112 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



of wealth and power, their social attractions, their activities 

 and their excitements, allure the fancies of the young and 

 they become wearied with the quiet and retired life of the 

 country home. Their ambitions are enkindled. They long 

 to mingle in the busy tiirong, and to take their chances at 

 ■winning the great prizes which excite their boyish dreams. 

 The deserted homesteads passed in journeying over our 

 country roads tell the story of the depopulating effects of 

 these aspirations and desires. Standing silent and tenant- 

 less, with its doors closed and its windows boarded up or 

 broken in, its shingles and clapboards dropping otf, its front 

 yard tilled with grass and weeds, no smoke curling up from 

 its chimney, no light or warmth within, — one of these de- 

 serted homesteads forms a suggestive and at the same time a 

 pathetic spectacle. It tills the mind of the passer-by with 

 dreamy fancies as to the persons who may have occupied it 

 and the scenes of which it has been the theatre in the past. 

 He pictures in his imagination the young couple who there 

 may have begun their married life, the joy and love which 

 centered about their early home, the children who enlivened 

 it with the music of their merry voices, the joyous festivals, 

 the paring bees, the huskings, the quiltings, and other like 

 ffatherino;s, when neiirhbors came to render their friendly 

 services and to have a good time ; the Thanksgiving dinners, 

 with their heavily-laden tables, when the meml)ers of the 

 family, after separation, were united again ; the bright wed- 

 ding days, when relatives and friends came to bring their 

 irifts and their oreetini;s to bride and brideiiroom ; and those 

 darker days, when the family circle was broken, and the 

 house was filled again with friends and neighbors tendering 

 their sympathy and condolence to those who mourned. 

 The old home is now forsaken. Its charms, its joys, its 

 sorrows, have all departed. Its original occupants are in 

 their graves in the little village church-yard, and their chil- 

 dren have gone to seek their fortunes elsewhere. 



These scenes are far too common in the rural districts of 

 Massachusetts, New Hampshire and the other New England 

 States. These districts are being drained of their popula- 

 tion to swell the current of city life. As a great river, 

 whose water power has built up the cities which line its 



