332 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



land farms. No wonder that there can be found on many a 

 hillside a grass-covered celhir, with perhaps a lilac or rose 

 bush near, to tell us that here was once a farmer's home. 



During the second quarter of this century the loss of pop- 

 ulation in farming districts was not great, as the manufact- 

 uring was done in small shops on the little streams, as has 

 been stated; but the centralizing tendency had begun, and 

 in this last half of the century the large corporations have 

 crowded out these little shops, until now there are only 

 traces of dams once utilized for carding, fulling, tanning and 

 various wood- working industries. 



I do not think farming as an occupation would have been 

 greatly injured by this drift toward the manufacturing 

 centres had it not been for the loss to rural society, not 

 alone of population, but of active, stirring life. This so 

 discouraged the farmer that he was too ready to belittle his 

 calling, and to teach his children that, if they expected to do 

 or be anything, they must go out into the world be3^ond. 

 "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here," was virtually 

 written over the door of many a farm-house, and from some 

 of them the sign has not yet been taken down. I am glad 

 to record here a belief that the discouraging tendency has 

 ceased. I think he must be blind who cannot see that there 

 has been a new impetus within the past few years. It is 

 shown in more productive fields, in better-kept stock, — I 

 am not sure but the stock has been kept too well, — in better 

 farm buildings, and above all else in the improvement of the 

 farmer himself. He is comini? to have more of that attribute 

 SO necessary in peace or war, — courage. He is becoming 

 — although he may not realize it — a scientific farmer. 



This is a sketch of the history of forming as an occupation, 

 and it may be well to devote the rest of this paper to its out- 

 look for the future. As in everything else, there are condi- 

 tions that tend to depress this occupation, and perhaps the 

 hardest of these which the farmer now has to meet is unequal 

 taxation. We have seen that in all ages this is fatal to agri- 

 cultural prosperity. It is hurtful in taking too large a pro- 

 portion of his hard earnings ; but this is of less account than 

 its effect upon the status of the occupation, for in choosing a 

 vocation one naturally selects that one which is most favored 

 in this respect. 



