WELCOME TO THE GARDEN STATE!

Welcome to the Garden State! For centuries, New Jersey has been the “breadbasket” of the Eastern seaboard. Today, food and agriculture is the third largest industry in New Jersey and contributes greatly to the state and national economies.

On Jersey Day at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, Abraham Browning, a former State Attorney General and a farmer himself, called New Jersey the “Garden State,” comparing it to “an immense barrel, filled with good things to eat and open at both ends, with Pennsylvanians grabbing from one end and the New Yorkers from the other.” This is supposedly the first time New Jersey was ever called the Garden State, and the name endures to this day, placed on license plates in 1954.

Indeed, farm fields dominated the landscape of the Princeton area for centuries. A core aspect of Princeton’s historical identity hinges on the community’s rural past, a story of innovation, production and consumption, labor, and land. All entwine to impact our health, economy, and shared environment.