COUNTRY LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND 5 



"December 25th. I helpt clean the school-house. The school 

 kept 1/2 the day." 



There was one great industry which brought much money to 

 New England towns for many years; that was hop growing. 

 Disease and competition from more Western States finally put 

 an end to one of the great money-making employments of the 

 New England farm of those days. In the middle of one Massa- 

 chusetts town there can still be seen a field plowed and hilled 

 for the hops that were never planted. Why they were not, no 

 one can tell now, but there the furrows are, in the midst of a 

 great wood, with sixty-year-old pine trees reaching far over your 

 heads, growing in that forsaken field. On many of the farms 

 one can see the old hop kilns in a more or less advanced state of 

 ruin adding their picturesque touch to the landscape. 



A hundred years ago the vocation of a husbandman or farmer 

 was as truly a trade to be learned as that of cobbler, miller, black- 

 smith, or the rest. So young boys were apprenticed to this 

 trade, as to the others. This custom, also, in large measure, 

 solved the problem of help for the farmers of that day. The 

 low wages paid these apprentices for their services gives some 

 explanation of the reasons for the acquisition of a comfortable 

 living by many farmers. 



Among the Parker papers in Shirley I found an indenture of 

 about one hundred years ago, which gives a vivid picture of the 

 duties of the apprentice and his master. The father's caution 

 in demanding education "if the said apprentice is capable to 

 learn," shows how meager the learning was in those days among 

 the poorer classes. 



"This Indenture Witnesseth, that David Atherton of Shirley 

 in the County of Middlesex and Commonwealth of Massa- 

 chusetts, Yeoman, hath put and placed and by these presents 

 doth put and bind out his son David Atherton Jun r and 

 the said David Atherton Jun r doth hereby put, place 

 and bind out himself as an Apprentice to James Parker 

 Ksq r of Shirley in the County and Commonwealth afore- 

 said to learn the art or trade of an husbandman ; the said David 

 Alherton Jun r after the manner of an Apprentice to dwell with 

 and serve the said James Parker Esq r from the day of the date 



