THE DECLINE OF RURAL NEW ENGLAND. 387 



ployments may be no financial loss to the nation, bnt it robs New 

 England of a hardy yeomanry, with whom the love of natal soil 

 and home and simple life has been almost a religion. 



3. Not only is the area of cultivated land decreasing in this 

 way, but the land-owners are sensibly narrowing their tillage. 

 The land is growing poorer, partly from natural causes and partly 

 from less careful working and the marked decrease in the amount 

 of live stock kept upon it. The fact is, farming does not pay, 

 especially if help must be hired to do a large part of the work. 



The farmer finds himself the victim of all the evils of a pro- 

 tective tariff without its supposed benefits. The promised home 

 market he has found to his cost, if not his ruin, is a delusion and 

 a snare. If the manufacturing centers in his vicinity have raised 

 the price of some of his products, they have advanced the cost of 

 labor in a greater degree, and drawn to themselves the best brain 

 and muscle from the farms. He is being heavily taxed for the 

 benefit of the whole list of these assistant industries that rob him 

 of his working force, while the competition, intensified by labor- 

 saving machines suited to the large prairie farms of the "West and 

 stimulated by lavish gifts of land to settlers and subsidies to rail- 

 roads, ruinously reduces the prices of his products in his natural 

 home market. He buys Western flour and Western corn for his 

 own consumption at a cheaper rate than he can produce them 

 with hired labor, and by reason of the long winter is unable to 

 compete with the West and South in cattle-raising for the East- 

 ern markets at his door. Confining his attention to the few crops 

 that, from their bulk or perishable nature, are not subject to the 

 destructive competition of the West, the ordinary farmer merely 

 lives and pays current expenses, while his less shrewd and careful 

 neighbor falls behind each year, and sooner or later will be sold 

 out of house and home. 



Naturally, there is a decay of heart and hope that blights 

 growth and prosperity. Many farms within a hundred miles of 

 Boston and not five miles from excellent railroad facilities will not 

 sell for the cost of the improvements. The New Hampshire Com- 

 missioner of Agriculture gives a long list of farms with " fairly 

 comfortable buildings, at prices from two dollars to ten dollars 

 per acre," and a shorter list at higher prices. The Vermont Com- 

 missioner gives a list at from three dollars to five dollars per acre, 

 and nearer to railroad or village, with better buildings, five dollars 

 to ten dollars " all at no great distance from market and adapted 

 to doing business." I know of the sale of such a farm of fifty 

 acres, with fair buildings, well supplied with water and fuel, at 

 fifty-two dollars. What a paradise for the Henry George theo- 

 rists ! 



4. Outside of the large towns and business centers the popula- 



