288 Percy Wells Bidwell 



region by the travelers of the period and at least two of them devote 

 considerable space to its description.^ They divide the Cape in general 

 into two parts; an eastern section, from the elbow to Provincetown, 

 and a western section, from the same point to the mainland at the 

 town of Barnstable. The total population of the county, somewhat 

 over 22,000 in 1810, was divided almost equally between the two 

 sections. On the eastern end of the Cape, fishing and shipping seem 

 to have been much more important than agriculture. All the men 

 in the prime of life were employed at sea, leaving as a labor force 

 to cultivate the fields only the boys and old men. Their exertions 

 were able to draw only the scantiest of crops from the thin and sandy 

 soil. Consequently not only beef, flour, and grain, but even fodder 

 for the cattle, and in the winter, butter, vegetables and cheese must 

 be imported. Some of these products came from the more largely 

 agricultural towns to the westward, others from Boston, and the 

 supplies of rye and maize in part even from the Southern states.^ 

 Yet such was the productivity of the "ocean farms" that these 

 supplies could be purchased in sufficient quantity to support a popu- 

 lation of considerable density,* in fairly good circumstances.* 



On the sand flats at the end of the Cape, in Provincetown, there 

 lived some 200 families who got their living entirely from the sea. 

 Perhaps in no other town in New England could a population have 

 been found so completely non-agricultural. The reason is obvious. 

 There was no soil to be cultivated. "The earth," says Dwight, 

 "is here a mere residence, and can scarcely be said to contribute at 

 all to the sustenance of man. All his support and all his comforts, 

 are elicited from the ocean. "^ A small meadow of marsh grass 

 pastured two horses, ten yoke of oxen, and 140 cows, the sum total of 



^ Dwight and Kendall. The former visited Cape Cod in 1800 and described 

 it in his Travels, Vol. III., pp. 63-97. The latter's visit, made in 1807, is de- 

 scribed in his Travels, Vol. II., pp. 127-183. A considerable amount of informa- 

 tion concerning the towns in this region, though of a somewhat earlier date, is to 

 be found in the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical Association, Series 

 I., Vols. 3, 8, and 10. 



* Even firewood had to be imported, some of it coming from Maine. Mass. 

 Hist. Soc. Coll., 1.8:195. 



'A writer describing the town of Dennis says: "A tract of ground not larger 

 than Dennis with a soU so unproductive, would in an inland situation be capable 

 of supporting few inhabitants. But when the Census was taken in 1800, there 

 were found on it fourteen hundred souls. A great number of these persons derive 

 their subsistence from the sea." Mass. Hist. Soc. Coll., I. 8: 133-134. 



* Kendall makes an exception in the case of Truro, Travels, H. 16. 



* Dwight, Travels, III. 84. 



