t 

 The Merits of oui: State. 535 



resources and capacities of the State would have a tendency 

 to check this excessive emigration from vvhicli we have suf- 

 fered so much. 



Though the last census shows a gain in the population of 

 the State of about 15,000, the gain was in the villages, 

 — mostly in the large villages,^uot upon the farms. From 

 a caretul examination of the census, computing the gains in the 

 large towns and villages, as Brattlehoro, Burlington, Rutland, 

 St. Albans, (fee, I have estimated an actual loss in the agricul- 

 tural districts. The last census, however, reports an increase 

 in the number engaged in agriculture, which seems to be at 

 variance with the more reliable tables of population, which 

 show a loss of inhabitants in a large number of towns where 

 agriculture is the only important interest. A more thor- 

 ough enumeration of occupations, at the census of 1870, 

 may account for this discrepanc3^ It may also be accounted 

 tor in part by the fact that there are a largely increased 

 number counted as farmers who have retired to the villages, 

 that are only nominally such ; and a diminished number of 

 minors, laboring at home upon the farms, that are not 

 counted in the census as having occupations. It is evident 

 that, including the owners of farms, we have fewer actual 

 farm laborers than we had twenty or thirty years ago. 



I have prepared a table from which may be seen the 

 extent of emigration from our State, and of immigration to it. 



Census of 1870. 



Population, in round numbers 330.000 



Natives of Vermont in all tlie States and 



Territories 421,000 



Natives of Vermont remaining in the State, 243,000 



