I 
' 
The other class 
of unoccupied 
farms referred to, 
is composed of 
good, naturally 
productive farm¬ 
ing lands, with a 
fair class of build¬ 
ings, but whose 
owners have, 
within the last 20 
years, been daz¬ 
zled by the glit¬ 
tering accounts 
of fortunes made, 
without work, in 
the South and 
West, by simply 
growing up with 
the country. 
FARMS OF VERMONT. 
THE " ABANDONED 
WHY WERE THEY ABANDONED ? 
The Land Held Out But the Man Weakened. 
Much has been written about the declining condition 
of New England agriculture, and especially of Ver¬ 
mont farms. As a rule, more attention has been paid 
to pointing out the weak spots in our system of agri¬ 
culture, than in commending the strong points, and 
noting the prosperity that does exist in many of our 
rural communities. We do have unoccupied farms in 
Vermont, sometimes called “ abandoned farms.” We 
do have tracts of land, with unoccupied buildings 
thereon, once the homes of prosperous, happy families, 
now going to ruin through lack of care. These un¬ 
occupied farms are of two classes : First, those that 
are located far up 
on the mountain 
side, and which 
were cleared at a 
time when lum¬ 
bering was the 
prevailing indus- \ 
try and source of '>;>*•< -f\ <Xy 
income in those 
towns. These • 
This Man Stayed 
By the Farm. 
Within two 
miles of this un¬ 
occupied farm, is 
the home of Mr. 
Wm. G. Bassett, 
shown in Fig. 42. 
I drove over the 
hills to his farm 
and found Mr. 
Bassett just get- 
ting into his 
sleigh to go to 
Hyde Park to at¬ 
tend a farmers’ 
institute. I asked 
him how long he 
had lived in 
Lamoille County, 
and he said, “I 
was horn here 5(i 
years ago, and 
have lived here 
ever since.” 
‘ ‘ Perhaps your 
father cleared 
this farm for you, 
and left it to 
you as an inherit¬ 
ance?” I sug¬ 
gested. 
“There you are 
wrong,” said Mr. 
Bassett; “When 
I was 21 years 
old, I bought a 
farm of 100 acres 
in the town of 
Eden, in this 
county, for$2,500, 
going into debt 
for nearly all that 
amount. That 
was in 1859, and 
the first payment 
BUILDINGS ON AN “ABANDONED” VERMONT FARM. Fig. 41 
Two Miles from the Home Pictured Below. 
ABANDONED. 
A VERMONT FARM THAT HAS NOT BEEN 
