A History of Davis County

The new agriculture-1

CHAPTER 7 THE NEW AGRICULTURE T, he second-generation settlers who claimed homesteads in Davis County's neglected northwestern region during the closing decades of the nineteenth century witnessed a significant economic change in the county during their lifetimes. Their pioneering of the dry farms on the Sandridge was only the beginning of a new agricul­tural emphasis that placed the focus on commercial sales. Related changes included the introduction of new crops, an increasing mech­anization, and development of new sources for irrigation water. Many Davis County farmers found opportunities in commercial crops such as sugar beets, fruit, and vegetables. Others launched spe­cialized livestock and dairy industries. To sustain these changes, busi­nessmen and farmers created new marketing organizations. They worked hard to improve the quality of their products and thus increase profits. As was true in earlier decades, Davis County's farmers depended upon various support industries. Flour mills and blacksmithing shops were common to both the settlement years and the period bridging the end of the cooperative movement and the First World 215 216 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY War. The new commercial agriculture could not have existed with­out sugar factories and canneries, and farmers depended upon the railroad to distribute processed goods. Hay and grain continued as staples in the county; but, by 1920, because the commercialization of agriculture had introduced new crops, the rural landscape looked dif­ferent than it had when the Utah Central Railroad first crossed the county in 1870. Not all signs pointed to progress and growth. Farmers and ranch­ers faced many challenges. Early frosts and droughts could limit pro­ductivity, and destructive winds, insects, and diseases in crops and livestock threatened profits. Also feared were the possibilities of fires and floods. On the economic front, the Panic of 1893 hit businesses hard nationwide, but most of Davis County's farmers survived the ensuing scarcity of money The difficult years of the 1930s again slowed the process of change in agriculture but did not stop it. Along with other Utahns and fellow Americans of the Progressive Era and the Great Depression that followed, the residents of Davis County faced both opportunity and opposition with optimism. Economic Transitions on the Land The shift from small, self-reliant agriculture to large-scale com­mercial production marked a watershed in Davis County's agricul­tural history The economic system espoused by Brigham Young had focused on group u n i t y Its manifestations were home industry, cooperative institutions, and the United Order. All of these were organized within a religious principle of self-reliance. As one local historian noted, "Families lived mainly by their own production and exchanged with their neighbors. Every farm was a little kingdom by itself."1 Brigham Young's successor as church president, John Taylor, eased away from the United Order in 1878 without giving up the goal of building a religious society that was unified in its economic, polit­ical, and social life. He offered help to the struggling cooperatives by organizing the Zion's Central Board of Trade. This board served as a coordinating council to establish policies that would protect the shared interests of Mormon farmers, merchants, and artisans. It also targeted the needs of consumers. Leading citizens from a dozen THE NEW AGRICULTURE 217 regions gathered at semiannual board meetings in Salt Lake City and carried guidelines back to local boards organized in their counties, including Davis. The central and local boards promoted home indus­tries. They regulated prices and eliminated middlemen in order to foster consumer-oriented commerce. They also encouraged progres­sive practices in agriculture, manufacture, and commerce. The county trade organizations recognized the vitality of individual ini­tiative while preserving the long-term idealistic goal of a cooperative society The boards disbanded in 1884 as a result of the anti-polygamy campaign. At that time, the earlier united order projects were being privatized, agriculture was becoming more commercial­ized, and specialized industries were emerging. The new ways of making a living began to dominate Utah's economic landscape. The shared goal of unity gave way to a friendly competition and a focus on individual profit-making.2 Zion's Board of Trade encouraged the development of eighteen specific enterprises. One of these, silk production, resulted in a good-faith but limited effort in Davis County Two others, the salt and sugar industries, had greater economic impact on the county's econ­omy. The silk industry was promoted as a cooperative church pro­gram and was intended to foster self-sufficiency Its operation fell to women within a few families.3 The collection and refining of salt in Davis County, as will be noted later, flourished initially as a private enterprise. Paradoxically, local businesses were forced out of the mar­ket through competition with a monopolistic salt company launched by leaders of the LDS church. In contrast, Mormon church nurtur­ing of a struggling sugar industry sustained Davis County's sugar beet farmers for a half-century Following a commercial model used elsewhere in the industry, church-supported processing plants con­tracted with farmers to supply the sugar beets. While the production of silk, salt, and sugar did enjoy some success in Davis County, one other new crop failed. When county farmers joined the Mormon effort to produce cotton in the territory, northern Utah's short grow­ing season quickly ended the experiment.4 The Silk Industry. From the earliest time of settlement, Brigham Young encouraged immigrants to bring mulberry seeds and silk­worms to Utah. One of the first to respond was California convert 218 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY . The women of Davis County were noted for their involvement in the silk industry. In this view, an unidentified group of Utah women and girls dis­play the stages of silk production, from worms to cocoons, silk thread, and finished products. (Utah State Historical Society) Thomas Whitaker, a Centerville resident. He h a d silkworm eggs shipped from London several times before his efforts succeeded. Finally, in 1862, he raised 1,400 worms and offered to share t h em with others to spread sericulture in Davis County. When his wife, Elizabeth, presented a silk vest of her making to Brigham Young, the Mormon leader encouraged the Whitakers to focus on the silk busi­ness. They resisted, however, not confident they could make a living from sericulture.5 Four years later, Young encouraged the formal establishment of a silk industry through the Deseret Agricultural and Manufacturing Society. Seen as a work suited to women, children, and the aged, and as a means to generate additional income, it was organized in various parts of the territory through local cooperatives. If women wanted fancy formal wear, Young advised, they should make their own from locally p r o d u c e d silk in the spirit of home industry6 THE NEW AGRICULTURE 219 Neither that counsel nor Young's 1868 i n v i t a t i o n to Relief Societies to promote the venture appealed to many women in Davis County. The work of feeding the silkworms on a s t r i c t schedule r e q u i r e d special dedication, a n d reeling t h e fine silk t h r e a d s was tedious. Lorinda Robinson of Farmington was one of those who did respond. She secured worms, planted mulberry groves, a n d began producing silk.7 Her husband's diary gloried in her progress by the spring of 1876: My wife Laurinda is now doing what she has been telling us that she could do. She is manufacturing silk from the silk worm eggs. And the mulberry leaf. She has actually done the work. Hatched the eggs, fed the worms, prepared the cocoons, reeled and pre­pared an abundance of sowing silk. And Brother Joseph Hadfield of Farmington has wove a considerable of silk handkerchiefs and dress goods, but she prepared it for the loom. The first silk ever made in the mountains. A triumph.8 Personal visits in the county by Relief Society General President Eliza R. Snow in the late 1870s finally expanded the cottage industry into at least some additional homes. The society's educational efforts were centered on the Deseret Silk Association, organized in 1875 with Zina D.H. Young as president. When the association offered to buy silkworm cocoons from the women at two dollars a pound, produc­tion in the territory doubled. Mulberry trees, grown to provide the green leaves on which the worms fed, sprouted in groves near the Bountiful Tabernacle, the Farmington rock church, and along creeks and lanes elsewhere in the county9 The few women in every community in Davis County who set aside a r o om for the silkworms gained the support of local LDS bish­ops and priesthood quorums. The men were responding in part to t h e p r o m o t i o n a l efforts of silk missionaries sent from Mormon church h e a d q u a r t e r s by Brigham Young. The first of these was George D. Watt, who began his mission in October 1868. A few months after visiting Davis County, the English-born Watt moved his three families to a 160-acre homestead in northeast Kaysville.10 The silk produced in early Utah was used mostly for specialty items such as r i b b o n s , fringes, shawls, scarfs, neckties, hosiery, 220 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY embroidery thread, and portieres. The women of Davis County were held up to others in northern Utah as leaders in the production of dresses from local silk.11 The record of their accomplishment is impressive. In 1877 Nancy A. Clark of Farmington made a dress from fourteen yards of light slate-colored silk that she had produced and reeled. Clark donated the dress to the Salt Lake LDS Temple con­struction fund. A patron then purchased it as a gift for Eliza R. Snow. Bishop Edward Hunter certified that Clark had produced the first dress piece of silk material in Utah. Joseph Hadfield wove the fabric on his hand loom.12 Clark was not alone at the pinnacle of silkmaking-fashioning a fancy dress of the material. Another dress made in Farmington was given to Aurelia S. Rogers.13 Local histories record several other silk dresses made in Davis County, including those produced by Jane Wilkie Hooper Blood and Louisa Egbert of Kaysville and by Emily Jane Smith Burk of Farmington. Josephine Robinson Rose and