sloped gently down for about quarter of a
mile and then an almost level stretch went to the bank six feet above
the beach. From all this part of the farm there was a fine view of
Prince’s Bay looking across to Sandy Hook (slightly foreshortened),
Navesink, and the New Jersey Hills stretching away to the southward.
There were no trees on this level with the exception of one tall old
pear tree at the foot of which were found from time to time the bones
of the slaves who had been buried there....
“The farm commanded a view of all shipping outward or inward bound....
“The house, standing at the foot of the slope, was built of rough
stone plastered over with lime, and had been, until shortly before
Dr. Akerly’s death, only a story and a half high. He had, in order
to accommodate his growing family of grand-children built on in
wood a full story and a half, giving nine bed chambers. Outside the
junction of the stone and wood was disguised by the roof of an all
round piazza. Inside the effect was rather odd for the stone wall a
foot and a half thick came up nearly three feet and on top of it were
built closets convenient, but queer. Downstairs was an entrance hall
of 12 × 16 feet going through from east to west and on each side a 16
ft. square room with tolerably high ceiling, windows with deep seats
looking east and in one room a window looking south either side of the
fireplace.
“On the south end, the ground sloped so that there was an easy
entrance for barrows to the cellar, large and well lighted, and used
as a dairy. There was a small outbuilding north of the house where was
found a breast plate engraved ‘The King’s American Dragoon’s,’ laid
away on a beam in what had evidently been a stable.
“The first time I ever saw Frederick was in February of 1848 when he
came over to Holly Hill to tell Grandpa Perkins the news of the flight
of Louis Philippe from Paris, just received in New York.
“Frederick was then settled on his farm with his Aunt Maria Olmsted as
housekeeper and provider for two jolly green freshly imported Irish
maids and three or four farm laborers. We soon called on her and the
families were very friendly. At that time Grandpa occupied Holly
Hill Farm and Uncle Frank was living in South Brooklyn. John Hull
Olmsted had just graduated and had come to New York to Dr. Willard
Parker’s office to study medicine. He came to the farm for week ends
and holidays bringing Charles Brace generally and sometimes Frederick
Kingsbury. By the winter time I had grown so intimate with the
Olmsteds that it was arranged that I should pass Christmas at Hartford
on my way back from a visit in Boston, which I did.
“In June his father, step-mother and half sisters Mary and Bertha and
young half brother Albert came to pass a long season, bringing with
them a fine span of horses and an open carriage, the regular farm
outfit being Old Black subject to blind staggers and not too speedy at
best and an old Rockaway.
“Frederick was at this time 26 years of age full of life and fun. He
threw himself into farming with enthusiasm, introduced system and
order to his men, expecting for one thing that at knocking off time
every tool used should be returned to its appointed place and that
every ‘chore’ should be done at the hour fixed, the foreman to report
progress before going in to supper. He engaged in planting and dealing
in fruit-trees, pears principally, which he imported from France.
All was done in a simple inexpensive way, using the old buildings
on the place and practicing rigid economy. He interested himself in
the County Agricultural Society and soon became an active member in
company with Wm. H. Vanderbilt who was at the time a farmer at New
Dorp Lane.
“Frederick had a very pretty talent for caricatures, not of a
grotesque kind but full of quiet humor.... He was fond of long
discussions on moral points as when, if ever, it is allowable to
depart from a direct statement of fact, etc., etc. He was perhaps over
fond of arguments to be pleasing to women. Whimsies had no charm for
him. _Sartor Resartus_ and _Modern Painters_ were our text books.
“Aunt Maria was a dear kind devoted woman of fifty, plain as a
pikestaff and devoid of vanity.
“Mr. Olmsted, the father, had just retired from business with a modest
competence. He was the kindest and most indulgent of fathers,--a man
with a strict sense of justice and of duty, exacting toward himself
rather than toward others. His wife was a Puritan, a model of order
and system, most efficient as an organizer and full of interest in
Nature and Man.
“The family continued to make its summer home at the farm until the
end of the summer of 1853, six years.”
It was in 1849-1850 that Frederick considered going into the nursery
business on a small scale. He wrote to his father on March 14:
I have been to Flushing and got the trees. Parsons’ bill is $258.
and he desires especially if it cannot be paid before the 1st of May
that he may have paper that he can use--your note. I have been so
unfortunate in my sales that I concluded not to take so many by 300
trees as I had intended. Parsons being very willing, he will probably
sell the trees from 5 to 10 per cent more than my price. Mr. Field
strongly recommends me to purchase for myself in France. Thinks I
might find ready sale for some thousand on Staten Island within a few
years, at 100 per cent over cost of importing them. I called at the
Packet offices this morning but could not get anything reliable as to
freight. As near as I can guess the bulk of 100 trees (small dwarf
pear) of ordinary goods would not be over $1.00. S---- gave me to
understand it would be near $10. I think he lied. But even at that I
could import them one year younger than these I have of Parsons for
but little more than one half what I pay him and at about one quarter
what Mr. Field paid for his.
