Middle Atlantic States: Delaware

In the eighteenth century agriculture was the dominant activity in Delaware, and grain was the main agricultural product. Corn and wheat were the primary crops then, but as the population grew and new agricultural lands were opened in the West, grain farming declined. Some new crops were introduced, but unlike in the other Mid-Atlantic states, most attempts at diversification of agriculture in Delaware were unsuccessful until the nineteenth century, when peaches became the money crop for the state. At that time Delaware became known as the Peach State. The peach-growing boom peaked in approximately 1870 and declined steadily after 1900. In the twentieth century, broiler chickens replaced peaches as the dominant agricultural product.