her daughter Lorinda Attwood Robinson of Farmington won prizes at the territorial fair and at the Chicago World's Fair. Some of these women not only raised the worms and reeled the thread but also spun the silk.14 During the 1880s Zion's Board of Trade encouraged a mecha­nization of silk production. The Utah Silk Association and others set up factories in the Salt Lake Valley to produce high-quality threads on water-powered reeling machines. Before then, Davis County silk was reeled locally on hand-powered looms or sold commercially to mills in Provo. Joseph Hadfield, Davis County's premier reeler and weaver of silk for local growers, had learned the trade before leaving England in 1853. Besides weaving most of the dress-patterned silk pieces made in the county, he produced the silk fringe used in the St. George LDS Temple in 1877.15 The industry continued steadily for a decade, then slowed in the 1890s after many of the mills closed. Silk making revived when the Utah Silk Commission, a state agency organized in 1896, offered a bonus of twenty-five cents per pound for cocoons. This incentive doubled production. Davis County was one of fourteen counties where such bounties were paid. When the commission discontinued the bonus in 1905, however, area silk production ended. In an econ- THE NEW AGRICULTURE 221 omy no longer isolated from the world, it was less trouble to secure imported silk or to do without. Davis County's silk industry died with the passing of the pioneer generation that had tried mightily to become self-sufficient in the production of food, clothing, and other necessities.16 Sorghum to Sugar Beets. An industry with a longer life and deeper impact on Davis County's economy than silk was that of sugar pro­duction. For most of the nineteenth century, Utahns depended upon sorghum molasses as a sweetener. Since sugar cane was a strictly trop­ical plant and sweet sorghum could not be grown easily in Utah's short summers, settlers looked for alternative sweeteners. The mod­ern production of sugar from beets was in its infancy in France and Germany in the early part of the nineteenth century This did not stop the Deseret Manufacturing Company organized by John Taylor, from making the first attempt to process sugar beets in Utah. At con­siderable cost, the firm imported equipment from France and set it up in one of Salt Lake City's public works shops in 1853. The effort yielded only molasses, however. Another group tried again with the same equipment in a factory in Sugar House in 1855-56. They also lacked the know-how to get the required vacuum pressure needed to crystallize the syrup. With the onset of the Utah War of 1857-58, the beet sugar experiment was dropped.17 During the 1860s and 1870s, Utahns developed a thriving cottage industry for producing syrup from sweet sorghum. A cousin to broom corn, the plant was commonly called sorghum cane in Utah, or even "sugar cane," although technically it was not a cane plant. In 1868, fifteen sorghum mills in Bountiful were producing syrup, along with four in Centerville, three in Farmington, and others in Kaysville and South Weber. Centerville's Nathan T. Porter, a Vermont native, had produced 2,000 gallons of syrup from what he called "Chinese sugar cane." Bishops John Stoker and Christopher Layton received the commendation of a specially called Davis County agriculture meeting that year for promoting the raising of pure sorghum seed. The bishops had assigned specific farmers to nurture isolated fields at the mouth of North Canyon in Bountiful and on Kaysville's east bench. The intent was to prevent the preferred Early Red Imphee and 222 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY old sorghum seed from mixing with broom corn and other related plants.18 By the late 1870s, some in Davis County were successfully pro­ducing small quantities of sugar from what was called the "amber cane." Arthur Stayner became interested in refining the sorghum syrup into sugar commercially when the territorial legislature offered a $2,000 prize (later increased to $5,000) for the best 7,000 pounds of homemade Utah sugar. He built a small factory southeast of the courthouse in Farmington and installed machinery, vats, and fur­naces. Stayner, one of Davis County's delegates to Zion's Central Board of Trade, became the first Utahn to prove that commercial quantities of sugar could be produced. After experimenting for two years, in 1882 he produced sugar from a five-acre sorghum field, but it fell short of the legislature's minimum quantity Continuing his efforts, Stayner developed a pilot sugar-manufacturing plant in Spanish Fork in 1887 and claimed the legislature's prize.19 After that facility had made brown sugar from grain sorghum, Stayner and others visited operating sorghum and sugar beet manu­facturing plants in Nebraska and California to explore commercial options. Stayner gained the financial support of Salt Lake City busi­nessmen to organize the Utah Sugar Company Mormon church leader Wilford Woodruff agreed to invest church funds in the com­pany's first venture, a fully equipped sugar factory Stayner had favored sorghum, a more traditional American sugar-producing crop, but the sorghum grown in Utah did not produce a quality juice. The company therefore chose sugar beets, which had been success­fully grown in California for twenty years. In 1891 California sugar-maker E.H. Dyer built a $400,000 facility in Lehi for the Utah investors. It was the first to use American-made equipment and the first to process sugar beets grown on irrigated farms.20 Thus began a major agricultural industry that impacted north Davis County for more than half a century Private investors built a factory in Ogden in 1898. By 1920 a dozen more factories were oper­ating in Utah, including one in Layton. To ensure financial security, the plants subsequently became part of the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company, organized in 1907, or the Amalgamated Sugar Company, formed in 1915.21 THE NEW AGRICULTURE 223 The thinning and weeding of sugar beets required much hand labor. At sea­son's end, these workers in northwestern Davis County are topping the mature beets and hauling them by team and wagon to the railroad loading dump. (The Community of Syracuse) Farmers in north Davis County were among the first to ship beets to the new Utah-Idaho Sugar Company plant in Lehi. By 1895, Syracuse farmers themselves were shipping more than 1,500 tons south by railcar. By the turn of the century, with an estimated 160 acres in beets, most of the Syracuse farmers had shifted their contract to the closer Amalgamated Sugar Company plant built in 1898 in Ogden. Those in the Kaysville-Layton area continued to ship their beets to Lehi, but the drayage cost them two dollars a ton, which reduced their return by as much as one-third. Mass meetings beginning in 1913 resulted in the formation of the Layton Sugar Company. It was incorporated in April 1915, with Jesse Knight of Provo, E.P. Ellison of Layton, and David Eccles of Ogden as officers. Ellison and Eccles had been among the original directors of the Ogden Sugar Company. By that fall, the Dyer Construction Company had completed a $500,000 plant on a forty-eight-acre site along the Denver and Rio Grande railroad tracks in west Layton.22 The first campaign in October and November 1915 processed 25,000 tons of beets from about 2,500 acres in Kaysville and Layton. A drought that summer had hurt the crop, but the yield still was 150,000 pounds of refined sugar. The first bags were on Davis County 224 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY store shelves by early October. Meanwhile, field supervisor David E. Layton secured contracts for the following year for an additional 450 acres from Syracuse, Clearfield, and West Point farmers at a guaran­teed five dollars a ton for the beets. South Weber farmers remained with the Ogden plant. During the 1917-18 sugar beet harvest season, the Layton plant received 44,000 tons of beets. The factory employed 300 men in round-the-clock shifts.23 An expanding sugar beet industry in Davis County created a need for field workers. To help farm families, the Layton Sugar Company hired laborers, provided housing for them near the factory, and built a school and church. The first laborers were Japanese. Later, Filipino and Mexican workers were hired. The company also built a boarding house for factory workers. Designed by William Allen, it opened in 1918, but was little used after the 1930s and was vacated in the 1940s. The factory itself survived the Depression of the 1930s, but the construction of military bases in the Davis-Weber area during the two world wars preempted farmland and decreased sugar beet production. Post-war housing construction also reduced agricultural land, and increasing costs of labor and fertilizer hurt farmers. The company and its major stockholder, the LDS church, sold out to Utah-Idaho Sugar Company in 1959. The new owner closed the Layton factory, and the remaining farmers shipped their beets to plants in Garland or West Jordan. The company used the Layton buildings for storage and limited processing until 1963. The factory was demolished in 1972.24 The New Agriculture Until Mormon church-sponsored cooperative economic endeav­ors faded in the 1880s, Davis County farmers centered their efforts on producing enough food to sustain their families. They traded sur­plus products from their traditional family farms for manufactured necessities. Mormon cooperative manufacturing enterprises and community irrigation systems were natural adjuncts to the patterns of the conventional farm village. This accent on home industry and self-sustaining agriculture stressed the common good rather than personal financial gain. During the last decades of the nineteenth century, Davis County THE NEW AGRICULTURE 225 Alfalfa became a major cash crop for Davis County farmers. Thomas M. Roberts and his sons Cliff, Rex, Cal, and Phil worked a fifty-acre farm in West Bountiful and drove milk cows to the eastern foothills each day to graze. (History of West Bountiful) farmers became more interested in cash crops. This commercial approach to agriculture transformed the way farmers looked upon their work. Because hay and grain fields yielded surpluses, they became the first commercial farm products in the county Westering emigrants and railroad construction crews purchased these crops, along with fresh horses and beef cattle. Some county residents spe­cialized in the production of these marketable