RURAL DEPOPULATION. 289 



dred days' work in some village or city save thrice 

 as many days' work on his farm. This enhances his 

 profits, but swells our urban, while it diminishes our 

 rural population. 



IV. Much has been said of the degeneracy and 

 increasing sterility of the New England Puritan 

 stock. All this is shallow and absurd. There never 

 before were so many people who proudly traced their 

 origin to a New England ancestry as now. What is 

 true in the premises is this : The New England stock 

 is becoming very widely diffused, and is giving 

 place, to a considerable extent, to other elements in 

 its original home. Forty years ago, at least seven- 

 eighths of the inhabitants of Boston were of New 

 England birth and lineage ; now, hardly half are so. 

 The descendants of the Pilgrims are scattered all 

 over our wide country ; while hundreds of thousands 

 have flowed in from Ireland, from Germany, from 

 Canada, to fill the places thus relinquished ; and, 

 since most of the immigrants, whether into or out of 

 New England, seek their future homes in the spring- 

 time of life, their children are mainly born to them 

 after rather than before their migration. The Yan- 

 kees have no fewer children than formerly ; but they 

 are now born in Minnesota, in Illinois, in Kansas ; 

 while those born in New England are, for identical 

 reasons, in large proportion of Irish or of Canadian 

 parentage. There are New England townships, 

 whereof most of the heads of families are long past 

 the prime of life ; their children having left them 

 13 



