AGEICULTURE ON CLIMATE. 



185 



to exhaust the soil much more rapidly than would otherwise 

 be possible, but also to make the exhaustion more complete, 

 as by their help the cultivator can get remunerative returns 

 from a soil so much exhausted as not to pay any profit if 

 cultivated !>y the old method of hard labor alone. 



In the progress of our modern civilization the tendency 

 to city life is all the time increasing. The increase of 

 wealth, luxury, education, fashion, amusements, manufac- 

 tures, art and science makes the agricultural products con- 

 sumed continually to bear a less and less proportion to the 

 total expense of living; while the farm machinery, before 

 referred to as making the exhaustion of the soil more com- 

 plete, will also make, as it has already made, the proportion 

 of our inhabitants engaged in agriculture continually less, 

 because fewer laborers therein will be required to produce a 

 given amount of food. 



According to the census of 1870, of the persons engaged 

 in all classes of occupation, forty-seven and one-third per 

 cent were engaged in agriculture ; in 1880, forty-three per 

 cent were so engaged, — a relative loss of four and one-third 

 per cent in ten years. It has been estimated that the 

 eifective force of a farm laborer has been increased five per 

 cent in twenty years. 



From the census of Massachusetts in 1855, 1865, 1875 and 

 1885 we find the following as the population of the cities 

 and towns respectively at those several periods : — 



Towns, . . . 

 Cities, . . . 

 Per cent in cities, 



714,521 



417,818 

 .37 



726,950 



640,081 



.43 



754,666 



897,246 



.54 



757,372 

 1,184,769 

 .61 



While the increase in the cities during the last ten years 

 has been, as you see, large, one hundred and forty-eight 

 agricultural towns have lost in population, — among them 

 more than half the towns in this (Worcester) county, and 

 this town (Barre) has lost nearly thirty per cent in twenty- 

 live years, 