products and devel­oped successful commercial operations.25 Other crops followed, as did an increased interest in efficiencies to lower costs and scientific advancements to increase yields. A key component in all market-centered agriculture was a qual­ity product. Davis County farmers sought to improve their mar­ketable crops and livestock to meet that need. They did so through new or better seeds or breeding stock and by using improved farming practices. When alfalfa seed from Chile began to thrive in California in the 1860s, its cultivation spread to other western states. Because of its deep roots, the plant (also known by its British name lucerne) was well-suited for dry farming, including Davis County's Sandridge area. Christopher Layton introduced alfalfa to Utah Territory in 1870. The new crop soon replaced native grasses in the livestock feed market, including Davis County26 The importation and local breeding of riding horses, draught 226 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY horses, beef cattle, milch cows, and sheep became an established busi­ness in most Davis County communities by the late 1880s. The num­ber of men raising livestock and the number working as livestock dealers grew steadily over the next thirty years. Some dealers special­ized in sheep. Their offerings to support local woolgrowers included the buying and selling of wool, sheep, and popular Merino rams. Other livestock merchants specialized in horses and cattle, but many of them also dealt with sheep. A few dealers or consortiums acquired and offered specialized stock or services. Registered Percheron draught horses were such an offering, as were imported Holstein milch cows.27 Another improvement on Davis County farms was the construc­tion of new barns to store hay, horses, harnesses, wagons, and machinery Local newspapers publicized new construction and even published sketches on how to build a barn.28 Barn building was not new to the county, however. The early settlers had brought the knowledge and skills with them and had been erecting familiar-looking barns for years. But beginning in the 1890s and continuing for thirty years, a new generation of commercial farmers invested some of the proceeds of their prosperity in the construction of hand­some new hay barns, cow barns, horse barns, and milking barns, or combination barns for many purposes.29 Of special help to Utah farmers in the early twentieth century were the county agricultural extension agents and the county exten­sion home economists. These public officials in Davis County were part of a nationwide educational effort to help improve farming practices, financial management of farms, gardening and food prepa­ration, nutrition, and health. The program began when Congress cre­ated the Cooperative Extension Service in 1914 by the Smith-Lever Act. In Utah, this service was introduced by the Department of Agriculture through the Utah Agricultural College in Logan, founded in 1888 as a land-grant institution. As one of its programs, the col­lege created an Agricultural Experiment Station on a thirty-five acre parcel in Farmington in 1920 to test soils, fertilizers, field crops, veg­etables, and fruits. Utah had the first county agents in the United States. Their roles included advising 4-H leaders and vocational agri- THE NEW AGRICULTURE 227 cultural teachers. At Davis High School the program sponsored a chapter of Future Farmers of America.30 Utahns were as interested in improving their use of water as they were in improving crops and livestock. The region's irrigation agri­culture was not unique in western America, and local farmers found much to learn from others involved in commercial farming that depended upon irrigation. In September 1891 the first international irrigation congress was organized in Salt Lake City to share informa­tion. Within a few years, Davis County irrigation companies were sending delegates to the meetings of a regional irrigation congress that met each year in a different western state. While serving as pres­ident of Utah State Agricultural College in 1914, Dr. John A. Widtsoe published a nationally acclaimed book, Principles of Irrigation, that provided scientific information to help farmers.31 Not every Davis County farmer depended upon irrigation ditches to raise a commercially successful farm crop. The large home­steads between Kaysville and the north county boundary were well suited to dry-farm production of grain. Winter wheat, planted in the fall and harvested in early summer, generally yielded adequate har­vests without irrigation. Christopher Layton pioneered the raising of grain without irrigation and was soon joined by others, including Kaysville farmers lohn Marriott, John Thornley, George D. Watt, John Flint, and Elias Adams. By the late 1920s just over half of all wheat in Utah was being raised on dry farms. Davis County farmers improve their yields by imitating the success of the much larger grain farms in the Midwest. Most Utahns abandoned the seeds they had used in the 1890s and adopted the Turkey and other Kansas red wheat varieties. They sought technical help in dry-farm publications, including Dr. Widtsoe's Dry Farming (1910), and from county agri­cultural extension agents.32 When canals brought water to the Sandridge, the number of acres devoted to wheat increased, as did the yields. By the turn of the century, agents for grain dealers and shippers were buying carloads of grain in Davis County for export. Wheat became Utah's most important cash crop for farmers and was second only to hay in acreage planted. As they had done with winter wheat, Davis County farmers adopted scientific farming methods and new varieties of soft, 228 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY white spring wheat. The standardizing of seeds helped ensure a uni­form product for flour production.33 During the late 1920s, Davis County farmers were planting about 5,000 acres of cropland to wheat each year, another 1,200 acres to barley, and more than 600 acres to oats. They realized an average yield of 28.6 bushels of wheat to the acre. Restricted in farming acreage by its geography, Davis County could not compete in acreage with the more expansive grain farms of Box Elder, Cache, Utah, and Juab Counties. In all, eleven Utah counties cultivated more land for wheat, but only four counties ranked above Davis County's yield per acre. By 1925 Davis County had no surplus; rather, it imported some wheat to meet local needs. More than half of the wheat became poul­try feed, and most of the rest was milled for flour and cereals, with a small amount reserved for seed. Along with other Utahns, county grain farmers prided themselves on the high quality of their crop.34 Mechanized Agriculture. It was not just in its livestock and crops that Davis County farmers sought improvement. Even though they were isolated from farmers in the eastern United States, Utahns kept abreast of new agricultural technology and knowledge. Within five years of settlement, Davis County's farmers were benefiting from labor-saving machinery such as horse-powered machines to thresh grain and mow hay. Machinist Arthur Walton arrived in Bountiful in 1851 with a cumbersome thresher that he had brought from Maine; Christopher Layton had one in operation in the north end of the county the following September.35 The number of these useful machines increased rapidly during the next decade. Many of them were shipped in from California; some were made in Utah. Owners used the threshing equipment on their own larger-than-average grain fields and also hired out their services to others. By the late 1860s, some of the county's local threshing and mowing machines were traveling as far as Cache Valley for work. The arrival of the transcontinental railroad hastened the mechanization of agriculture by opening new markets that made possible a more rapid shift from self-sufficient family farms to com­mercial operations. New crops and expanding markets became the common trend.36 The big machines at the end of the century, though a distinct THE NEW AGRICULTURE 229 improvement, were still cumbersome and slow. The larger ones were powered by four or five teams of horses walking in a circle pulling the long spokes of the sweep that powered the thresher. A ten-man crew kept busy loading and hauling the shocks, feeding the thresher, sack­ing the grain, and stacking the straw. The arrival of steam threshers speeded the process of removing the wheat from the shocks, which were cut and bound by mechanical headers. Stoddard Brothers of South Hooper introduced this modern improvement to the north end of the county in 1906 and harvested 900 bushels of wheat with their thresher the first day37 Blacksmiths. Throughout the pioneer period and well into the twentieth century, the blacksmiths operating in Davis County pro­vided services for farmers and travelers. Amos P. Stone, an immigrant of 1850, was the first to fire up a forge in Bountiful. Not long after­ward, John Mower and William Camp also were offering black-smithing services.38 The head of one of Centerville's founding families, Osmyn M. Deuel, brought his equipment with him from Nauvoo and set up shop in the spring of 1848.39 Andrew L. Lamoreaux, a millwright, and Hector C. Haight, a farmer and live-stockman, were offering smithing services to residents of the Farmington area soon afterward. These men also sought to attract emigrants with advertisements in the Deseret News and the Mormon Way-bill to the Gold Mines. English convert Robert W Burton arrived in Kaysville in 1851 and set up a blacksmith shop to serve the needs of residents of that area.40 Within a few years, each Davis County town had several men operating forges to fashion iron into needed products. Blacksmiths worked closely with local farmers to help make and assemble farm implements such as plows, harrows, levels, scythes, and cradles. In addition, they made nails, hand tools, hinges, latches, chains, hoes, rakes, chisels, and wagon tires. They fashioned and nailed into place shoes for horses and oxen. Blacksmiths also sharpened axes and repaired tools, carriages, and wagons. Their cluttered shops provided a social function as well. Located at convenient spots around each town, they often served as community gathering places for men. The Farmington blacksmith shops became such a popular stopping place for travelers that in the early 1860s the bishop and ward teachers 230 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY asked the smithies to cut back on their work on