The Atlantic Stream
The simplified map shown here, depicting the “Atlantic Stream” of migrant farmworkers, corresponds to a simplified conception of their lives: they follow the crop or follow the harvest northward, a “tide that moves in harmony with the passage of the high sun up and back again” (Miller 24). As though the Atlantic Stream paralleled the flyways of migratory birds, a natural phenomenon. But this map dates to 1952, and already by the 1970s the Atlantic Stream was said to be “drying up” as seasonal migration became less common in New York state (Winkler 1). A variety of factors—farm size, commodity markets, labor laws, mechanization—had changed the structure of paid farmwork.
Thinking about farm labor in relation to ecology is difficult because there’s an undeniable seasonality to the work, yet American agriculture has been transformed continually by industrialization since at least the 1800s. The Erie Canal...what’s natural about that? Perhaps it’s more useful to instead think of farms as hybrid spaces. The environmental writer Michael Pollan has suggested that gardens are “simultaneously real places and representations. They bring together, in one place, nature and our ideas about nature” (243). Judging from The Genesee Farmer the same has been true with agriculture. For example, here’s a writer in 1862 arguing how “The Farmer is King” instead of hereditary or industrial monarchs: “The earth is his slave; but it is the slavery of love, for it buds and blossoms before him, and the trees clasp their hands for joy with him. He chains his servants to do his will; but they are the elements, the huge and willing ox, and the majestic horse, impatient to do his bidding, and champing tor the word that bids him go” (Bement). It’s nearly impossible to untangle the farm territory from the allegory.
When it came to migrants, 19th-century farmers acknowledged birds and indeed made detailed observations about different species’ arrival. As to humans, though, there was a strong preference among New York farmers for permanent residents—especially compared to those who were relocating to California gold mines or Minnesota wheatlands. A writer using the pen name of “Old Farmer Tim” asked: “Do we lack sympathy and that feeling of home and local attachment to the land that gave us birth; and family pride that distinguishes man from the lower migratory races?” Editors of The Genesee Farmer believed that “progress in agriculture is doing much to improve the unstable and roving disposition of our people. A well kept garden and orchard, next to wife and children, gives home its charm” (“Our Cause”). By extension, a farmer from Onondaga Hill advocated homes for the poor because otherwise children in those circumstances “early acquire an uneasy, roving disposition” (L.T.C.E. 181).
From this history we can conclude there was deep suspicion of hired farmworkers, and in particular migratory ones, because cultural and horticultural advancement were aligned with settlement. Even when farmers needed those “roving” farmworkers to harvest their crops! Rochester horticulturalist Patrick Barry, ostensibly discussing fruit hybrids, made a Darwinian argument about how people in any given locality were better adapted and healthier than non-native outsiders. “This is all in strict conformity to the wise harmonious laws that regulate and govern all Nature, animate and inanimate” (219).
Works Consulted
-- Barry, Patrick. “Raising Fruits from Seed.” The Genesee Farmer 14.7 (July 1853): 218-219. Courtesy of Internet Archive
-- Bement, C. N. “The Farmer is King.” The Genesee Farmer 23.2 (Feb. 1862): 49. Courtesy of Internet Archive
-- L.T.C.E. “Homes for the Poor.” The Geneseo Farmer 13.6 (June 1852): 181-182. Courtesy of Internet Archive
-- Miller, Paul F. To House the Migrant. SUNY Geneseo, Center for Migrant Studies. 1972. Link to document
-- Old Farmer Tim. “Fences, Number Three.” The Genesee Farmer 8.8 (Aug. 1847): 186. Courtesy of Internet Archive
-- “Our Cause and Ourselves.” The Genesee Farmer 11.1 (Jan. 1850): 9. Courtesy of Internet Archive
-- Pollan, Michael. Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education. Atlantic Press, 1991.
-- Winkler, Connie. “Migrant Scene.” Elmira Star Gazette, 22 Sept. 1974: B1+.