Rural Economy in New England 353 



drance to the growth of manufactures, also, but when the market 

 was opened through the failure of European competition, during 

 the period of the Embargoes and the War of 1812, manufacturers 

 foimd it profitable to employ workers even at the high wages de- 

 manded. 



In fact we have repeatedly noted in the preceding sections of this 

 chapter that wherever a body of farmers were so situated as to be 

 able to reach a market, whether in the commercial towns of the 

 seacoast or in the West Indies, there these obstacles to progress 

 had already, to some extent, been overcome. Dickinson recognized 

 this fact when he wrote: "Our farmers prefer exerting their labor 

 upon a large field, to employing the same on a small one. Deviating, 

 however, from this rule, in the vicinity of populous towns, and on 

 navigable waters, where the price of land enters more highly into 

 the farming capital, they have paid more attention to husbandry, 

 and increased their produce by additional expenditures of labor. "^ 

 Had this author carried his analysis only one step farther and asked 

 himself the question, "Why is the price of land higher in the vicinity 

 of populous towns and on navigable waters?" the answer would 

 have given him a much more fundamental reason for the improve- 

 ments which he observed. It was the presence of a market, an oppor- 

 timity to sell produce, which increased the competition for these 

 lands, which made the farmer willing to pay highly for the oppor- 

 tunity of entering that market. 



On the other hand, all other stimuli to agricultural improvement 

 were futile as long as the market was lacking. We have seen that 

 the campaign of education of the latter part of the eighteenth cen- 

 tury was without results. It is difficult to see how a cheaper labor 

 force could have produced any different results. The revolution 

 in agriculture, as well as the breaking down of the self-sufficient 

 village life, awaited the growth of a non-agricultural population. 

 Between the years 1810 and 1860 such a population arose in the 

 manufacturing cities and towns of New England, and the market 

 thus created brought changes which opened up a new era to the 

 farmers in the inland towns. 



^ Geographical and Statistical View, p. 8. 