Sundays. The men agreed to observe the Sabbath.41 The blacksmiths were well-known in their time and not forgot­ten by later generations. In some instances, sons of the first black­smith kept the family business going for more than half a century Examples are New Yorker Ira Oviatt and his sons, Dee and Lewis, of Farmington, and Henry Rampton, a second-generation English blacksmith who settled in Bountiful. Rampton's sons continued the tradition: Fred stayed in his father's shop, while Henry, Jr., worked in Centerville, Walter served clients in Farmington and then Layton, and George moved to Syracuse.42 The last of the traditional black-smithing operations disappeared from the county and were replaced by welding shops when gasoline-powered machinery finally took over for draught horses around the end of World War II. Flour Mills. The transition in flour milling was not unlike that of other mechanized aspects of the new agriculture. New forms of power and mechanical improvements of machinery impacted the millers as well as the farmers of Davis County To keep abreast of improvements meant replacing water power in the mills with steam or electricity and substituting metal rollers for milling stones. Owners of the county's pioneer mills had few economic incentives to upgrade their old equipment. Thus, they were caught short when entrepre­neurs built new commercial flour mills to produce flour for export. In 1886, eighty-seven Utah mills were listed by Cawker's Biennial Flour Mill Directory. Most of these first-generation mills, including the half-dozen in Davis County, would soon be gone.43 Kaysville miller John Weinel was one of the nineteenth-century mill operators who tried to improve his equipment as new machinery became available. He replaced his wooden waterwheel with a steel one shipped from the east in 1869. He then discarded his native grinding stones for two superior stones brought west by the railroad from St. Louis. Weinel did not make the change from water power to steam or electricity, nor did he install metal rollers to increase pro­ductivity; after Weinel's death in 1889, those who ran the mill could not compete with new, modern plants. They limited their output to chopping animal feed. The mill closed after strong winds in 1906 caved in the west wall and made the building unsafe.44 THE NEW AGRICULTURE 231 The demise of other pioneer mills in the county followed a sim­ilar pattern. Unable to compete due to their antiquated equipment, all of the old mills closed in the decades surrounding the turn of the century when new technology made traditional methods inefficient. Around 1890 William D. Major found other uses for the Kimball Mill building in Bountiful. He opened a confectionery inside the mill and maintained the millpond for swimming and ice skating. In Centerville, James Miller simply abandoned the old Anson Call mill. A few years later, Henry Steed and Charles Bourne closed their North Cottonwood gristmill in Farmington. Fred Coombs and Jonathan D. Wood kept the nearby Rock Flouring Mill going into the early 1900s. For a time, the sturdy rock walls housed an electric power generating plant and then served as an ice house before becoming a private res­idence then a restaurant, then, once again, a home.45 Replacing the old area mills were two up-to-date facilities designed for commercial production using steam rollers. Investors strategically built these new mills adjacent to the Union Pacific Railroad tracks in northern Davis County. The builders were a younger generation, most of them successful commercial farmers or livestock growers. Ephraim P. Ellison, H. Gibsons, and others orga­nized the first of these new-generation plants in 1890. Their business was known as the Layton Roller Mills. It was located just south of the Farmer's Union on Layton's Main Street. By 1903 the mill was the most productive in the state; in a twenty-four-hour day, it could turn out 440 sacks of flour.46 The success of Layton's mill may have prompted other investors to build a second modern mill in 1905 four miles to the south. The Kaysville Milling Company, organized by John R. Barnes and associ­ates, built its five-story mill along the Union Pacific tracks at the west edge of Kaysville. This mill, too, produced flour widely recognized for its quality After fire destroyed the building in 1920, it was rebuilt and the business was merged with the Layton company to form the Kaysville-Layton Milling Company. Henry H. Blood served as presi­dent and Ephraim P. Ellison as vice-president. The expanded opera­tion developed a regional market in four western states and reached out with sales in Alabama and Georgia. During the 1940s, Rasmussen Grain Company owned the Layton mill. After sixty years in business, 232 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY H H H The Kaysville Milling Company was strategically located on a railroad line to ensure access to commercial markets outside Davis County. (Intellectual Reserve, Inc., courtesy LDS Church Archives) that facility closed in 1951 following a disastrous fire. Not long after­ward, the Kaysville mill became part of the welfare program of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. With the end of local milling options, many county wheat farmers shipped their grain to Weber County, which had become one of the ten top milling centers in the United States.47 Livestock. The creation of a commercial livestock industry was a natural outgrowth of community herding arrangements. Some local ranchers had formed private partnerships before the Mormon church encouraged everyone to band together in a local cooperative. When co-op herding ended in the late 1880s, opening the way for private partnerships, local ranchers created commercial livestock companies. Those who had specialized in sheep or cattle raising during the pio­neer period led the way in forming corporations to produce and market meat, leather, and wool. Settlers were first attracted to Davis County because of its suit­ability for grazing cattle. But much of the richest grassland was soon turn into cultivated cropland, leaving the county's ranchers to seek THE NEW AGRICULTURE 233 ranges elsewhere. The local foothills, mountain ranges, and lowland pastures served small-scale needs but were not adequate for com­mercial operations. The same kinds of ranges used by the coopera­tive herders-in western and northern Utah and beyond Utah borders-served the new companies. Ranchers in the county coordi­nated with Weber County residents the stock drives that passed through both counties in order to prevent losses along the way and limit the mingling of herds on the range.48 The commercialization of ranching operations was especially evident in the Woods Cross area, where as many as eight different livestock companies operated. The giant Deseret Livestock Company, organized in 1891, included among its ninety-five original stock­holders members of the Moss, Atkinson, Hatch, Parkin, Nelson, Howard, Rampton, and Moyle families. The extended Hatch family created two other livestock companies, one for cattle and the other for sheep. One of the other consolidated firms was the Bountiful Live Stock Company, created in 1899 by a merger of the Howard, Cleverly, Mantle, Ellis, Egan, and other family herds.49 Partnerships in livestock businesses in Layton included the Adams and Thornley families and the Dawsons and Websters. Beef cattle specialists in Layton included the Morgans, Ellisons, Nalders, and Greens. In addition, many farm­ers in Davis County became stock raisers on the side; they might buy thirty head of beef cattle-a railcar load-to feed over the winter and then send to market.50 A specialized support industry developed early in the twentieth century to assist in the marketing of livestock. In Davis County, buy­ers and sellers used the services of the Salt Lake Union Stock Yards in North Salt Lake or the Ogden Union Stockyards in Weber County Both were strategically located along railroad lines. By the end of World War I, these yards were shipping thousands of cattle and sheep daily. Two large, meat-packing plants in Ogden provided another outlet for beef cattle. Supporting the operation of the stockyards were other companies offering necessary services. In North Salt Lake, these included two livestock brokerage firms, two commission companies, and two feeding yards. In an effort to learn and share knowledge among industry colleagues, some Davis County livestockmen 234 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY attended the first U.S. cattlemen's congress, a fifteen-state gathering held in 1892 in Ogden.51 Within Davis County, the county commission opened a cattle road from Farmington through West Bountiful along 1100 West as a route for the spring and fall sheep movement. The Deseret Livestock Company alone moved more than 50,000 sheep back and forth from summer ranges in the upper valleys of Rich, Summit, and Morgan Counties to the desert ranges of Skull Valley in Tooele County as the seasons changed. With careful management, it was possible to pro­vide more than three-fourths of a sheep's feed by grazing. Deseret Livestock endeavored to buy land for grazing. The resulting cattle and sheep operations opened many jobs for herding, shearing, and hay­ing. The company sold its spring and fall ranges in Davis County in 1930 because their small size made them unprofitable.52 Islands in the Great Salt Lake also served as herding grounds. During his lake survey in 1849-50, Howard Stansbury had recog­nized the high quality of the major islands for grazing. Until 1877 the LDS church-owned Island Ranching Company used Antelope Island for its cattle, horses, and sheep, including those of the Perpetual Emigrating Company. Because the Mormon church held only squat­ter's rights to the land, however, its claims were challenged in the 1870s by homesteaders. Most of those who filed claims were miners who kept only small farms and gardens to prove their rights. A few, like George and Alice Frary, sought long-term residences and estab­lished ranches and small farms. It was not long before land owner­ship on Antelope Island became consolidated. During the last dozen years of the nineteenth century, ownership was divided about equally between John H. White's company, White & Sons, and John E. Dooly's Island Improvement Company During this time, White &: Sons managed both ranch properties. The firm raised purebred Hereford and Galloway cattle to supply beef to wholesalers in Davis County and Salt Lake City. For thirteen years, White's