352 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan. 



provements made by public enterprise. Taxation increased 

 and bore heavily upon the land-owners. By the wonderful 

 development of the resources of the country, and the rapid 

 increase of new industries, the price of farm labor was ad- 

 vanced faster than the price of farm products was increased, 

 and the New England farmer was surprised to find that he 

 had become " land-poor." Just prior to the middle of the 

 present century a reaction conmienced, and many were found 

 heartily responding to the sentiment, "Ten acres enough." 

 It was thought that a small ftirm, well tilled, would prove 

 the paradise of the husbandman. The day-dream of the 

 laborer of every trade seems to have been of a little home in 

 the quiet country, with a few fertile acres to be tilled by his 

 own hands. Many stories were told of fabulous profits 

 realized from single acres devoted to special crops, far ex- 

 ceeding the income from farms containing many broad acres. 

 Science was demonstrating the possibilities of an extensive 

 system of farming. The benefits of such a system were, 

 however, necessarily confined to lands adjacent to the cities 

 and larger towns, while the homesteads that dotted the 

 mountain sides, as well as those down by the sea, were truly 

 left " out in the cold." Many could not realize these changes, 

 so gradual, yet so sure. They did not try to adapt them- 

 selves to them. Numbers of New England farmers wore 

 themselves out struggling in this contest with the inevitable. 

 So here, as in many another instance, it has been only 

 through the agony of death itself that the new ideas and 

 systems have been able to supplant the old. As time has 

 passed, many of these old homesteads have been leftuntilled 

 and some are quite deserted. The lilac, the lily, or the 

 garden rose may yet mark the spot where once centered the 

 hopes and affections of a happy famil}'- ; where comfort, 

 peace, and hallowed associations once clustered around a 

 home. And yet this was one of a neighborhood whose 

 people were all like the Arcadian farmers, — 



" The richest were poor, 

 And the poorest lived in an abundance." 



But a new era has dawned ; other rapid and mighty changes 

 are in progress. The last quarter century has witnessed a 



