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Bob, I've been by that location on Casino a hundred times to visit dear friends a mile up the road and had no idea that the hill was there, relict plateau composed of Beacon Hill Gravel facies of the Cohansey Formation. Many thanks!

Awesome thread… There was a Buckshutem Branch in Monmouth County by Wykoff Mills, now called Bannen Meadow Branch (Brook), so that name is not unique to Cumberland County (Buckshootem Bridge in Beekman 1915: 116–117). It is in what is now Howell Township, named in honor of Governor Richard...

Pine Tar Cordial, great for dyspepsia! I don't recall anything out of the ordinary about Pettit's oatmeal preferences. Simple. I'm amazed at how the lidar imagery has renewed interest in charcoal pits and tar kilns. Great stuff, nice to catch up. Going back to paperwork but should be back...

Yes, that too was a portable sawmill above Hunters Mill. Carl Farrel at Hamilton Township Historical Society did some work on that one.

Years back on occasion I used to breakfast at the now long-gone Pine Grove Restaurant on Delsea Drive near Dorchester. Specifically, the visit timed to meet up with an old woodsman by the name of Russ Pettit (if memory serves) who lived across the highway. His favorite dish was oatmeal, which...

Boyd, about the high ground by you... The hill east of the Steelman sawmill site is Stony Hill and the one west of that mill site is Skunk Hill, presumably for the coaling going on there. Charcoal camps were often called skunktowns because of their acrid smoke. I believe that structure on the...

There are tar kiln dripping pans near tributary heads all along the Manumuskin. The pair at Cedar Branch, tributary of the Manumuskin, are just above the intersection of Mattox Road and the trail to Canute Neck or Parsontown below Bennetts Mill. The "runnels" identified by Bob are in the right...

That would be great, Guy! The spung name a little further east across Drivers Branch provides a window to the original landscape—Desolation Pond! Today's Hammonton Branch was once called Long Meadow Branch, attested by the "meadow land" on the Clement survey. I envision this to have been...

Guy, That's the repaired Cedar Branch bridge of Old Forks Road, in extant by 1761. The white stone building in the background is by ~1800 a tavern owned by Shoemaker, although it is potentially older. There was another tavern (Cains) about 5 miles to the SW on this road where it crossed today's...

Guy, Your tree looks like a callery pear, maybe even a Bradford. That tree-type (esp. Bradford) has an inherent branch defect that cause them to self-destruct after 20 or 30 years. Branches arise in tightly packed pairs or clusters, and so are poorly joined to the trunk in co-dominance. Two...

It sure looks like Phragmites to me too, which arrived here in western Atlantic County over the last decade. The foothold seems to be power-line right-of-ways where service roads are crossed. My hunch is that seeds might be hitch-hiking on maintenance equipment. Twenty years ago Phragmites...

Gotta have squash latkes (pancakes)! Levari's Farm Market still has large tobacco plants. Jimmie might even know the cultivar name. The old farmhouse (c. 1817) there is timber-framed, and once served as a charcoal station by the Abbotts. That stretch of US Route 40 was laid out in 1817, and the...

Here's eight weeks of progress on the sandpile: It’s been a pretty good year for cool-season crops. Broccoli Raab is finished, as are the first crops of lettuce, parsley, radish, choy sum, and cilantro. Pine voles got three romaine heads, and Blue (the duck) gobbled two butterheads before I...

Wow, those are tiny seedlings. Will Brightleaf or Burley make a serviceable ornamental? I remember seeing tobacco used as a large bedding plant at comfort centers Down South. Their piercingly sweet evening blooms were downright narcotic.

I have to put a good word in for Bagliani's Market in Hammonton. I was there last week and the place was well stocked, their quality exceptional, and the service staff great. Ciou!

R-F350, Tobacco was grown on a commercial scale here in the Roaring Twenties. During World War I, Walker (of Walkers Forge) partnered with Decker to form the 20,000-acre Waldeck (Walker-Decker) Farms Company between Richland, Milmay, and Buena. The intent was to grow a domestic source of...

Wildland, Cains, if memory serves, are associated with Ilifftown Plantation (c.1735) on Babcock Creek adjacent to Mays Landing. Cains first worked a mill above Mays Landing, and moved to Collings Lakes in search of new timber stands. The works that broach on the early Cain history are on loan...

OJG, If amended, sandy soils are some of the most productive soils in the world. The first thing to do is get a soil test kit at the local Cooperative Extension office for accurate lab results. Normally at this point I would rant and rave how great alfalfa meal is as a topdressing. However, the...

How does the garden grow? Winter was incredibly warm this year, and we were able to pretty much continuously harvest crops. We're about two weeks ahead of schedule here as far as planting goes. A. Collards (front) and Chinese mustard greens (specifically Serifon, back) are still providing...

There is a bit of confusion between three Hammonton-area places associated with the Chew family. The location you are thinking of, Chewtown, is not the twelve-hundred-acre Weymouth Tract Exception D (Gloucester County, in Book D.3, page 224, &c). Weymouth Farm and Agricultural Company, 1856...