ranch foreman, James W. Walker, lived on the island with his wife and their three children. In 1893 White purchased seventeen head of Texas buffalo that William Glassman of Ogden had brought to Utah. Raising and selling the animals became a sideline on the island. In 1903, Dooly's THE NEW AGRICULTURE 235 son-in-law Ernest Bamberger purchased White's interest, thus unit­ing the operations in the Island Improvement Company.53 As the livestock industry grew, an essential part of the ranchers life was fattening the beef and swine for market. Dairy cows and sheep also needed sustenance during winter months, and this created a local market for hay and other fodder crops. Alfalfa was by far the most popular animal feed. By 1930, most of the alfalfa produced in Davis County was used locally to support a burgeoning livestock and dairy industry54 Dairies and Creameries. During the early years of the pioneer period, a typical family depended upon its own cow for milk and butter. Any surpluses would be traded to neighbors without cows or hauled to nearby urban markets. It wasn't long before settlers could buy dairy products from farmers who kept a few cows as a sideline. With the commercialization of agriculture, specialized farmers opened larger dairies or local creameries to serve a broader customer base. Over time, fewer and fewer families found it necessary to keep their own cows.55 Dairying in the Syracuse area expanded after the formation of the South Hooper Cheese Factory in 1893. Organized by a group of local farmers, it was soon processing about 2,000 pounds of milk daily. The cans of milk were hauled from the individual farms to the South Hooper plant on a specially built horse-drawn milk wagon. The company sold much of its cheese to the Adams and Keisel regional wholesale and retail firm headquartered in Ogden. The fac­tory added a butter plant in 1897. That same year, the factory made a 700-pound cheese for a float in the Pioneer Jubilee parade in Salt Lake City. The plant continued under local management until it was purchased in 1928 by the Weber Central Dairy Association, a new cooperative marketing group.56 The other center for major dairy operations was at the opposite end of the county. In South Bountiful in the 1870s, Joseph and Eric Hogan set up Spring Farm Dairy, later known as Bonneville Dairy. Others soon entered the dairy business: Samuel S. Howard organized Bountiful Dairy in 1879, and the Farmer's Dairy, a three-farm part­nership, appeared in the 1880s. In Woods Cross, Ike Atkinson teamed with the Hatch family to develop a commercial dairy based on a 236 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY Holstein herd. Before 1920, however, separate Atkinson and Hatch dairies were operating, along with a Moss family dairy. These dairies served the south Davis County and Salt Lake City markets. Consumers could buy directly from the dairies, or have milk, butter­milk, cream, and butter delivered to their homes.57 A number of Davis County residents became sideline dairymen. In west Layton, for example, as many as one-third of the farmers milked six to ten cows. Most South Weber farmers had herds of sim­ilar size. Some of these producers sold their milk to large processing plants, and some funneled their milk into local dairies; but most sup­ported creameries. Beginning in the 1890s, one or more creameries were set up in South Weber, Layton, Kaysville, Farmington, Centerville, Bountiful, and West Bountiful. Some of them operated under a sole proprietorship; others incorporated with support from multiple stockholders. One of them was the South Weber Creamery Mercantile and Manufacturing Company, formed in 1895.58 During their heyday, the creameries served an important role as middlemen between producers and consumers. Typical of many was the creamery built in 1893 by Eli Manning in north Farmington to serve residents of the area. At the end of each week, "Mr. Friday," as Manning was called by Bountiful observers, drove his loaded wagon to Salt Lake City to deliver his surplus sweet cream butter to mer­chants serving urban buyers.59 Similarly, many north Davis cream­eries hauled their surplus products to Ogden. After the turn of the century, the Bamberger Interurban Railroad diverted much of the raw milk from local creameries by transporting it directly to Salt Lake City or Ogden processing plants. This quickly drove most small creameries out of business, and eventually all of them closed. The regional processing plants marketed products to customers either through delivery vans or local merchants.60 Utah's Garden Spot. Beginning in the late 1880s, commercial agriculture expanded in other ways to utilize Davis County's fertile soils. The area became home to a market garden industry that pro­vided fresh produce for buyers in Salt Lake City and Ogden and cash crops to farmers of vegetables and fruit for local canneries. The county celebrated its role as the "Garden Spot of Utah" with a float under that name in Salt Lake City's Pioneer Jubilee parade in 1897. THE NEW AGRICULTURE 237 A pair of "Then and Now" floats represented Davis County in the 1897 Pioneer Semi-centennial Parade in Salt Lake City. This one celebrated the "Garden Spot of Utah," while the other float featured a sagebrush landscape under the title "Davis County 1847." (Utah State Historical Society) Those who depended upon a bounteous harvest of fruits or vegeta­bles for their income found themselves at the mercy of late spring or early fall frosts, dry summers, and other natural conditions. But they met these challenges-as well as the need to recruit field laborers- and developed an important new agricultural industry in the county61 Farmers in Davis County turned to commercial vegetable gar­dening when they discovered that by diversifying their commercial crops they could guarantee at least some income in the event of frost, disease, or insect damage. When yields were good, vegetables and fruits were extremely profitable crops-every acre planted returned more than five times as much value to the farmer as a similar acreage planted in hay or grain.62 Thomas Briggs is credited with pioneering commercial gar- 238 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY dening in Davis County His attempts to start seeds in hot beds in the windows of his Bountiful home inspired others in the area to create their own in-house nurseries. In 1875 a group of these gar­deners elected Briggs as head of a growers company to market pro­duce in Salt Lake City. The company lacked the capital to succeed at that time, but market gardens increased gradually until by the turn of the century they were a leading source of income for many farmers.63 By 1910, four dozen or so vegetable and fruit growers in south Davis County were shipping produce commercially, much of it to markets in other states. They revived the idea of cooperative market­ing in 1911 by organizing a gardeners and fruit growers association. Soon known as the Growers Exchange, the organization purchased seed and other farm items in bulk and set up a farmer's market at 140 West on 400 South in Salt Lake City for direct sales to urban cus­tomers. During the harvest season, the farmers would hitch up their teams before dawn each morning to haul their produce to the mar­ket. They offered their goods in stalls rented from the Growers Exchange, then returned home to harvest produce for the next day's market. The association erected its own building in 1918 and adopted the name Growers Market. The building served as the nerve center for the produce growers until it was demolished in 1972 to make way for a Hilton hotel.64 A new focus on specialization began when a cannery opened in Woods Cross in 1892 and contracted with market gardeners in Davis County to grow tomatoes. By 1894 the Woods Cross Canning and Pickling Company had fifty-five employees and was producing 8,000 cans of tomatoes and 700 bottles of catsup per day during the fall processing season. The firm later added other products to its line. It built a tomato cannery in Clearfield in 1902 and ten years later acquired the plant that had been operating since 1903 as the Layton Canning Company Woods Cross Canning Company also operated a pea cannery in Heber City By 1912 the company was Utah's second-largest commercial cannery. Its canneries were at their peak during the 1920s and 1930s. The company's Woods Cross and Layton plants remained in business until the 1950s; the Clearfield cannery operated until 1975.65 THE NEW AGRICULTURE 239 " • ' « . . . The first plant of the Woods Cross Canning and Pickling Company found a ready market for local garden products, shipped by rail to customers in a wide region. (Utah State Historical Society) Most of Utah's canning industry operated in Weber, Davis, and Cache Counties. Before the Woods Cross Canning Company expanded, farmers in Syracuse and Hooper processed their tomatoes on local farms or supplied crops to Utah's first cannery, organized in Ogden in 1886. In response to the expanding supply in the Weber-north Davis region, new plants were built in Hooper in 1892 and in Roy six years later. A temporary facility set up in 1893 on a farm in Syracuse served farmers in that area until investors organized the Syracuse Cannery Company in 1898. The firm built a plant alongside a railroad spur at 4000 West. This prompted a rapid expansion of tomato growing in the northern end of the county D. C. Adams, co-owner of the Syracuse Resort, purchased the company in 1901, expanded the plant, and increased contracts with farmers to 200 acres. The Syracuse Canning Factory expanded its operations very soon after it opened to include products besides tomatoes, which 240 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY George C Wood, Sr., and his six sons stand in their commercial watermelon field southeast of Woods Cross in about 1910. (Intellectual Reserve, Inc., courtesy LDS Church Archives) remained its leading product. It canned squash as soon as the two-month tomato campaign ended and built a pickling tank to process cucumbers. The c a n n e r y also processed apples, p r u n e s , pears, peaches, plums, and beans. The other canneries in the county like­wise kept a diversified list of b r a n d e d goods flowing to market to keep their plants profitable.66 The success in Syracuse spurred John R. Barnes and associates to build the Kaysville Canning Company in 1902. When the Syracuse plant closed following the death of owner D. C. Adams in 1910, Barnes lined up investors to build another factory in