Agricultural Developments
By the late 1870s, the colony's economic well-being was being supported by its primary industry, agriculture. Early harvests included such crops as oats, wheat, potatoes, buckwheat, and turnip. By the 1890s, dairy herds were a common site on the rolling New Denmark hills, and a cheese factory was established by Hans Peter Petersen early in that decade. Sometime after 1892, the factory was sold to the New Denmark Cheese and Butter Company, a corporation of Danish farmers. A second cheese factory, the Foley Brook Cheese and Butter Company, opened in 1903 and continued until 1918. About this time, potatoes became the main cash crop and were sold locally, as well as in the United States, the Caribbean, and elsewhere in Canada. Potato farming remains the primary commercial activity in the New Denmark area.