tious, is in itself a token of this response. The
railroad brought the opportunity; the ambitious accepted it; many whole
families have disappeared. Their strong members emigrated; the weaker
stock died out. The Merritt, Vanderburgh, Irish, Wing, Sherman, Akin,
and other families offer examples. In the place of those who departed
have come others, to fill the total population. There were in 1905 on
the Hill twenty-five old families with seventy-five persons, and
twenty-five Irish Catholic families with one hundred persons.

The response to economic opportunity has often been too keen, and the
attempt too grasping. In 1891 wealthy New Yorkers offered for certain
farms so located as to command beautiful views, prices almost double
what they are worth for farming. The reply was a demand in every case of
one thousand dollars more than was offered; and the result was--no sale.

Land is valued, though few sales are made, at $1,000 per acre, near the
Hotel. The acre numbered 42, one mile from Mizzen-Top, on Map II, was
sold in 1893 to a laboring man for $250. At 53, land was sold in 1903
for $700 per acre. At 52, three acres were sold by sisters to a brother
in 1895, the asking-price being $1,000 per acre, and the price paid $800
per acre. For farming, this land is worth $50 and $75 per acre. Four
miles further inland as good recently sold for $10 per acre. Quaker Hill
has not neglected its economic opportunities.

Nearness to the soil has, under the influences of Quaker ethics and
economic ambition, cultivated in this population a patient and steadfast
industry, which expresses itself in the milk dairy, a form of farming by
its nature requiring early hours and late, with all the day between
filled by various duties. I have shown above that this industry is
losing its hold on the farmers of the Hill, but for two generations it
has been the distinctive type of labor on the Hill. To rise at four or
even earlier in the morning and to prepare the milk, to deliver it at
the station, four to eight miles away, to attend to the wants of cows
from twenty to one hundred in number; to prepare the various
food-products, either by raising from the soil, or by carting from the
railroad,--these activities filled, ten years ago, the lives of one
hundred and four of the adult males of the community; and these
activities at present fill the time of sixty of the adult males of the
community.[34]

While "the milk business" is a declining indus