Syracuse-the Davis County Canning Company at 2000 West. The new factory was merged with the Kaysville company two years later and adopted the Kaysville b r a n d name. The Syracuse cannery operated until it was destroyed by fire in 1923. The cannery in Kaysville processed toma­toes, beans, peas, and other vegetables for more than half a century67 During their heyday, canneries in Davis County exported large THE NEW AGRICULTURE 241 quantities of canned fruits and vegetables, provided stable incomes for contracted farmers, and offered seasonal employment for many other residents and migrants. The Woods Cross and Kaysville brands were widely known and respected in many parts of the United States. The Davis County canneries were part of a much larger Utah indus­try, including the canneries in neighboring Weber County, where more than twenty were in operation in the 1920s.68 Other major cash crops for county farmers included potatoes, peas, and onions. The pattern in Syracuse was typical of other areas of the county and along the Wasatch Front. The first commercial vegetable crop in Syracuse was potatoes. By the mid-1890s good quality potatoes were being shipped to outside markets. A report in 1904 noted that ten railcars of Syracuse potatoes were on their way to Colorado and beyond. The first commercial peas were being grown on forty acres at that time and hauled to Ogden for canning. As more farmers began raising that crop, pea viners were built near the farms to remove the peas from their pods before delivering them to a cannery The onion business was launched about the time World War I began and became a mainstay for many farmers. After West Bountiful and Layton farmers perfected the sweet Valencia onion, it became a favorite in markets nationwide. Eighth West in West Bountiful became known as "Onion Street" because so many farmers were raising the crop. There were some farmers in almost all of the flatland farming areas of the county who found potatoes, peas, and onions commercially attractive. In a good year, the irri­gated alkaline soils of Davis County could produce twenty tons of tomatoes to the acre, 250 bushels of potatoes, or around 600 bags of onions per acre.69 Orchards, Nurseries, and Apiaries. Contributing to Davis County's reputation as Utah's Garden Spot were the county's com­mercial orchards. Families had planted fruit trees around their homes very early during the settlement years. Mormon settlers found the county's temperate climate well-suited to growing apples, peaches, and plums. Some families also raised pears and pie cherries. Besides supplying family needs, the trees often produced a surplus. Local merchants would accept dried fruit in exchange for clothing or other goods and then ship the fruit to western mining camps to redeem it 242 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY for cash. A few families marketed commercial quantities of dried fruit locally or in Ogden or Salt Lake City In the Bountiful area, Newton Tuttle and Israel Barlow pioneered the commercial production of dried plums and peaches. Fruit and molasses (that is, peaches pre­served in molasses) could be traded for coal in Summit County. Residents in Park City purchased these products as well as vegetables, dairy products, and eggs from south Davis County farmers. In the 1880s merchants throughout the county aggressively advertised their services as shipping agents for local farm products.70 The sale of fresh fruit also began early. For example, Joseph Robinson of Farmington expanded an existing orchard in 1859 by planting fifty-two apple trees and the same number of peach trees. One of his best markets in the mid-1880s was Summit County. One of Davis County's most productive fruit areas was along a half-mile-wide strip of land below Bluff Road in Syracuse and South Hooper (West Point). Three major fruit growers in this area were serving national markets in the 1890s with their high-quality canned fruits, jellies, and preserves. Gilbert Parker, who was raised on a farm in Wellsville, grew apples, peaches, plums, and cherries on a twenty-five-acre orchard in West Point. William H. Miller, a sheepman and farmer, specialized in Missouri Pippin apples and Bartlett pears, and he also raised Jonathan and Winesap apples. He shipped his first har­vest of more than a thousand bushels of Pippins in 1898 to eastern markets. Daniel C. Adams and his silent financial partner Fred Keisel of Ogden owned a bathing resort and a salt plant before planting fruit and vegetables on the 200-acre lakeside property. Adams planted pear and French prune trees in 1893, and within a few years he was shipping his produce to out-of-state markets. Adams sold fresh fruit, canned prunes, canned grape butter, bottled pears and peaches, and various jellies and preserves. He later expanded by adding apples, asparagus, cucumbers, pumpkins, squash, cherries, and grapes.71 Orchards were also found along the benchlands of Davis County Commercial operations thrived along Mountain Road in east Layton and Fruit Heights and on the rocky benches of Farmington, Centerville, and Bountiful. Some growers specialized, but many raised a variety of fruits to hedge against the weather and disease and to serve a broader market. Typical of the diversified THE NEW AGRICULTURE 243 Orchards flourished in northwestern Davis County in the 1890s and lined the eastern foothills. This 1906 view is near Mueller Park east of Bountiful. (Utah State Historical Society) approach was New Englander Grandison Raymond, Sr., an early orchardist in Fruit Heights, who produced cherries, peaches, plums, apricots, apples, and berries. In later years, Fruit Heights became known for its high-quality cherries and peaches, raised by a half-dozen growers.72 Each area of the county had its pioneers in commercial fruit cul­tivation and its successful producers. In South Weber, Joseph Bambrough put twenty acres of pasture land into fruit trees, and his success prompted others to try orchards of various sizes. Among them was Swedish immigrant Charles A. Fernelius, who produced choice apples and cherries. English emigrants William and Esther Bosworth of Kaysville marketed fruit, berries, and vegetables as far away as Evanston, Wyoming. Farmington's Thomas F. King operated a ten-acre "peach ranch," featuring seven varieties that matured one after another from July to October. In the early 1890s, his fruit was selling for from sixty cents to one dollar for a twenty-pound box. A 244 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY half-dozen other growers could be named in Farmington, and many more were tending orchards as a main source of income in the area from Centerville to Bountiful.73 Davis County fruit farmers were their own nurserymen, growing and grafting their own trees and selling saplings to neighbors. Newton Tuttle and Israel Barlow, Sr., did this in Bountiful. Barlow was remembered for his ingenuity in budding several varieties of apples onto one tree and in growing apricots and plums together.74 Kaysville's pioneer horticulturist was Levi Roberts, an 1850 settler who took slips from every newly arrived variety of fruit he could locate to graft into his trees. Thomas Whitaker, a pioneer in produc­ing silk in Utah, led out in nursery work in Centerville. In time, suc­cessful nurseries and some florists appeared in the city. The first nursery was founded by Samuel Smith, who moved to Centerville from Logan in 1885. Smith Brothers' Nursery became a leading sup­plier of trees, shrubs, and flowers in the county. It was later sold to P. A. Dix. Other companies soon followed in Centerville. Porter- Walton Company was in business early in the century, along with florists William Barber and John Reading. By the mid-1910s Charles Boylan was working as a florist in Farmington and Emil Lund had launched his long career as manager of Lindgren Conservatories, wholesale and retail florists.75 While Centerville enjoyed the largest concentration of nurseries, it was in Farmington in 1910 that Robert Miller, a New England transplant, established what became Utah's largest wholesale floral company Miller Floral specialized in growing cut flowers, especially roses and carnations, plus ferns and potted plants. Local stockholders purchased the company in 1925. After Miller left Utah, Elijah B. Gregory and Golden J. Barton managed the operation. The floral expanded its hothouses to serve an expanding list of intermountain and national retail florists. By 1968, Miller Floral was the largest wholesale floral west of Denver, employing fifty workers in its twenty-one greenhouses, enclosed by 300,000 square feet of glass. It was shipping 1.5 million roses and 1 million carnations, plus gladioli, snapdragons, irises, sweet peas, chrysanthemums, and other flowers. The company underwent three ownership changes in the 1960s. The floral closed in the 1970s, but its owners under a new corporate name THE NEW AGRICULTURE 245 built new greenhouses near Draper to continue the tradition of rais­ing high-quality flowers and potted plants for the retail market.76 Besides landscape trees and plants, Davis County's nurserymen provided imported varieties of berries for home use. In the first years of settlement, women gathered wild chokecherries, currants, elder­berries, raspberries, and serviceberries.77 Domestic varieties appeared in home gardens as soon as plant starts could be imported. Some of the small fruits became commercial crops. In the 1890s, Maren Mitchell, a Danish immigrant, helped her husband, James, make pay­ments on their house in Clinton by raising and selling gooseberries, raspberries, currants, rhubarb, and dried apricots door to door in Ogden.78 Clearfield's Richard and Emily Hamblin and their sons brought plants from St. George and became specialists in raising strawberries. The family supplied much of Ogden with the fruit. Hamblin, known to some as the "Strawberry King," shipped as many as 100 cases a day to Evanston, Wyoming.79 One noteworthy horticultural contribution in Davis County was the development of the Gleason Early Elberta peach. Kaysville physi­cian Dr. Sumner Gleason, who also raised fruit and operated a small cannery, nurtured the variety after he found it growing on a tree in his orchard. He actively promoted the peach and eventually con­vinced a Clearfield nursery to market it. Orchardists in Fruit Heights also may have had a hand in the development or expansion of the stock of the original tree for commercial marketing under Gleason's name.80 For his efforts, Gleason won a $500 prize from the Stark Brothers nursery in Missouri for the best early Elberta peach. The peach was included in Stark's 1914 catalog and became widely used.81 The county's nurserymen also sold to residents the quick-growing Lombardy poplars to shade roadways and temper the winds. In the 1880s, these tall trees became a widely-used feature in Davis County. As Doritt Brough remembered it, "Up until the advent of the automobile and surfaced roads an almost unbroken row of poplar trees lined the west side of what is now Highway 91 from Layton to Bountiful. When roads were deep with dust and travel was slow this shade was deeply appreciated."82 Some towns lined the main street of their business district with Lombardies; more commonly, the trees marked rural lanes and streets. 