PHASES OF FARM LIFE. 257 



as in other States, is always given by some local in- ^ 

 dustry of one kind or another. In many of the high 

 cold counties in the eastern centre of the State, this 

 ruling industry is hop-growing ; in the western it is 

 grain and fruit-growing ; in sections along the Hud- 

 son, it is small -fruit growing, as berries, currants, 

 grapes; in other counties it is milk and butter; in 

 others quarrying flagging-stone. I recently visited a 

 section of Ulster County, where everybody seemed get- ^ 

 ting out hoop-poles and making hoops. The only talk \ 

 was of hoops, hoops ! Every team that went by had a^> 

 load or was going for a load of hoops. The principal-;, 

 fuel was hoop-shavings or discarded hoop-poles. No 

 man had any money until he sold his hoops. When 

 a farmer went to town to get some grains, or a pair 

 of boots, or a dress for his wife, he took a load of 

 hoops. People stole hoops and poached for hoops, 

 and bought, and sold, and speculated in hoops. If 

 there was a corner it was in hoops ; big hoops, little 

 hoops, hoops for kegs, and firkins, and barrels, and 

 hogsheads, and pipes; hickory hoops, birch hoops, 

 ash hoops, chestnut hoops, hoops enough to go around 

 the world. Another place it was shingle, shingle ; 

 everybody was shaving hemlock shingle. 



In most of the eastern counties of the State the in- 

 terest and profit of the farm revolve about the cow. 

 The dairy is the one great matter, for milk, when 

 milk can be shipped to the New York market, and for 

 butter when it cannot. Great barns and stables and 

 milking-sheds, and immense meadows and cattle on a 



