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Legacy: Potatoes, Ducks, Clams and Tobacco

Before potatoes, there was tobacco.

When Dutch settlers arrived on western Long Island in the mid-1650s, they found the Indians had cleared huge areas for their own farming. One of their crops was tobacco, which years earlier the English had learned to grow in Virginia.

Early Dutch records for New York show that Long Island tobacco was highly prized. One account, written in 1654, says that tobacco was packed in ``hogsheads,'' or barrels, and shipped to Europe for sale.

This account states:

... The planters must be informed that much depends on their cultivating and curing of the tobacco, for it is considered much stronger and pleasanter when it is pruned in time, during its growth; and if after drying it has a good yellow color, it has been found to be valued much higher here, bringing one half as much more than the Virginia tobacco ... if well taken to heart, it may make the commonwealth and its inhabitants flourishing and wealthy.

Could it make Long Islanders wealthy today? Probably not. While being overwhelmingly a southern crop, tobacco is grown today in Pennsylvania and Connecticut. And as recently as 40 years ago, some farmers on the East End grew tobacco for personal use.

``My father and grandfather grew tobacco,'' said Joe Gergela, of the Long Island Farm Bureau. Both of their farms were in Riverhead. ``But it would not be economical today because Long Island growers would be so small and they couldn't compete with the huge tobacco farms in the South. But it'll grow here, no question about that.''