IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA. 



531 



occupy all his own time, or he may get help from 

 his neighbors' boys when their fathers can spare 

 them. If he is obliged to engage laborers, they 

 are described as "hired men," and they live in 

 the house with their employer. In the census 

 for 1S70 i the total number of persons, over ten 

 years of age, engaged in agriculture, is given as 

 5,922,471. Of these, only 2,885,996, or consid- 

 erable less than half, are described as " agricult- 

 ural laborers ; " if we add " dairymen and dairy- 

 women," 2 " farm and plantation overseers," and 

 "turpentine- laborers," we have a total of 2,895,- 

 272 persons employed in agriculture who are not 

 their own masters. The " farmers and planters " 

 number 2,977,711 — that is, the masters are more 

 numerous by 80,000 than the men. Add to 

 these, " apiarists," " florists," " gardeners and 

 nurserymen," " stock - drovers," " stock - breed- 

 ers," " stock-raisers," " turpentine-farmers," and 

 " vine-growers," and we have a total of 3,027,- 

 099 ; and even if some of these should be in- 

 cluded in the class of " hired men," the error is 

 vary slight, for the whole of these minor classes 

 together, number only 49,388, and we still arrive 

 at the result that in the United States the men 

 that employ agricultural labor are more numer- 

 ous than the men they employ. 



Of course, this implies that the farms are 

 small. In Connecticut the average size of a 

 farm in 1850 was 106 acres, and of this acreage 

 there was a percentage of 25.8 — more than a 

 fourth — consisting of "unimproved" land; in 

 1860 the average size of a farm was 99 acres, 

 with 26.9 per cent of "unimproved" land; in 

 1870, 93 acres, with 30.4 per cent. — nearly a 

 third — of the land " unimproved." In Maine, in 

 1850, the average size of a farm was 97 acres ; in 

 1860, 103 acres ; in 1870, 98 acres ; and the pro- 

 portion of "unimproved" land at these periods 

 was 55.2, 52.8, and 50 per cent, of the whole. 

 In Massachusetts the farms averaged 99 acres in 

 1850, 94 acres in 1860, and 103 acres in 1870; 

 of this acreage in the same years 36.1, 35.4, and 

 36.4 per cent, were " unimproved." For the 

 whole of the States the average size of a farm 

 was 203 acres in 1850, 199 acres in 1860, and 

 153 acres in 1870; the "unimproved" land in- 

 cluded in this acreage was 61.5 per cent, in 1850, 

 59.9 per cent, in 1860, and 53.7 per cent, in 1870. 3 



'"Compendium,' 1 table Ixv., "Occupations," pp. 

 604, 605. 



2 It is doubtful whether all the " dairymen and 

 dairywomen '* should be included in the class employed 

 by others. 



3 " Farms . . . include all considerable nurseries, 

 orchards, and market-gardens, which are owned by 



It follows, therefore, that the average amount of 

 land which each " farmer " was actually cultivat- 

 ing amounted in 1S50 to about 77 acres, in 1860 

 to about 80 acres, and in 1870 to about 70 acres. 



If " considerable nurseries, orchards, and mar- 

 ket-gardens " had not been enumerated as farms, 

 the average holdings of those who are properly 

 described as " farmers " would have been slightly 

 increased; but an examination of the tables will 

 show that the difference would probably have 

 amounted to not more than an acre. 



In New England the person whom we describe 

 as the " gentleman-farmer " is, therefore, almost 

 as unknown as the " tenant-farmer." The same 

 man is landlord, farmer, and laborer. He owns 

 the soil, and he cultivates it with his own hands 

 — cuts the drains, loads the manure, holds the 

 plough, sows the seed, works in the harvest-field, 

 and does the thrashing. Even if he employs 

 "hired" labor, he shares the work with the 

 " hired men." In the Southern States, where the 

 plantations are worked by the colored people, the 

 economical condition of the country is, of course, 

 very different. Even there the small farm system 

 is being rapidly introduced. It was difficult, 

 however, at the last census, to obtain exact re- 

 turns from the Southern States " in consequence 

 of the wholly anomalous condition of agriculture 

 at the South. The plantations of the old slave 

 States are squatted all over by the former slaves, 

 who hold small portions of the soil — often very 

 loosely determined as to extent — under almost 

 all varieties of tenure." The holdings of these 

 squatters have been treated in the census as 

 farms " of more than three and less than ten 



separate parties, which are cultivated for pecuniary 

 profit, and employ as much as the labor of one able- 

 bodied workman during the year. Mere cabbage and 

 potato patches, family vegetable-gardens, and orna- 

 mental lawns, not constituting a portion of a farm for 

 general agricultural purposes, will be excluded. No 

 farm will be reported of less than three acres, unless 

 five hundred dollars' worth of produce has actually 

 been sold off from it dnring the year. The latter pro- 

 viso will allow the inclusion of many market-gardens 

 in the neighborhood of large cities, where, although 

 the area is 6mall, a high state of cultivation is main- 

 tained, and considerable values are produced. A farm 

 is what is owned or leased by one man and cultivated 

 under his care. A distant wood-lot or sheep-pasture, 

 even if in another subdivision, is to be treated as part 

 of the farm ; but, wherever there is a resident overseer 

 or a manager, there a farm is to be reported. By 

 " improved land " is meant cleared land used for graz- 

 ing, grass, or tillage, or lying fallow. Irreclaimable 

 marshes, and considerable bodies of water, will be 

 excluded in giving the area of a farm, improved and 

 unimproved."— Compendium of the Ninth Census of the 

 United States, pp. 688, 689, notes. 



