56 AMERICAN FARMS. 



per cent, of the total for these States. They probably 

 represent the number of holdings occupied by other 

 classes than tillers of the soil. But ten acres and under 

 have, in many cases, supported families. We are brought 

 face to face with the startling fact that 20,821 of the 

 typical farms of these States during the twenty years, 

 1860-80, had either been abandoned to the wilds alto- 

 gether, or become attached to the large estates. No 

 doubt the transformation has been in both directions. 

 If in either, however, the changed condition is one for 

 serious thought. 



One of America's most famous economists * states that 

 between 1875 and 1885 the woodland of Massachusetts 

 increased 49.64 per cent. In this State the tacking-on 

 must have been very considerable, as the number of 

 holdings above 500 acres had increased in the twenty 

 years — 1860-80 — by 254, while the cultivated land had 

 fallen from 2,133,436 to 2,128,311 acres. 



In the State of Maine the holdings of over 100 acres 

 were only 9 per cent, of the total in i860 ; in 1880 they 

 were 39 per cent. In i860 there were only 2 holders 

 of estates exceeding 1,000 acres ; in 1880 there were 116. 



Using the lowest limit of the census figures, we find 

 that there were 64,550 acres of the lands of Massachu- 

 setts, Maine, and Vermont in the hands of holders of up- 

 wards of 500 acres in the year i860, but in 1880 these 

 acres had swollen to 856,000. Using the medium figures 

 for the 10- to 50-acre holdings, there were in the neigh- 

 borhood of 1,624,485 acres of farm lands in these small 

 divisions in i860, but in 1880 only 1,009,750. 



With such figures as these, culled from official sources, 

 who can deny that the lands of New England, and, in 



' Hon. David A. Wells. 



