Rural Economy in New England 291 



Summary — Relation of the Maritime Industries to Agriculture. 



In concluding this survey of the peculiar economic characteristics 

 of life in the coast and river towns, let us return to the inquiries 

 propounded at the beginning of this chapter. We have endeavored 

 to answer these questions specifically in the detailed consideration 

 of the various groups of towns. In general these answers lead us to 

 the conclusion that the maritime industries were not, at the begin- 

 ning of the nineteenth century, sharply differentiated from agricul- 

 ture. As Tudor pointed out, the coast population were economically 

 a race of amphibians.^ They got their living both from the sea and 

 from the land; the proportion of their income which was derived 

 from either element depending partly on the fertility of the soil in 

 their particular locality and partly on the advantages of their situa- 

 tion for fishing and trading. Where the soil was sterile and sandy, as 

 on the eastern end of Cape Cod and on Nantucket, there we found 

 almost the entire support of the inhabitants obtained from maritime 

 industries; but in almost all the other towns on the coast and rivers, 

 agriculture was still the fundamental industry, as it was inland, 

 and fishing and trading were auxiliary occupations. As accessory 

 sources of income for farmers, the maritime industries were comparable 

 to the occasional small manufactures carried on in inland towns; 

 in neither case was large scale enterprise to be found, nor the sharp 

 separation of these employments from agriculture. 



Only in a few seaport towns did we find a strictly non-agricultural 

 population, deriving their incomes from trading and fishing and 

 purchasing therewith the products of inland farmers. Such towns 

 were found along the north shore of Massachusetts Bay, on Cape 

 Cod and the island of Nantucket, along the coast of Long Island 

 Sound, and in the valley of the Connecticut River. How important 



were considerably different. Here the population was only 3,300 on 42 square 

 miles. The land was more fertile than that of Nantucket, and although a few 

 whale ships were sent out each year from Edgarton, the principal port, the ma- 

 jority of inhabitants were supported by agriculture. The export of a commer- 

 cial product, the wool shorn from their large flocks of sheep, was the chief point 

 of difference between the farm life in these towns and those on the mainland. 

 See Morse, Gazetteer, 1810. Arts. Martha's Vineyard and Edgarton. 



^ "Most of the people near the sea coast of the latter have been sailors for a 

 time and occasionally go on some short voyage, if they find they can earn a few 

 more dollars than by staying at home. There are manj^ villages, where a popu- 

 lation of farmers would be found to be good sailors in a moment if the occasion 

 required it." Tudor, William. Letters on the Eastern States. 2 ed. Boston. 

 1821. p. 118, note. 



