The old folks have died or become incapacitated.  New interests chain their children to adopted homes.  Result,—­unoccupied lands by the hundred thousand acres, awaiting energy, skill, and faith.

Ten dollars an acre is a common price for the rocky hills of New England.  The choice river bottoms, and land near the larger cities is as high priced as similar land anywhere else.  Intending settlers can buy small areas for little money; usually the smallest farms have good buildings worth in many cases more than the price asked for the whole farm.  Climatic conditions are not favorable to single cropping.  In the old days general farming, grain, beef, sheep, and hogs were the rule; nowadays, special crops, dairying, fruit growing, etc.

Tobacco is the great staple in the rich Connecticut River bottoms, and even on the uplands, if properly manured, it pays from one to three hundred dollars per acre.  Tobacco can be raised on small areas far from the railroad, as, when properly cured and packed for shipment, it is not perishable.  To many the worst feature of New England is the climate—­long, cold winters and short summers.  Maine being farthest north suffers most in this respect, but that does not prevent her producing hundreds of thousands of tons of sweet corn for canning and vast quantities of eggs and butter.  Fruit does well on the lower coast; a small orchard of peaches or plums will in three or four years from planting make a comfortable living.  Bush fruits grow in abundance and give never-failing crops.

Poultry is peculiarly successful on the rocky hills, because they are nearly always dry or well drained.  Dairying can be made to pay if near a creamery, or where milk can be sold at retail.  The prospective settler here should bear in mind that wherever he goes, the first year will produce little more than a kitchen garden; the second enable him barely to pull through, and the third give him a start at a permanent income.  In farming, as in all other businesses, only those will succeed who know what they want and how to get it; who have selected with care the locality best suited to the special crops they intend to raise; and after having once made a selection, stick until they have compelled success.

The lure of the vast West and of the new South is not forgotten; but the time has passed when the young man could go West to take a farm of Uncle Sam’s.  Desirable land is too expensive for the pioneer, and the constant toil and comparative isolation of the prairie farm offers but a poor sort of liberty, though it still affords a living.

But close to the growing towns in those states small plots of land can still be had to work with the same bright prospects that are offered near the great metropolis.

In nearly all the sections within the area of intensive cultivation, timber is still plentiful enough to make it the cheapest building material; and persons who really want to get to the land can contrive a sufficient shelter, like a pioneer’s, for from two to five hundred dollars.