398 BOAED OF AGEICULTURE. 



great summer resort, first by the Methodists, and later by 

 comfort and pleasure seeking people, who, attracted by the 

 fine air, delicious breezes, and the grand ocean scenery, have 

 made permanent residences there, mostly in the shape of 

 "cottages," from the small box of twelve feet by twenty- 

 two, to the large, ornate, pagoda-like structures of many 

 wealthy proprietors. 



The ' ' cottag-es " of all kinds now number about twelve 

 hundred, and in the height of the summer season, when the 

 camp-meeting is being held, and the hotels and cottages 

 are filled, it is said that there are not less than twenty 

 thousand people on the island. 



In 1835 the first modest beginning of a Methodist camp- 

 meeting here was made at " Wesleyan Grove/' in the town 

 of Edgartown, on high land about five miles north of the 

 village, in a beautiful oak grove. Nine tents were pitched, 

 and some eight hundred people attended the services. The 

 beauty, the seclusion, the wholesomeness of the location, 

 with perhaps a touch of sentimentality, finally decided the 

 people of that persuasion in the south-eastern part of the 

 State, in 1868, to take an act of incorporation, with author- 

 ity to hold land and other property, and to make rules and 

 by-laws for their government and protection. 



Such has been the marvellous growth of this place, set off 

 from Edgartown, and incorporated as "Cottage City" in 

 1880, that now one thousand cottages of all kinds are spread 

 over the ground in which twenty thousand worshippers sup- 

 plant the place of the few hundreds and the nine tents of 

 fifty years ago. 



While these consumers, with not one item of production 

 among them, not so much as a head of lettuce or of that 

 most insignificant of vegetables, a single radish, are to be 

 fed, many of them for three months or more, one would sup- 

 pose that market-gardening would have become quite exten- 

 sive, and that the business of supplying all these people with 

 the common spring and summer vegetables and berries would 

 form a very important item in the Vineyard resources ; but 

 I was told that most of the articles of this sort were brought 

 from Boston and New York by way of New Bedford, as well 

 as most of the meats. 



