Rural Economy in New England 263 



convenient on the grazing and grass farms, where parts of almost 

 every day, and a great part of the year, can be spared from the 

 business of the farm, and employed in some mechanical, handycraft, 

 or manufacturing business. These persons often make domestic 

 and farming carriages, implements, and utensils, build houses, tan 

 leather, and manufacture hats, shoes, hosiery, cabinet-work, and 

 other articles of clothing and furniture, to the great convenience 

 and advantage of the neighbourhood. In like manner some of the 

 farmers, at leisure times and proper seasons, manufacture nails, 

 pot-ash, pearl-ash, staves and heading, hoops and handspikes, axe- 

 handles, maple-sugar, &c."^ 



Further testimony on this point is given by Brissot de Warville,^ 

 who says of the region of Worcester County, Mass.: "Almost all 

 these houses are inhabited by men who are both cultivators and arti- 

 zans; one is a tanner, another a shoemaker, another sells goods; 

 but all are farmers." If we seek for confirmatory evidence from 

 the size of farms or the amount of land held by these artisans, a 

 serious difficulty arises. They naturally tended to congregate in 

 the small village settlements, where customers would have ready 

 access to them. The gazetteers often speak of the "mechanics' shops" 

 in their descriptions of these villages.^ These shops were located 

 in or near the dwellings on the "home lots." Consequently, when 

 we find advertisements of such shops for sale with amounts of land 

 varying from one to ten acres,* we are not justified in concluding 

 that these men could not be farmers; for, as we have seen, large 

 outlying fields were as a rule held by all village dwellers, and the 

 home lots held by the artizans correspond in extent with those held 

 by men who were purely and simply farmers. 



When we consider the numbers of the craftsmen in the various 

 trades both separately and as a body, in proportion to the popula- 

 tion of towns in which they worked, our conclusion of their partial 

 dependence on agriculture is still further strengthened. Fortunately 

 we have complete lists of the artisans in two typical rural towns in 

 Litchfield County, Conn., one (Cornwall) of 1600 population and 

 the other (Washington) having 1575. They are as follows: 



' In his View of the United States, pp. 442-443. 



2 Travels, I. 127. 



' Pease and Niles, Gazetteer, pp. 183-184. Art. New Fairfield, Conn. 



* Such advertisements are to be found in the Massachusetts Spy, Feb. 28, Oct. 

 14, and 19, 1807; National Aegis, Oct. 26, 1807. Also in the Windham Herald and 

 other newspapers published in small inland towns. Occasionally instances of 

 farms of 50-70 acres with shops are found. 