Later in his venture he wrote to Fred Kingsbury:
SOUTH SIDE, Dec. 21, 1850.
There is a good deal of building this winter.
My trees are to arrive soon, so I cannot go to Connecticut at present.
More of them than I had calculated the man could supply, about 5,000
pears. The nurseryman makes me a present of 200 samples of his shrubs
and trees. They are also lower than they had been offered and promise
very fine. You have a nurseryman in Waterbury. I wish you would
ask him if he does not want some pears on pear or quince stock, of
the latter I have the finest lot ever imported and will sell them
lower than the regular nurserymen. I shall have a few popular shrubs
and trees of other sorts. How would a few hundred go at auction in
Waterbury? I have a lot of (pot plants) cedar of Lebanon.
In this letter, he adds:
We are likely to have a Plank Road upon the island, contract is
offered at exactly the sum per mile I estimated in an article upon the
subject in the _Staten Isler_ last spring. Our society does well, I
have near $20. worth of premiums.
The society to which he refers, and of which he was Corresponding
Secretary, was the Richmond County Agricultural Society. Early in 1850
the Board of Managers issued an “Appeal to the Citizens of Staten
Island.” In this we read:
“How is this, Fellow Citizens? Is the very best method of Farming which
can be adopted universally practiced among us? Is it by any one of us?
Is Agriculture, as a science, sufficiently understood in our community?
Can no luxuries be added to our orchards--no new beauty bloom in our
gardens? Are there no incongruities or inconveniences in our Domestic
Architecture? Is the want of refined Rural Taste nowhere observable on
our island? Are we quite satisfied with our _Roads_--confident that our
breeds of cattle are unsurpassed, and that no improvements can be added
to the implements of our Husbandry, that we should neglect or refuse
to combine our knowledge and influence in these matters? May we not
want a little of the patriotic sentiment, the neighborly feeling, the
cordial good understanding among ourselves, that would be promoted by
a free interchange of our thoughts, opinions and observations, and by
manifesting a unity of purpose with regard to these subjects of common
interest?”
Frederick recorded his progress in the nursery business in a letter to
his father Nov. 6, 1851:
I have sold near $100. worth of trees besides those sent to Terry.
Received order for a small lot to be delivered at Hartford at
wholesale prices from Sol. Porter, Porter Place, Banker. I referred
him to my letter but told him that on the supposition that he meant
to increase his order I would send the trees, putting them on board
Hartford boat at $50. rate, if I did not hear from him this week to
the contrary. He ordered also some peach trees, which I shall have
to get, I don’t know where. Next day another order, “2d, not for
Porter Place,” for 20 more pears. I have had two calls from men that
wanted a large number shade trees--evergreens--and other fruit trees,
that I could not supply--and could not get the ordering of. One of
them[10] is engaged in laying out grounds for Aspinwalls, Livingston
and others at Clifton and told me he should have bought a good many
hundred trees if I had had such as he wanted. He took 31 pears at 60
cts. for Livingston and O’Conner. Townsend called & took 24, Bunker,
15 and others of that sort, making the best sort of nest eggs for the
business.
There is a remark in a letter of 1890 from Mr. Olmsted to Dr. Peter
Collier, Director of the Agricultural Experiment Station at Geneva, N.
Y., which shows how important he considered this period of his career:
“I began life as a farmer, and although for forty years I have had no
time to give to agricultural affairs, I still feel myself to belong to
the farming community, and that all else that I am has grown from the
agricultural trunk.”
FOOTNOTES:
[6] This was a period of intelligent interest in scientific
agriculture, and there was an outburst of farm journals, beginning in
the late thirties. See the list in Bailey’s _Cyclopedia of American
Agriculture_, 1909, Vol. IV.
[7] “Mr. Geddes’ father was prominent in building the Erie Canal and
he was himself an engineer, as well as a farmer, and interested in
politics, so that Mr. Olmsted had plenty of stimulus to think while he
worked, and in the evening to discuss a wide range of subjects with an
intelligent man.” From Biographical Introduction by F. L. Olmsted, Jr.,
to _Seaboard Slave States_, edition of 1904.
[8] Mr. John Olmsted’s firm in Hartford was a regularly accredited
agency for the _Cultivator_ and its name appears on the title-page.
[9] Mrs. Olmsted died April 23, 1921, at the age of ninety-one.
[10] Evidently one of the popular “landscape gardeners” to which
reference is made in Part III.