THE COMING FAEMER. 51 



faithful Brookline, which still holds fast to her old county 

 frieuds ; for a multitude of people, whose business confined 

 them from morning till night in the city, found it both pleasant 

 and economical to have homes in the country. They worked 

 all day in the noise of Boston streets, but they were glad at 

 night to seek the quiet of the neighboring villages. They over- 

 ran all the region round about. Beyond our county they spread 

 over Brighton, Cambridge, Charlestown, and indeed a great 

 part of this ten-mile metropolitan circuit. From about 

 200,000, in 1850, the population of Boston and these places 

 has swelled, in 1870, to more than 400,000 souls, and is 

 still growing faster than ever. An inevitable consequence of 

 this rapid influx of people was an enormous demand for home- 

 steads. The prices of convenient house-lots rose with a rush. 

 Suburban farms, which in 1850 were dear at one hun- 

 dred dollars an acre, in 1870 were cheap at a thousand. The 

 fortunes of the lucky farmers were made, — provided they 

 ceased to form. Their ancient means of livelihood had be- 

 come an expensive amusement. Their crops did not pay the 

 taxes, and the more produce a man raised the poorer he 

 became. 



So, too, wherever a channel was opened for the easy flow 

 of this flood of surplus citizens to more remote and less ex- 

 pensive seats, the same process was repeated, and the same 

 phenomena were seen. Instances are familiar to all of you, 

 and are manifest in most of the towns around us. Look, for 

 instance, at Hyde Park, yonder ; why, when I was a young 

 man, which I assure you was but a very few years ago, and 

 first began to drive over the road to court at Dedham, all that 

 territory was a wide stretch of pleasant farming land, sup- 

 porting a good many old apple-trees, and affording pasture to 

 some cows and horses for a few excellent people. Now I 

 drive through a smart little city, which seems to me to double 

 its people once a year at least ; but the cows are gone. And 

 as to our old associate, Dorchester, since her annexation, a 

 careful observation would seem to indicate that the crop which 

 flourishes best upon her city soil is a post holding a board, 

 upon which is inscribed, "This land for sale in house-lots; 

 apply to John Brown, State Street." But I surely need not 

 dwell upon a fact so patent, as that it has generally proved 



