lO 



in agricultural produce^ — this tremendous advance in tlie 

 demand for human food in Essex County, with no con- 

 siderable extension of the farming area, and a great gain 

 in the facilities for reaching his buyer, — how have these 

 changes affected the Essex County farmer ? 



If population grows and centres at points within his easy 

 reach, but not too near, that helps him because it guaran- 

 tees him larger sales and a quickened activity of demand. 

 If population grows and centres at points too near him, 

 his patrimony becomes too valuable to farm — the assessors 

 are on his track with a larger tax-bill, — the land-operators 

 are after him with speculative offers, — land which he held 

 by the acre will be appraised by the foot, and he is con- 

 fronted with a choice between adopting new and advanced 

 methods of tillage or putting his farm up for sale in house- 

 lots. 



Modern facilities for getting about have revolutionized 

 Essex County farming ; whilst they have enlarged the 

 farmers' market, they have vastly enlarged the area from 

 whicli we draw supplies, and thus exposed him to a wider 

 competition. Products which were staple crops in 1820 

 cannot now be raised here, because cheap transportation, 

 first making possible the miraculous development of the 

 great northwest, and then bringing its crops to our ver}" 

 threshold, have enabled other sections to lay these staples 

 down in our markets cheaper than we can raise them. The 

 fai'mer who would make his ends meet, — who would leave 

 his ancestral birth-place to his boys, and encourage them to 

 stay at home and till it, — must buy largely of what he 

 consumes, and raise onl}- that which his neighbors will buy 

 of him to his advantage. The old Essex County idea that a 

 farm was a tract of arable land on which to bring up a 

 family, who were to inherit it and improve it as such, and 

 who would be supported, in the main, by its varied pro- 

 ducts consumed on the spot, is becoming as extinct as the 



