try, other things are not
less engrossing. The land must be tilled, and is tilled. Hay is the
greatest crop, and the mere round of the seasons brings for a community
used to agriculture a discipline and a course of labor, which make life
regular and industrious.

Farming, as stated above, is carried on with a view to the production of
milk for the city market. It is a laborious and exacting occupation. The
dairy cow, generally of the Holstein stock, or with a strain of Holstein
in her blood, is the most common variety; though the grass of the Hill
is so good that very rich milk is produced by "red cow, just plain
farmer's cow," as the local description runs; and the demands of the
middlemen have brought in some Jersey cattle, which are desired, because
of the greater proportion of cream they produce. The largest profit from
the "making of milk" is secured by those farmers who keep as many cows
as can be fed from the land owned by them. But the more ambitious
farmers rent land, and in a few cases on a small farm keep so many
cattle that they have to buy even hay and corn. It is necessary for the
farmer, in order to meet the demands of the city market, to feed his
cattle on grains not raised on the Hill. One hundred years ago the lands
of the Hill were planted in wheat, rye, corn and other grains, but
to-day the farmers buy all grains, except corn, of which an increasing
quantity is being raised, and oats, of which they do not raise enough
for the use of their horses. There are no silos used on the Hill, the
city milkmen having a standing objection to the milk of cows fed on
ensilage.

The labor problem created by the milk business is an acute one. One man
can milk not more than twenty cows, and he is a stout farm-hand who can
daily milk more than twelve or fifteen. As a farmer must keep between
twenty and forty cows to do justice to his acreage, on the average Hill
farm, there must be at least two men, and often there must be five or
six men employed on the farm. To secure this number of capable men, to
keep them, and to pay them are hard problems. Their wages have risen in
the past twelve years, from fourteen dollars a month and board to
twenty-three dollars and board; or for a married man, who has house
rent, wood, and time to cut it, garden and time to tend it, and a quart
of milk a day, the wages have risen from twenty-eight to thirty-five
dollars a month.

These men are recruited from a class born in the country,