FAKMS. ABANDONED. 



275 



and grievances in the business conditions or in 

 legislations, hunt them out and specify them, hold 

 them up to public judgment, and have faith in 

 your fellow-man. For I say to you that the great 

 'body of the people, an overwhelming majority, are 

 in favor always of justice and fairness, and if ^y<>u 

 make that appeal to them they will respond. They 

 only want to K j informed. They want to have you 

 :'y. If you are going to have a fight, have 

 something to' hit and hit it hard. Men will ap- 

 plaud the blow that you deliver. 



" I have rejoiced in all that has tended to make 

 agriculture easier, to give leisure for thought and 

 reading, for the cultivation of the intellect. I re- 

 that the schoolhouse and the little church are 

 found in every country neighborhood: I rejoice in 

 the belief tha't our people are patriotic, and that 

 never before in the history of our country was there 

 a deeper and more universal love of the starry ban- 

 ner and the Constitution for which it stands." 



After a discussion of the resolution asking for 

 the extension of free mail delivery in rural dis- 

 tricts, the amendment of antitrust laws, the con- 

 struction of ship canals from the Great Lakes to 

 the seaboard, and various measure? affecting agri- 

 cultural products, the congress adjourned. 



FARMS, ABANDONED. The problem involved 

 in the abandonment of farms a process that has 

 steadily gone on in the Northeastern States for the 

 past quarter of a century is a curious one. and is 

 closely related to our general social and economic 

 interests. This movement has not been confined to 

 the rural districts of mountainous New England, 

 though its effects have been more patent there, but, 

 it is claimed, is also observable in New York, in 

 New Jersey, and even in Ohio. It is not probable, 

 however, that in the last-named States the tendency 

 has become so marked as to modify the sum total of 

 social interests in any material degree. This, how- 

 ever, can not be said of New England, and the 

 danger is that causes which have operated there, 

 added to other local agencies, may, unless neu- 

 tralized by other influences, work further mischief 

 like a contagion. It is asserted by statisticians that 

 the tendency to desert the country for the city, to 

 ulate in futures," to quit agriculture for other 

 occupations, is also a recently noticeable fact in 

 England, France, and Germany, and it has bred 

 uneasiness in the minds of statesmen and thinkers. 

 One can. then, scarcely attribute the movement in- 

 volved in the abandonment of farms to that rest- 

 ss which has been specially attributed to the 

 American character. The latest exact information 

 bearing on this subject is derived from the figures 

 of the semi-decennial census report of Massacln 

 for the five years ending with 1895 the only State 

 that is both prompt and thorough in furnishing this 

 important record. Massachusetts, too. furnishes a 

 better test than any other State. If its great man- 

 ufacturing interests, generally distributed over all 

 the State, offer a ready diversion from the farm to 

 the workshop, the large local demand for food prod- 

 reating a bigger home market, tends to off- 

 iis drain on the agricultural classes by making 

 truck farming more profitable. If this farm aban- 

 donment proceeds persistently in any ratio, it is 

 safe to conclude that such ratio is considerably ex- 

 ceeded in the other New England State-;. 



On May 1. IMC,, the 2.500.183 people in M- 

 chusets were divided into 547. 3*5 families, giving 

 an average of 4'57 persons to each. Taking private 

 families alone that is. excluding the population of 

 hotels, public institutions, schools and colleges, and 

 camps of laborers the ratio was 4'4!i person-. 

 ago the families of farmers were large. The condi- 

 tions of country life favored fertility and the health- 

 fulness of children, as against city life. The same 



facts of vital statistics would inhere in Natir 

 day. other things beini: equal. But the fiirur. - 

 another story. In Nantuckct the family size is 3*07 ; 

 in Dukes County (Martha's Vineyard and vicinity). 

 3'25 : in Bamstable, 3*43. In these maritime iv_ 

 of course the soil is poor and sandy, yet fifty 

 ago the average was fully equal to that of tin 

 of the State. Of the 14 counties in the State. 7 fall 

 much below the average. Of the oth. 

 shows 4-4r> : Franklin, 4'17: Norfolk. 4'54 : and 

 Plymouth, 4'09. Suffolk County, which includes 

 Boston and several of its suburban feeders, has an 

 average of 4-79. The lowest ratio is found in Ed- 

 garton. Dokes County, 2*98, and Wei (fleet, Barnstable 

 County. 2*92. In some wards of the large cities the 

 average ranges between 6 and 7 to the family, and 

 in many cases it rises above 5. while in many small 

 towns the average is below 3. Such figures teach a 

 very plain lesson. They show the dwindling of 

 population in the rural districts, especially of the 

 young and sturdy, either in their desertion of the 

 State or their movement from country to city. As 

 a logical consequence, the number of persons neces- 

 sary to keep land in effective tillage having greatly 

 decreased, many of the less fertile farms or those 

 more remote from a city market have been aban- 

 doned. With this, perhaps, has gone a direct fall- 

 ing off of fecundity in the rural population, follow- 

 ing that law of supply and demand which is inevi- 

 table in every turn of existence whether of Nature 

 or society. 



While no very recent statistics are available as to 

 the status of other New England States as regards 

 the farming population, reports made a few years 

 ago to the Legislatures of Vermont and New 

 Hampshire bearing on the reapportionment of the 

 States into election districts are full of significance. 

 In many of the mountain townships (and these con- 

 stitute a large portion of Vermont territory) popu- 

 lation had so dwindled that in some cases there 

 were scarcely more than half a dozen voters, and 

 yet these had as much voting posver in the legisla- 

 tive body as cities of 50.000 people. The traveler 

 through such States as Vermont and New Hamp- 

 shire in particular finds deserted homesteads at 

 every turn, ruined and empty houses and their ram- 

 shackle barns, with open doors and windows look- 

 ing like eye holes in a skull, and wide stretches 

 of young forest, where once grew corn and potatoes. 

 The inexorable forest comes down and claims its 

 own as soon as the hand of man intermits his pa- 

 tient toil. The United States census statistics of 

 1880 and 1890. as showing the changes of ten years, 

 shed some light on the course of farm abandonment 

 in New England. These are given for 4 States 

 where the action is more noticeable : Maine had in 

 1880 64.309 farms, with an average of improved or 

 tillable land of 3.484.908 acres: in 1890, 62.013 

 homesteads, with average of 3.044.666 acres. New 

 Hampshire in 1880 counted 32.181 farms, and an 

 acreage of 2,308.112: in 1890, 29.151 farms of 

 1.727.187 acres. In Vermont, for 1880, we find 

 35.522 farms, and acreage 3.286,461: in 1890.32.- 

 573 farms, and 2.655.943 acreage. Massachusetts 

 showed in farms, of 2,128,311 acres; in 



1890 the .census record was 34.374 farms and 1.057.- 

 024 acres. The ratios of agricultural shrinkage in 

 New York. New Jersey, and Pennsylvania are so 

 slight, as shown in the two last national censuses, 

 that they are far less significant. It is New Eng- 

 land, especially mountain New England, that is 

 peculiarly the region of abandoned farms, where 

 the phenomenon assumes a startling vividness. 



So much has been written in newspapers and 

 periodicals on the subject of farm abandonment, 

 with special relation to its causes, that it is scarcely 

 needful to enter into that part of the subject, ex- 



