Joseph Magnani farm

The Joseph Magnani Farm of 126 acres was owned by E.S. Barclay. Joseph was the brother of Ludwig and the tenant farmer. A tenant farmer is one who has use of the farm and has an agreement with the owner on how the profits are divided. This farm is now the Plainsboro Public Works and the Plainsboro Community Park (a sports complex).

Cronology of the Joseph Magnani Farm.

1924 Giuseppe Claudio and Enrichetta Magnani move to the farm on Scott's Corner-Monmouth Junction Road (about January). They came with 3 teams of horses, wagons, a grain drill, hay mower, a potato digger (single row), and a binder. The farm animals they brought with them were chickens, pigs, geese, ducks, a goat, and a cow named "Molly". Their dog's name was Buster and their cat was called Caracu.

1925-27 The main crops in those early years were wheat, rye, corn, red potatoes and white potatoes called cobblers. Potatoes were harvested with a horse drawn single row potato digger. Farm laborers picked potatoes by the bushel baskets, and were usually family members, families from the city, local people, and men out of jobs. The potatoes were graded according to size on a hand cranked grader. (eventually a gas engine was purchased to turn the pulleys on the grader.) The marketable sizes of potatoes were the "firsts" and the "seconds". These were packed in wooden barrels and sent to market on horse drawn wagons. The "thirds" or smallest potatoes were cooked in large vats and fed to the pigs.

Wheat and rye were cut with a binder and threshers were hired to separate the grain from the chaff. Some of the grain was kept for feed but most of it went to market. The remaining straw was then stacked and used for bedding for the farm animals.

Corn was cut and shocked by hand. The stalks were stored in the farmyard in rectangular stacks, the shape of a small house with a longitudinal peaked roof. The ears of corn were placed into well-ventilated corncribs to be used for feeding the horses, cows, pigs, chickens, and ducks. The stalks were used as fodder for the animals in the winter months.

1929-32 During the early years of the "Depression" hobos were hired to harvest the crops. Sometimes one of two of them would winter over to help with the late fall, early spring plantings and to help with the slaughtering the processing of the pigs and cattle.

1930 The barn in the middle of the main backfield was destroyed in a storm.

1932 The first tractor, a Farmall with lug wheels, was purchased and used instead of the horses. The gasoline engine of the tractor was used to turn the pulley of a huge saw that cut wood for heating and cooking.

1933 Electricity was installed in the farmhouse, the yard and the vegetable barn. White potatoes became the main crop. The potato grader was now run by electric power. Potatoes were bagged at the grader in burlap bags imprinted with the "Old Reliable" logo, weighed to precisely 100 pounds, sewn with twine using running stitches across the opening then bound at each end making the sacks look as if they had rabbit ears. The ears provided an easy means for lifting and handling these ready for market bags. Large trailer trucks were hired to transport the potatoes to market.

1934 Migrant workers (people of color) from Florida, who had followed the harvesting of crops up the eastern seaboard, were first used to pick potatoes.

1935 A second tractor was purchased - an "Oliver" with lugs. "Oliver" tractors were preferred because cultivators were easily installed on them and were easily maintained

1936-39 As mechanization took place on the farm, horses were no longer needed and eventually all the teams were sold. The single bottom row plow was replaced by the two-bottom row plow.

The single row potato digger was replaced by the double row digger. The wagons were pulled through the fields by tractors - no longer by horses.

Scott's Corner - Monmouth Junction Road was paved and the ruts and dust of a dirt road became a thing of the past.

Running water was piped into the farmhouse kitchen.

1939-45 The potato crop was contracted for puchase by the "Wise" potato chip company. Their trucks were sent out from Berwick, Pennsylvania to pick up the farm's Chippewa and Katahdin potatoes (potatoes which were used primarily for potato chips).

1941-46 Potatoes during the war period were also sold to the government.

1947 Tomatoes became the second main crop on the farm and this crop was contracted with the Campbell Soup Company.

1948 At last, a bathroon was installed in the long storage room on the second floor of the farmhouse.

Joseph Magnani digging potatoes with 4 horse team and one row digger - 1929

Left to right: The entire family, Henrietta (Mama), Joseph (Papa) Rose, Josephine, Louise, Ben and Frieda - 1952