246 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY One other minor business related to agriculture was that of bee­keeping. A number of Davis County orchardists kept bees to ensure good pollination of their fruit trees. Farmers and tradesmen took up beekeeping as a financial sideline. The efforts of these apiarists helped pollinate local orchards and alfalfa fields as the bees collected nectar for their hives.83 The resulting honey found a ready market along the Wasatch Front. Like other agricultural efforts that helped the com­munity, bee culture was promoted both from the pulpit and in agri­culture meetings. "There can be no doubt about its being a paying business if managed rightly," a Farmington correspondent reported for the Deseret News in 1878; "E. T. Clark . . . began with two swarms six years ago; they now number fifty-seven."84 Davis County apiarists in the early twentieth century included Joseph Adams and Samuel J. Adams of Layton, Timothy B. Clark of Farmington, and George Gerritt of Bountiful.85 Irrigation and Canals. Except for the dry-farm grains, all of the new commercial crops depended upon irrigation. The incorporation of community irrigation systems and the construction of new canals made possible the area's orchards and market gardens and an expan­sion of farming to include alfalfa and sugar beets. A forty-year period of expanding irrigated acreage peaked in 1910 in Utah and then slacked off. Davis County ranked among the top twelve Utah coun­ties in total irrigated acreage.86 The successful effort to irrigate Davis County's northwestern prairie came after a change in Utah territorial law. In 1865 a new law allowed the creation of water districts, and many mutual irrigation companies were formed. Under this law, water users conducted busi­ness by vote, appointed a watermaster, and, as they had always done, turned out every spring and fall to clean the ditches. The watermaster apportioned the stream flow according to the shares owned by each member.87 In Davis County, the county court authorized the water-distribution change in 1876. Farmers in Kays Creek (Layton) had apparently held an election and named their own watermaster, and Joel Parrish of Centerville proposed to the court that the other county areas be allowed to do the same. After much discussion, the court agreed. It created eight water districts and ordered each district to THE NEW AGRICULTURE 247 Irrigation made Davis County's market gardening possible. The Phila­delphia Commercial Museum documented agriculture along the Wasatch Front in 1902, but did not record a specific location for this typical garden. (Utah State Historical Society) hold an annual election each February and to report the results for county certification. This effort speeded the shift from Mormon church to user management. In at least one community the bishop assisted with the transition by allowing time in priesthood meetings for electing the district watermaster and selecting overseers for indi­vidual creeks. The eight districts created in 1876 were Bountiful, Centerville, Farmington, Haights Creek, South Fork of Holmes Creek, North Fork of Holmes Creek, Kays Creek, and South Weber River.88 An 1880 law reinforced this trend to replace community interests with individual property rights. The new law separated water rights from the land. County water commissioners resolved all disputes. During the next twenty years, commissioners in Davis County ruled on ownership claims to fifteen streams and issued 306 certificates of ownership. Some disputes inevitably arose. According to news reports, disagreements over water and stock in water companies in Davis County at times came close to fist fights.89 248 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY The 1880 law encouraged the creation of private irrigation com­panies. This move completed the conversion from ecclesiastical to private oversight of water resources. In Davis County, incorporation began with the formation of the North Canyon Water Company in 1893. Over the next decade, most other water users in the county took similar steps, and, by another ten years, more than twenty streams and ditches were under this system of governance. Other parts of the state were moving in the same direction; by 1913, 168 water companies were functioning in Utah. The move from cooper­ative to corporate water management was complete by the outbreak of World War I.90 Even as this transformation was taking place, state water laws shifted again. The state legislature created the office of state water engineer, and in 1903 it enacted a law to increase state supervision of water resources. Sparse funding hindered implementation of the new laws, so in 1919 Utah moved back to public control of water resources. The law reestablished the Mormon system of irrigation districts. This emphasized local cooperative management under the irrigation companies, but with state instead of Mormon church supervision.91 As noted in an earlier chapter, the farmers who homesteaded on the Sandridge in Davis County's northwestern region depended upon deep wells for culinary water and did without irrigation water. Their neighbors in Hooper and South Weber had diverted water from the Weber River in the 1850s and 1860s to water farm crops, and the Sandridge farmers tried to develop their own Weber River canal sys­tem. The Davis Canal Company had already failed in an 1856-57 effort to tunnel through the sand at the mouth of Weber Canyon. It was a quarter of a century before the task was accomplished by taking a long detour around the sand hill and into Layton. Brigham Young had seen the potential. He said in 1864, "Davis is the richest county for grain and fruit that we have, and if a portion of the Weber were brought out, thousands of acres of good land now on the open prairie might be brought into cultivation." The Hooper Canal was extended into Syracuse in 1875 to supplement the flowing wells below the Bluff, but this did not solve the need south of the Syracuse Road or on the dry-farm homesteads on the Sandridge.92 THE NEW AGRICULTURE 249 The project that brought water to these areas began with the organization of the Central Canal Company, which was reorganized in 1884 as the Davis and Weber Canal Company Organizers included Feramorz Little, William R. Smith, William Jennings, Anson Call, and William H. Hooper. The company used horse-drawn scrapers to build more than twenty miles of earthen ditch to carry irrigation water from the Weber River to higher-elevation land in Sunset, Clearfield, and as far as Kays Creek in east Layton. The canal worked well during the early months of the growing season; however, during the late summer months, when the river's level dropped, it could not supply all the water needed by stockholders. To provide more water, from 1896 to 1899 the canal company built a rock-and-soil-fill stor­age dam sixty-eight feet high in the Red Rock Gorge of East Canyon Creek, about twelve miles south of Morgan. Within three years, the dam was raised twice, increasing its capacity from 3,800 acre-feet to 13,800 acre-feet. The enlarged reservoir watered 12,000 acres in Davis County, and it led to a rapid expansion of commercial farming. In 1913 the com­pany lined the canal with concrete to preserve water, and three years later a larger, reinforced-concrete dam was built. With the supply increased to 28,000 acre-feet, farmers from Clinton to West Layton were able to grow good crops of alfalfa, potatoes, tomatoes, and sugar beets. Various local ditch companies were incorporated to channel the water from the canal to local farms under the watch of a local watermaster. In the Syracuse-Clearfield area, irrigated agriculture increased from about one-fourth of the land in 1906 to almost all of it by 1920. It was the increase in irrigation water from East Canyon Dam that allowed northwestern Davis County to blossom as a com­mercial agricultural center.93 Nature's Riches While Utah's flatlands attracted farmers, the hills and mountains surrounding the populated valleys offered a different commercial opportunity. The territory's mining boom of the 1870s and 1880s attracted national attention and piqued the interest of at least a few Davis County residents. If silver could be found in Parley's Canyon, they reasoned, why not in Farmington Canyon? If copper threaded 250 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY This persistent Davis County miner was still hoping to strike it rich when Harry Shipler photographed him in 1902 at his Farmington Gold & Copper Mining and Milling Company. (Utah State Historical Society) the soils of the east face of the Oquirrh Range, what might await dis­covery along their own west-facing Wasatch Mountains or on Antelope Island? Those who took up the challenge scoured the hill­sides and explored the canyons between the Hot Springs and the Weber River seeking the ore that brought instant wealth to owners of the mines circling Salt Lake County But, in the end, Davis County's argonauts found commercial gain only in the county's most obvious cache of minerals-the briny waters of Great Salt Lake-and then only for a short time. During the Utah mining boom, prospectors picked at rocks and dug exploratory shafts at various places in Davis County All claims in the county were filed under the Farmington Mining District. Striking it rich was an idea that attracted both established settlers and newcomers. Patsy Morley, a former Irish prizefighter, became a leg­end in Farmington for his untiring efforts to strike it rich in a mine on the bench just north of Steed Creek. For twenty years, the old THE NEW AGRICULTURE 251 bachelor made daily trips to his mine from a back-room apartment in an old Main Street business building, hoping that each day would