II 



•dodo or the ichthyosaurus, — as strange and out of date as 

 the okl colonial farmhouse, with its lean-to slanting north- 

 ward, and its roof-tree of hand-hewn rafters, garnished 

 with pumpkins and crook-necks and bunches of braided 

 onions and golden seed-corn and sweet-marjoram and pen- 

 nyroyal, dry and savory, with here and there a home-cured 

 ham, or a woodchuck's skin, or a dip of tallow candles, or 

 some turkeys' wings to dust out the brick oven, hung up 

 against the massive chimney-stack, — and with its ancient 

 well-sweep outside, weighted at the end with a generous 

 boulder of our native granite, — and over all in leafy majesty 

 the grand old elm, like a protecting providence, spread- 

 ing its sheltering arms against the vaulted azure of the 

 heavens. 



If his farm is within easy reach of some growing city he 

 soon finds himself ranked amongst suburbans, and his 

 property assessed accordingly. Summer sojourners come 

 out to help consume his surplus and advance his prices. 

 His milk and eggs and butter and poultry and kitchen- 

 gardening and orchard products, so far as he does not serve 

 them at his own board, — his hay and root crops and cab- 

 bages and squashes, will be consumed by boarders or sent to 

 market in the neighboring centre. He will buy his meats 

 where he buys his flour. The dust of our county highways 

 no longer rises to the droves that used to stir it on their 

 way to slaughter. No longer is it possible to raise beef 

 and mutton in Essex County. Meats that once came 

 to our shambles on the hoof, now come in sides and quarters, 

 or in cans or extracts. We cannot compete with sections 

 of the country within easy railroad reach where it is said 

 they have corn to burn for fuel, and feed good wheat to fat 

 cattle because it pays better to move it on the hoof than 

 through the elevator, — and where our genial friend, the 

 hog, dropped, it is said, into a hopper, — the parting smile 

 still lingering, on his lips, — may find himself writhing in 



