The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1892-02-26
"TBE MILL WAS DESCRIBED FIRST

A correspondent of that sterling New
England newspaper, the Hartford COUr-
ant, suggests that if the Connecticut
authorities prepare list of abandoned
farms, as is contemplated, they should
also prepare list OF abandoned manu-
featuring establishments. He thinks
that there is pretty close connection
between the two. Years ago, he says,
almost every small waterfall in New
England turned wheel Nearly all the
hats made particularly for the Southern
market were manufactured in these lit
tie rural factories, and so were hay
rakes and other farming tools, wagons
and carriages. The old-fashiOned card
ing mill was another rural industry,
whittier the housewives of the neigh
borhood took their homegrown wool to
be carded. The wool was spun at home
and woven into cloth, and to some other
little country mill to be pulled ana fin
ished. These little country factories,
though their total product was insight
ficant compared with the monster es-
Establishments of to-day, furnished ready
employment for the farmers boys and
girls and the farmers themselves could
earn an occasional dollar with their
teams, hauling the goods to town or to
tide-water. There we're no deserted
farms in those old days. What has
changed all this? This is the CORE
spont's explanation;
THE little manufacturing towns
were deserted first after the railroads
began to wind among our New England
hills. The cost of transportation be-
came an important factor in the cost of
manufacturing goods, and the railroad
line became the Mecca to which they all
made pilgrimage, and the little old mill
was deserted and left to rot and decay.
And to-day tour through the inland
New England towns will reveal thous.
ands of these deserted mills, many of
them fairly well preserved and many
more which the work of time and flood
has left an almost unacceptable mass
of ruins. For every deserted farm in
New England | believe it is possible to
find deserted mill, and the mill was de-
serted first"
There is good deal of truth here
These changes began forty or more years
ago. They had gone on so rapidly that
by SO or 81 or thereabOuts this drift
from the farms was causing great alarm,
and was a frequent and anxious topic of
discussion III the rural debating societies
and gatherings of farmers everywhere.
The great exodus to the West had fairly
started, too. The name of Kansas was
beginning to be familiar in New Eng
land, and thousands of the most enter
prising and adventurous farmers sons
were digging in the mines or prospect
ing or hewing or clearing away out on
the Pacific slope. This abandonment of
the farms commenced in the longest low
tariff period in our entire history. In
those days nobody dreamed of attribut-
ing it to protection. Our farmers con-
ditlon has improved since the days of
the Walker tariff. The least desirable
farms or those most remote from rail-
roads or factories have been deserted
and given up to pastures, or to the di-
versions of summer visitors. But the
good farms and the farms in the neigh
bOrhood of towns and cities ale more
valuable than ever. New England farms
are producing more than they ever did
before. The farmers are getting better
prices for their products, while their
clothing, tools AMI groceries are all far
cheaper than they were in those revenue
tariff days before the war. The farmers
occupation has its ups and downs like
any other line of business. 1t has to
adapt itself, like anything else, to the
constantly changing conditions and de-
mands. But it may be fairly and truth
fully said that it has on the whole held
its own in the general progress of New
England industry.