The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1890-11-13
ABANDONED FARMsY THIRTY
YEARS AGO

We have lately noted the circumstance
that the free trade mind was gradually
.comprehending that the depopulation Of
the hill farms of New England was at
tributable to other causes than the pro-
tectiye tariff. If our free trade friends
care to pursue their investigation further
they will discover that the decline of our
remoter agricultural communities was
attracting the attention of thoughtful
citizens thirty years and more ago. Hon.
Joseph GriswOld, in an interesting paper
on the subject in the Greenfield Gazette
,e Courier, says: 81 believe there are to
be seen in Franklin county to-day more
than one thousand old cellars, of which
the houses that stood over them had been
abandoned and the farms deserted long
bofOre the war came on He adds that
he recently came across an address de-
livered by his father before the farmers
of Colerain in 1857 or 1858, from which
he presents these extracts:
II have selected for my subject this
evening, The Decline of the Rural Pop
ulation of New England, of Franklin
County, of Colerain in Particular and |
shall come to the conclusion, though re-
luctantly, that they have seen their best
days. l need not waste your time by re-
citing voluminous statistics to prove this
decline. Every intelligent man and wO-
man sees it, and there is not public
speaker but what refers to it, deprecates
it, and offers his antidote. You have
only to look before you to see it. Where
are the once prosperous families that oc-
cupied the Eddy, the Smith, the Puring-
ton and Wilson farms above the foundry
village? Where are the twenty-eight
families that lived in thrift on Cata-
mount Hill, with their dairies and stock,
and their ninety scholars? When came
TO this town, except now and then sim
gle family, holding on like shipwrecked
mariner to a lonely rock in the great
ocean, all the rest are gone. Where is
that long line of noble farmers that were
so industrious and prosperous, extending
from North River, over Christian Hill, to
the Green Mountains, and those cattle
drovers AMI merchants that did more
business than all the stores in a half doz-
en- Western towns to-day-all are gone.
Look over Leyden Hills, Halifax, Whit
ingham, Heath, Rowe, Hawley and Buck
land and you see the same. Look over
this town and see the once expensive pri-
vate dwellings going to ruin and into
strange hands. They show that far back
a. IlEu olNtl vi ldlblllltNlult tAlHbNb
and that wealthy and prosperous set of
farmers and mechanics occupied them.
They are now in decay The same thing
can be seen, in a greater or less degree,
in most of the rural districts of New
England Where is that long line of in
telligent mechanics, with their half dozen
apprentices and jOurneymen each, that
were here? All are gone. The Assessors
books show that the stock in Colerain
has fallen off One-half in thirty years, and
the farming inhabitants one-third, and it
is still more glaring in some of the neigh
boring towns.n
The statements in this address, it will
be seen, bear a striking similarity to
those which have been SO popular in cur
rent free trade editorials. Yet the con-
ditiOn of things which the address de-
scribes relates to period when we were
| living under model revenue tariff, and
the land, so the free traders say, was
flowing with milk and honey, The de-
population of the least accessible or de-
sirable of our New England farms is not
new development. 1t began when the
fertile lands of the Ohio were opened to
settlers a century ago, and our Repre-
sentatives appealed to Congress against
it because "New England was being
drained of its young men In cOmpeti-
ton with the fertile and limitless acres
of the West, it is hard to say what would
have become of New England agriculture
by this time had not the protective tariff
and the consequent diyersification of in
dustry given our farmers an unfailing
market right at their very doors. Boston
Journal ...