NEW ENGLAND AGRICULTURE 



401 



Number and Per Cent of Americans and Foreign Born, Males and Females, in 

 46 Representative Cotton Mills in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts 

 and Rhode Island. 2 



(After 100 years of Protection.) 



NOTE. Seven out of each hundred "workmen" are Americans. Two-thirds of 

 these "workmen" are women or girls. This illustrates how literally Hamilton's prophesy 

 was fulfilled. 



New England Agriculture. Early protection to manufacturing 

 gave this occupation a form of preferential treatment which enabled 

 it to draw the boys and girls from the farms. The " home market," 

 consisting of the numerous manufacturing towns which cover New 

 England, did not prove sufficient stimulus to keep agriculture 

 from sagging. A hundred years of this history, and manufacturing 

 had apparently reached its zenith, agriculture its nadir. New 

 England became famous throughout the country as the land of 

 "abandoned farms." 



A chance news item in the Rural New Yorker stated the matter 

 vividly in these words : 



" Farming conditions in New England are at a critical point. New England 

 imports 85 per cent of her food supplies for man and beast. She can and should 

 produce 85 per cent or more thereof. The seriousness of the situation is attested 

 by the recent formation of a league of manufacturers in Massachusetts to 

 promote agriculture in order that New England's industrial supremacy may 

 not be further endangered by enforced removal to centers of larger food pro- 

 duction and lower food costs. J. S. B." 3 



The Eastern States Agricultural and Industrial League (as the 

 league referred to above is termed) is backed by large capital, 

 and is now making a strenuous effort to rehabilitate agriculture in 

 New England. In a prospectus of theirs, describing the objects 

 of the new league, they present the following melancholy figures 

 showing the low estate of rural life in New England. 



2 Report on Condition of Women and Child Wage Earners in the United 

 States, 19 vols. 61 Cong. 2 Sess. Sen. Doc. 645, Vol. 1, p. 99. ' 



3 Rural New Yorker, March 29, 1919, p. 572, New York City. 



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