HILLSBOROUGH: Duke Farms is Garden State's garden spot

With more than 2,700 acres of woods, lakes and fields, Duke Farms, in Hillsborough, N.J., at 80 Route 206 South, is an island of peace, fauna and flora in the most congested state in the nation. James Buchanan Duke (1856-1925), the North Carolina-born tobacco and hydropower baron, began in 1893 to purchase area farms and wound up with what is still today the largest private landholding in New Jersey. A self-taught arborist, botanist and hydrologist, Duke sited more than 2 million trees and other plants on the property and also built nine lakes and 10 waterfalls.

MARTIN HOLLANDER

October 1, 2006