Leaving the farm

“Much has been said about decadent agricultural conditions in Vermont. Tears are shed over her abandoned farms and the emigration of her children to the cities. Complaint is made that she is lagging behind other states.  We are told her cultivated lands have decreased by half in fifty years. Mention is made of the good old days when a million sheep were pastured on her hills….The census of 1850 may be taken as a fair indication of the good old days before the Civil War and the opening up of the West.  How does it compare with the census of 1920?” (Zephine Humphrey, Vermont, A Comparison: 1850…1920, The Vermonter, Vol.29 No.3, 1924).

        Ah yes, even in 1920 the young were abandoning the farms for the cities. And perhaps, by comparison with any other time 1850 was indeed the good old days that have never been seen and enjoyed since. Railroads, still crude and inefficient, had just came into Vermont but were yet confined to the major river valleys. The web of rail that ultimately wove through every town was yet to be built. The pace of life was still, necessarily, dictated by the horse.