bring the lucky strike. When he finally gave up, Morley left town as unceremoniously as he had arrived.94 More typical of the attempts to extract ore in Davis County were those of Farmington flour miller Henry Southworth. For a few short years, Southworth and his son worked at least four mines part-way up Farmington Canyon. Because the men shipped a little ore from one tunnel, they attracted investment from a mining company; but the mine lacked commercial potential. Similar results dogged the miners who staked claims in other canyons above Farmington, Kaysville, Centerville, and Bountiful. In all instances, after a few years of hard work, the claimants abandoned their efforts. A South Weber attempt to mine coal likewise ended in failure. The only material extracted for profit from Bountiful's hillside was rock, which was quarried for a time beginning in 1893 by the Bountiful Rock Company95 The county's most promising mining boom followed the discov­ery of copper and silver on Antelope Island in the late 1880s. Prospectors dug dozens of test holes and organized several mining companies. Five operators joined forces in 1899 as the Great Salt Lake Mining Company; four others continued independent operations. One mine yielded ore containing 26 percent copper, and, before long, more than fifty miners were at work on the island. They expected to discover yields like those of the Bingham Canyon copper mine in the Oquirrhs, directly across the lake to the south. Antelope Island's most promising vein played out quickly, however, and the shortlived boom ended.96 Another potential commercial resource was discovered along the lake's east shoreline in 1883, when artesian-well drillers hit an under­ground pool of natural gas at the 550-foot level in north Centerville. Nothing was done to develop the gas on the land of Ephraim Garn for another decade, however. At that time, the American Gas Company bought out the owner's rights, and in February 1895 the company agreed to supply fuel to the Salt Lake and Ogden Gas and Electric Company. Manufactured gas had been used to light Salt Lake City streets since 1872. The Davis County natural gas replaced this 252 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY earlier source; but, within a year, customers were complaining about unreliable pressure in the lines. The service company reintroduced manufactured gas to supplement the Centerville fuel for about a year; then, early in 1898, it returned wholly to the more reliable product. Thus, after only three years of commercial use, Davis County's marsh-gas wells were capped. The first street lighting in Davis County was furnished in Bountiful by Lakeshore Gas and Oil Company beginning in 1902.97 Like earlier indigenous peoples who lived along the shores of the Great Salt Lake for centuries, Mormon settlers found the lake a ready source for salt. Harvested by individuals and cooperatively, salt was used to season or pickle foods and to prepare meats for winter stor­age. The easily harvested compound soon became a successfully exported product for Davis County's entrepreneurs. Residents of South Weber filled their wagons with salt from the lakeshore sloughs, cleaned it, and sold it to Ogden residents. People elsewhere in the county likewise quickly moved beyond the bucket-at-a-time collec­tion of salt for personal need. Hauling off a wagonload, they would sell the product locally at fifty cents for a heaping bushel.98 Salt gathered from the lakeshore contained impurities that gave it a bitter taste. The salt could be purified by boiling off the excess min­erals. At least one company had vats boiling daily along the south shore of the lake in the 1850s and 1860s. The families in Davis County who collected salt locally did their own boiling and skim­ming. In the early 1870s two developments hastened the growth of commercial salt production. First, the lake rose to such an extent that it covered most of the natural salt beds. Not long afterward, the mines of Nevada and Montana began using a chlorination process to reduce their ores, and this created a new market for salt. Utahns responded to both opportunities. New salt production companies appeared in the 1880s, including ones in Davis County Using pumps and ponds, the salt makers produced salt and shipped it by wagon and railcar to local and out-of-state markets.99 The county's first salt company was organized in Syracuse in 1880 by George Payne. Three years later, in Farmington, Isaac Sears, "Mac" MacKeg, and James Melius organized the Deseret Salt Company These two pioneering companies served both the local and THE NEW AGRICULTURE 253 An artist for Harper's Weekly captured the look of the early salt industry along the shores of the Great Salt Lake during the summer of 1887. (Utah State Historical Society) mining markets with crude salt. Their methods were simple. Using horse-powered pumps, they piped lake water into ponds for con­trolled evaporation. As the salt crystalized, workers shoveled it into piles within the pond, then carted it out in large wheelbarrows to continue drying. Loaded into sacks, the salt for export was hauled by wagons or the railway to out-of-state ore-processing plants.100 In 1885 Payne sold out to William W Galbraith, who marketed the product under the "Syracuse" brand, a name he "borrowed" from a well-known salt company in Syracuse, New York. A year later, Galbraith sold the saltworks to Adams and Keisel, who added a lakeshore resort to the property. The resort used the Syracuse name, as did the Ogden and Syracuse Railway, a spur built in 1887 by the Oregon Short Line Railway to serve the resort, the salt works, and local farmers. These uses of the Syracuse name gave the surrounding community, previously named Hoboken, its permanent name. Noting the success of the Syracuse salt works, the Gwilliam Brothers 254 HISTORY OF DAVIS COUNTY of South Hooper soon opened the county's third salt works. It became known as the Crystal Salt Company in 1892.101 The expansion of Utah's salt industry and a decrease in needs at western silver mills led in the early 1890s to over-production of the product. All but the largest Utah salt companies were sold or closed. Hastening the demise of Davis County's salt works was the creation in 1887 of the Inland Salt Company, owned by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This south shore company was soon pro­ducing 40,000 tons of salt annually, nearly half of Utah's salt. Adams and Keisel Salt Company ranked second, with 15,000 tons; and Deseret Salt was fourth of the territory's seven operations, with 9,500 tons.102 In 1891 a Kansas company bought Inland Salt Company With its proceeds from the sale, the LDS church organized a competing firm, the Inter-Mountain Salt Company, and built Saltair Resort and the Saltair railway. The two salt companies merged in 1898, with the Mormon church maintaining a controlling interest. The new Inland Crystal Salt Company monopolized Utah's salt industry and remained profitable by creating an artificial scarcity of refined salt.103 To eliminate competition in Davis County, Inland signed a five-year lease with Deseret Salt Company in 1898 and the following year bought out both Adams and Keisel and Crystal Salt. When Inland more than tripled salt prices to ten dollars a ton, Davis County pio­neer saltmaker George Payne reacted by forming a partnership with Ed Bill and lames Chesney For a few years beginning in 1900, they produced and sold salt in Syracuse at $2.50 a ton, mostly to help local farmers, but no doubt also with an eye on profits. Similarly, in Farmington, John O. Johnston, James H. Tippets, and Charles Backman bought back the Deseret Salt lease and formed their own Utah Salt Company to create a competitive market in south Davis County104 The small, local producers struggled to survive. Morton Salt entered the Utah market in 1918 as a competitor of Inland Crystal Salt Company. Within a decade, Inland was operating as a Morton subsidiary. As was true of other important Utah industries at the turn of the century, outside financiers played an important role in the local salt-production market. Profits rather than the economic well- THE NEW AGRICULTURE 255 being of local residents governed corporate actions. Davis County's home-owned salt industry melted away as part of the transition to a commercial economy105 ENDNOTES 1. Quoted in Annie Call Carr, ed., East of Antelope Island: History of the First Fifty Years of Davis County, 71. 2. Leonard ]. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom: An Economic History of the Latter-day Saints, 1830-1900, 341-44, 348-49. 3. Ibid., 345; William Robb Purrington, "The History of South Davis County from 1847 to 1870," 74. 4. Clayton Holt, ed., The Community of Syracuse, 1820 to 1995, 59; Carol Ivins Collett, Kaysville-Owr Town: A History, 29; Mary Ellen Smoot and Marilyn Sheriff, The City In-Between: History of Centerville, Utah, 34; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 71. 5. Kate B. Carter, comp., Heart Throbs of the West, 11:53-54; Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of Utah, 1540-1887, 726; Chris Rigby Arrington, "The Finest of Fabrics: Mormon Women and the Silk Industry in Early Utah," Utah Historical Quarterly 46 (Fall 1978): 378-79. 6. Arrington, Great Basin Kingdom, 227-28, 254. 7. Margaret Steed Hess, My Farmington: A History of Farmington, Utah, 1847-1976, 343. 8. Joseph L. Robinson, Autobiography and Journal, April 1876. 9. Chris Arrington, "The Finest of Fabrics," 382-83, 387-88; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 396-97, 283, 90, 244; Hess, My Farmington, 343. 10. Farmington Ward, Teachers Quorum Minutes, 23 lanuary, 13 February 1876, 31 March 1878, 12 lune 1881; Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 85-86. 11. Carter, Heart Throbs, 11:54, 78-79; Robinson, Autobiography and Journal, 26-28 May, 16-17 June 1877; John Taylor, discourse, Kaysville, 2 March 1879, Journal of Discourses, 26 vols. (Liverpool and London: Latter-day Saints' Book Depot, 1855-1886), 20:169. 12. Deseret News, 13, 20 April 1877; Carter, Heart Throbs, 11:57; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 283; Hess, My Farmington, 343. 13. Hess, My Farmington, 344, says this dress preceded Clark's. 14. Collett, Kaysville-Our Town, 31; Carr, East of Antelope Island, 397; "John H. and Ada Arvilla Burk Earl," typescript, in private possession; Carter, Heart Throbs, 11:78-82, 312. Chris Arrington, "The Finest of Fabrics," 388-89, found reports of only four silk dresses made in the terri-