But in addition to all these stimulants to progress the Camden and Amboy Railroad came in, giving it a vast momentum. Terminating at Philadelphia and New York, it opened up a cash market among thousands asking for daily bread. When this road was first opened, its annual way-freight yielded less than one hundred dollars a year. But its managers wisely built station-houses at every cross-road, as the farmers called for them. To these nuclei the produce of entire townships quickly gathered in astonishing quantities. Agents from the great cities traversed the country, and bought every thing that was for sale. A cash market being brought to their very doors, where none had previously existed, an immense stimulus to production followed, and a new spirit was infused into the whole region. Hundreds of farms were renovated, cleared of foul weeds, drained, and liberally manured. New vegetables were cultivated. Tomatoes, peas, rhubarb, and early potatoes rose into prime staples. Green corn has been taken from a single county to the extent of two thousand tons daily. Other products go to market by thousands of baskets at a time. Way-trains are run for the sole accommodation of this truck business, stopping every few miles to take in the waiting contributions collected at the stations. To both railroad and farmer it has proved a highly remunerating traffic. These way-freights, thus wisely cultivated by the railroad, now amount to many thousands annually, and are steadily growing larger. Meantime, steamboats on the Delaware stop several times daily at new wharves on the river, sometimes taking at one trip two thousand baskets of truck, from a point where, twelve years ago, the same number could not be gathered during an entire season. The grower thus has the choice of the two richest markets in the country. He reaches Philadelphia in one hour, and New York in three.
It must be manifest that crops of such magnitude cannot be produced on mere sand. Hence the traditional notion that New Jersey is a sand heap, desolate and barren at that, has long been proved to be a fallacy. Men do not grow rich upon a burning desert, such as this region has been described. Yet the farmers who occupy it are notoriously becoming so. They lend money annually on mortgage, after spending thousands in manure, while farms have advanced from $30 to $100 and $200 per acre. The last ten years have added thirty per cent. to the population. Schools, churches, and towns have proportionately increased in number.