— Airrlcultural Colonies Aifrioulturo
THE
.IF.nisn
Here, as at the other successful southern .lewisli colonies, thereare factories, where a portion of the jieople earn most of their living expenses, thus furnishing a local market that pays a
S"-2('>.i)8(i.
New Jersey
price for their products and enahlinu: them to avoid the expensive freight rales and commissions allacliing to the sale of produce clsiwhere. Woodbine, situated in the northern part of Cape May county. New .lersey, at the jun<iion of the West .Jersey and Seashore and the South Jersey railroads, is, at the present time (1001). the most It successful of the Jewish colonies in America. was established August 2S. 1891, liy the trustees of the Baron de Hirscli Fund, and since that time has been carried im unili'r their supervision. The laml, coruiirisiiig about 5.300 acres, was purchased for The farms arc located around the town, S!:i7.")00. which Contains several facloiies, a synagogue, a church, two public schools, a ninnlier of stores, and aliout a hundred neat frame <lwellings, sheltering a popidation of about 1,000 .souls. In liiol there were 5'.' families of Jewish farmers at Woodbine, repreOf the farms senting a total of about 400 persons. 4!l contain 15 acres each; two. 10 acres each, and Of the total of 785 acres no less than one. 30 acres. 50tl are under cultivation. The principal products are berries, small fruits, and garden truck, as well The aggregate value of the as dairy prodvicts. farms is about S50.000. liesides these farms, the Agriciltural School has farm land liaron de Ilirsch to the extent of 'i'O acres, of which T'l acres are under cultivation. The town all'onls a local market for farm products, and the townspeople linil sulliiiiir
employment in the local factories. It has been found that this system of combining local industries and farming gives the very best results. Various other attempts to establish Jewish AgriThe ctiltural Colonics in New Jersey have failed. cient
colony at Estelleville, established in 1883, not far from Alliance, was abandoned in the spring of 1883. Another colony at Montefiore, near lielle Plain, a station on the AVcst Jersey Uailroad not far from Woodbine, wasalso abandoned soon after its foundation, leaving 28 houses and a factory standing. In 18in a syndicate of New York Jews bought up several thousand acres of land for farming purposes about four miles from May's Landing, in Atlantic county, but the colony has been of slight importance. Emphasis should be placecl upon the fact that only by the combination of fanning and local factory employment have the Jewish colonies in southern New Jersey been able to survive. M. R. Price, RvsKl<le Yevrri v Amerike. pp. 48-7S: J. D. Elsenstein, in Xrr ha-Mn'arahi. II. S-l.i, IU-7i, 139-i:!«, ITH-lKl; Lundsberp, IIist,of thf Perffcutinusiif thr JfWti iu JUtss-in^ an. eiilitlffi liu.ssiitn Jnr-< tis Amrrirnn Ffirmi'rs.
BlHLioGRAPIIV:
AGKICTTLTURE.— Historical
Aspects: Ag-
ricultiM'e was the basis of the national life of the Israelites: state and Temple in Palestine were alike
foiuided on it. At the out.set the Hebrews are rep" A roaming Aramean resented as a jiastoral tribe. was my father," Siiid the Israelite when ottering his first-fruits as a thanksgiving before the Lord (Deut. XX vi. 5, Ilcl).). Till' Patriarchs are mainly herdsnieii. pasturing their sheep and cattle on commons, without generally cultivating the soil: at the same time Istiac " .sowed in that land [Gerar]. and Israel received in the same year a hundredOriginally fold " (Gen. xxvi.l2)"; and Joseph's Pastoral, dream of sheaves of corn in the field (Gen. xxxvii. 6, 7) seems to betoken familiarity with agricultural life. But Jacob and his sons enter Egypt as sheiiherds only (Gen. xlvii. 3): and this pastoml life was adhered to until even a
ENCYCLOPEDIA
262
later period by the Iribesof Ueiiben. Gad.aiKl by half of the tribe of Manasseh, inhabiting the tnuis Jordanic plain (Num. xxxii. 1), and by the clans dwell-
ing in the highlands of western Palestine (1 Sam. XXV. 2). A certain dislike to agricultural life was, however, manifested among the sons of l{ecliab(.rer. XXXV. 7). The intirc Mosjiic legislation was conditioned upon Israels possession of Canimn as the laml ])romised to Abraham. The Sabbath had chief .signiticanee to a people that had iiassed the jiastoral stage and that empUiyed man and beast in agriStill more closely cultural labor (Ex. xxxiv, 21). connected with agricultural life were the three fes tivals of the year (Ex. xxiii. 14-10). The system of public provision for the poor was based upon agricultural life: the Law claimed the gleanings of the harvest, of the vineyard, and of the olive grove for the iioor and the stranger (Lev, xix, i), 10: Dent. xxiv. 10-21). The Sabbatical year of release the produce of which was reserved for the poor, the
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stranger, and the cattle (V,. xxiii. 11) and the Jubilee year, with its restitution of the ancestral ])ossessions (Lev. xxv. 28), were based njion an agri eiiltunil eeoiioiny (see AoUAUiAN L.wvs; L.^nd TenS.I!.T1C.I. Yk.R). lltE The whole conception of God as the bountiful dealgiver, as well as that of His retiibutive justice ing blessings to the observer of the Ijiw, and sorrows or ' curses " to the tniiisgressor Direct Re- is founded altogether ujion the fact of Israel's agricultural enjoyment of Calations with God. iiaaiuEx. xxiii. 25: Lev. xxvi. 3-G, 10, 20, 20: Deut. viii. 7-10. xxviii. 3-5. 12. etc.). Canaan was totally dependent for its fertility upon the rain of heaven, which God W(juld grant or withhold according as Israel was faithful or unfaithful (see Driver, •'Commentary on Dent." pji. 129 f/ Kcq.). The impression which Palestine with its brooks and fountains, its valleys and hills, its fields of wheat and barley, its plaiitationsof vines and figmade upon the Israelites, trees and ])om<'granates unaccustomed as they were to Agriculture, is vividly portrayed in the ejiisode of the spies (Num. xiii. 23 et wg.). It appears that when the magnificent fruit of the country was shown to the people, far from awakening a desire to take possession of the land that
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"flowed with milk and honey," it filled them with fear by reason of its very size, just as did the uncom-
monly
tall
men
.'ind
strong cities that the spies liad
seen. Canaaiiiteagrieultural develoiunent ]U'esented to the Hebrew sheiiherd-tribes a superiority from
which they shrank with a self-depreciating awe. Centuries had to elapse before .ludah and Israel could dwell safely "every man under his vine and under his fig-tree, from Dan even to Beer-slu'ba" (I Kings, iv. 25), and before the Hebrew farmer could feel that it was his God who instructed him how to plow and to sow and to cast in the wheat and the barley and the rye(lsa. xxviii. 20). The subjugated Cauaanites no doubt were made to initiate their Israelitish con(|iierors into the jiraetises of agricultural life. The land hitherto culture held to be watered and made fruitful Learned by the Canaanite gods, Ba;d and Asfrom the tarte, was conceived to be henceforth Canaanites. under the tutelage of the national deity of Israel, but the art of its cultivatiipii had to be learned from its former owners, and here wasa fruitful cause fiu- the people's continual lapsi-s The unbridled joy of the into Canaanite idolatry. harvest anil the vintage filled the land with songs and dancing (Judges, ix. 27): and the "high places." as centers of idolatrous worship, continued to exert a baneful spell upon the fanuiug population settled
Agri-
