Rural Economy in New England 351 



attention should be concentrated on the causal factor, the cheap- 

 ness of land. The high price of labor may have affected the calcula- 

 tions and management of the farmers in the few favored regions, 

 such as the towns in the neighborhood of Boston, but it is difficult 

 to see how this condition could have had any significance for the 

 farmers in inland towns. To farmers who never hired any labor, 

 what difference could it make whether the price of labor was high 

 or low? For the ordinary operations of farm life, directed only 

 to supply a single family with the necessaries of life, the labor 

 force of that family was sufficient. To spend any amount, how- 

 ever small, in hiring labor to raise a surplus of crops or live stock 

 for which no market could be found would have been economic folly. 

 The cheapness of land, on the other hand, was a matter of vital 

 importance. In a new country where land is cheap we naturally 

 expect to find an extensive system of agriculture. When, however, 

 a country, or a section of it, becomes fully settled, as New England 

 was in 1810, an increase in population demands an increase in the 

 supply of foodstuffs. Under an extensive or a predatory system 

 of cultivation, a stage of diminishing returns is soon reached at which 

 this increased supply can be obtained only at a more than proportional 

 expense of labor and capital. Two courses are then open to the 

 farmers. Either they must send the surplus of their population 

 to new lands in another section of the country, or, if such lands are 

 unavailable, they must if possible amend their methods, introduce 

 improvements and so postpone the stage of diminishing returns. 

 At any rate, an increased product must be forthcoming; either emi- 

 gration will ensue or a more intensive system of cultivation must 

 be adopted. Now it was the presence of large tracts of uncleared 

 land, of as great if not of greater fertility than that which the farmers 

 of inland towns were then cultivating, to be had almost for the ask- 

 ing, which persuaded them to choose the former of these alternatives. 



Emigration. 



Emigration began from the older towns before 1750, first to the 

 as yet unsettled counties in the northern and western sections of 

 Massachusetts, and after the Revolution to the states of northern 

 New England.^ Thus the annual surplus of population was drained 

 off and the remainder managed to get a living without introducing 

 new methods of agriculture. Tudor describes this process and its 



' For a fuller consideration of the amount and direction of emigration in this 

 period, see Appendix B, pp. 383 ff. 



