RURAL LIFE IN LITCHFIELD COUNTY 



the ancestral acres. This resulted in the return of 

 many acres to a condition of forest growth, which al- 

 ways follows a period of cessation in active farming. 



Thus the pressure of new and uncontrollable condi- 

 tions forced many of the inhabitants of our rural towns 

 to seek new fields of enterprise. The soil had not lost 

 all its fertility, but competition from newer, more fertile 

 and more workable fields, together with the new form 

 of industrial life represented in the large towns and 

 cities, had so changed the opportunities for reasonable 

 returns from labor that the migration of a considerable 

 portion of the inhabitants became an economic neces- 

 sity. The causes, therefore, of whatever decline was 

 seen in our rural towns must be looked for in the great 

 industrial changes that were going on in our country as 

 a whole, and in the development of new fields of com- 

 petitive agriculture, rather than in the decline of our 

 agriculture or the decadence of our country life. 



That the churches and schools should feel the force 

 of this general decline was to be expected, but that it 

 should be ascribed to a decadence in religious life would 

 be as unsound as to say that the world has lost its sense 

 of religious responsibility because the great powers of 

 Europe are now at war. The best life of many of the 

 rural towns was drained away, and has, in a measure, 

 been replaced by those who have not the same sense of 

 responsibility toward the church, the school and the 



