532 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



acres," and it is believed that the assumption an- 

 swers to the real facts of the case in ninety-nine 

 out of every hundred instances. 1 In the Middle 

 and Western States there are larger farms, and 

 there must be, I imagine, an occasional reproduc- 

 tion of our own idea of a farmer, as a man who 

 employs agricultural laborers but does none of the 

 rough work himself ; but in these cases, too, it is 

 necesssary to remember that the farmer is not a 

 tenant but a freeholder. 



This organization of agriculture, so remark- 

 able to an Englishman, raises many economical 

 and social questions. I was especially anxious to 

 learn its effects on the intellectual and moral life 

 of the farming population. What kind of men 

 are these New England farmers ? That they have 

 advantages which raise them to a condition far 

 above that of our own agricultural laborers might 

 be assumed without much inquiry ; but are they, 

 as a class, inferior to those tenant-farmers of Eng- 

 land who have land enough and capital enough to 

 release them from the necessity of working in the 

 fields ? What kind of women are their wives 

 and daughters ? Are the men made coarse and 

 dull by the severity of their physical labor ? Do 

 the women suffer any injury from constant asso- 

 ciation with men engaged in rough, out-door la- 

 bor, and from the necessity of doing their own 

 housework ? 



I was driving one afternoon, in the neighbor- 

 hood of New Haven, with a gentleman who lived 

 among New England farmers for many years, and 

 I told him that I should like to see the inside of 

 one of the pleasant-looking farmhouses which 

 we were continually passing. He said, " By all 

 means," and, at the next farmhouse, he pulled up. 

 up. I asked him whether he knew the people 

 who lived there. " No." My friend's daughter, 

 a young lady who has also seen a great deal of 

 country-life in New England, went and asked 

 whether two English gentlemen might see the 

 house, and in a few moments she came to us and 

 said that we might go in. The farm belonged to 

 a widow. She met us at the door, and received 

 us with a quiet dignity and grace, which would 

 have done no discredit to the lady of an English 

 squire owning an estate worth four or five thou- 

 sand a year. Her English was excellent — the 

 English of a refined and educated woman. Her 

 bearing and manners had an ease and quietness 

 which were charming. The bouse had three good 

 sitting-rooms, well furnished. Books and maga- 

 zines were lying about; and there was a small 



1 "Compendium of the Ninth Census," pp. 692, 936, 

 notes. 



but pretty greenhouse. I went into one bedroom 

 and saw that it was extremely neat, and that the 

 linen looked as white as the driven snow. I 

 found that the farm was an unusually large one, 

 being about 200 acres. How much of it was 

 under actual cultivation and how much was " un- 

 improved," it did not occur to me to ask. The 

 farm-work was done by the lady's two sons, and 

 either two or three " hired men " who lived in 

 the house. There was another " hired man " who 

 did " chores " — cut the wood, lit the fires, at- 

 tended to the garden, cleaned the boots, went on 

 errands, and relieved the solitary "girl" of the 

 rougher part of the house-work ; when the hay 

 had to be got or the wheat cut, I dare say he was 

 employed on the farm. The house gave me the 

 impression that the people who lived in it must 

 be surrounded by all the comforts and many of 

 the luxuries and refinements of life. The lady, 

 whom I have already described, was the only 

 member of the family that I was fortunate enough 

 to see. 



When we had got back into the carriage, I 

 charged my friend roundly with having played 

 me false. I told him that I felt sure that the 

 house was not a fair specimen of its kind, and 

 that the lady I had seen must be very unlike 

 most of the ladies of the same class ; that he 

 must have selected the farm in order to give me 

 a favorable impression. However, he assured 

 me that it was not so. Then I appealed to the 

 young lady who had gone into the house with my 

 traveling companion and myself. She said that 

 the house was certainly rather better than the 

 average farmhouse, but that there were very 

 many others quite as good ; and that the lady 

 was rather superior, both in education and in 

 refinement of manners, to the average farmer's 

 wife, but that she knew very many ladies living 

 in farmhouses who were quite her equals. The 

 suspicion of my friend's good faith had to be dis- 

 missed, and though I was unfortunate in happen- 

 ing to hit upon what was admitted to be an ex- 

 ceptionally favorable illustration of farm-life in 

 New England, what I had seen made it easier for 

 me to understand and to believe those of my 

 friends who were never so eloquent as when they 

 were celebrating the virtue, the intelligence, and 

 the comfort that exist in the rural districts of 

 Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Ver- 

 mont, New Hampshire, and Maine. 



They reminded me that it was in the farm- 

 houses of the New England States that a large 

 number of the most eminent Americans — states- 

 men, theologians, orators, men of science — had 



