14 MASSACHUSETTS AGRICULTURE. 



DECLINE OF NEW ENGLAND AGRICULTURE. 



From an Address before the Worcester Xorth Agricultural Society. 



BY ALVAH CROCKER. 



Why are we cultivating less and less land every year ? Why 

 such decadence and decline in keeping up farms ? Why in this 

 district do we find such quantities of land going to waste ; with 

 the very stone walls, which formerly enclosed mowing lands and 

 pasturage, obscured by scrub oak and alders ? Why are wer 

 compelled to gaze upon so many dilapidated or deserted dwell- 

 ing-houses or tumbling cellar walls, where once was the happy 

 abode of some independent yeoman ? 



The same inquiry is pertinent to all New England. Vermont, 

 for instance, wliosc mountains are verdant to their very crests, 

 and whose valleys are bounded by some of the loveliest rivers 

 and lakes on the globe, — for where can you find anything su- 

 perior to the river bottoms of the Connecticut, Passumpsic and 

 Otter rivers, or Lake Champlain, — yet Vermont, perhaps the gem 

 of all New England States, has lost farming population the last 

 decade. And this, though the soil, for all purposes of the farm, 

 excels that of Great Britain and Belgium, less of course their 

 scientific culture and manures. 



With our agricultural colleges and societies all around ; with 

 rewards or premiums offered for the best farms and crops, do 

 the people get an adequate return for the money expended for 

 these objects ? 



Take, if you please, our own Worcester North District. I 

 admit the full benefit of our social meetings, but I am talking 

 about the farm. We owe much to such men as Lyman Nichols, 

 Dr. J. Fisher of Fitchburg, Augustus Whitman, E. T. Miles 

 and Solon Carter of Leominister, and men like them in enter- 



