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CHAPTER IV.

HOLLISTON, MASS., AND VICINITY, GENERAL FARMERS.

INTRODUCTION.

Three towns, situated in the eastern part of Massachusetts, about 25 miles west by south of Boston, well located with reference to markets, excellently provided with both steam and trolley service, with a very fair quality of soil and many substantial and prosperous country dwellers have since 1898 or thereabout been the home of two or three small settlements of Russian Hebrews. One man has been living there for twenty-five years, but the greater number seem to have arrived since 1899.

In Holliston the number of farmers seems to have diminished. There are now (1909) but 7 Hebrews engaged in farming. In Medway there are 13 or 14 families who live on the land and engage in agriculture to a greater or less extent. In Millis there are 13.

There are in all about 39 parcels of land, or "farms," owned by Hebrews and about 34 operating, tax-paying farmers, all counted, in the three townships. But actually there are almost none who depend entirely upon the farm income for a living. Cattle buyers, junk gatherers, butchers, peddlers, summer-boarder hotel men, poultry buyers, day laborers, and absentee owners are among the number. Almost everyone depends as much on his outside occupation and several depend more upon it than on the products of the farm for a livelihood. There are a good many Hebrews in the neighborhood. A new synagogue is building at Millis, and it is said the attending congregation numbers 40 families. There are in addition synagogues at Holliston.

Personal visits to 13 of the Hebrew owners in those townships developed the fact that not half were enthusiastic farmers, although the most of the farms present a good appearance and the country seems fairly prosperous. The Hebrew farms lie between West Medway and Holliston and between West Medway and Millis. A considerable proportion have bought old farms with some very good buildings thereon. The average farm is a little less than 60 acres in Millis and the average value is something over $2,500, including the improvements. In Medway the average holding is less than 40 acres and the average assessed value of real estate with improvements is about $2,500.

The form of agriculture most extensively carried on is dairying. A few of the farmers in Medway, and almost all those near Millis keep herds of dairy cows, from 10 to 16 or 18 in a herd, and sell milk to the Boston milk contractors. Some of these men sell as much as $1,000 worth of milk yearly, and one reported receipts of $1,500 from milk sales, but most of the dairymen handle less than $500 worth of farm products of all sorts each year. Supplemental occupations of the nature previously referred to add materially to the income of these farmers.

HISTORICAL.

The oldest settler seems to have come to the neighborhood of Holliston about 1886 from the vicinity of Boston, after he had been engaged in peddling dry goods for two years. He arrived from Poland in 1884, and having been a farmer abroad, after a little experience in the peddling business, he bought a small tract of uncleared land, mostly on credit. and tried to make a home and a living by agriculture. While he has succeeded in clearing some land, has built a comfortable little home, given a good education to a family of children, and maintained his health he still pays interest on the original mortgage and peddles dry goods to make ends meet.

Others settled a little later; land was not abnormally dear and a few took up small parcels, frequently buying out the old farmers. Transportation is convenient and living in the country is cheap. Schools are good, and the children are able to do something on the small cleared acreages, while the father gathers junk or trades in cattle.

Only one man of those interviewed came directly from abroad to his present home in the locality. The others had been in the United States for one or more years engaged in various mercantile pursuits-restaurant keepers, bakers, peddlers, tailors, junk dealers, or the like-before selecting land in the neighborhood. They have kept coming and going. A good deal of land frequently changes ownership in the Hebrew section. Hebrews there as elsewhere are alive to the speculative advantages and the unearned increment in their land holdings, and though few sell out at a loss, few are unwilling to take advantage of an opportunity to sell at a profit. But there are a number of recent comers, especially in and about Millis and West Medway, and the incoming tide is not likely to cease as long as summer boarders are taken. Out of the hundreds who come during the summer for a few weeks there is usually one or more who is pleased with the place for the countryside there is beautiful-and who then or later buys a farm and becomes a member of the Hebrew community. Some few own land, but do not live on it, holding it as a speculative investment.

There is no great influx, no steady flow of immigrants, but there are increases year by year and the numbers are being slowly augmented by Hebrews dissatisfied with urban conditions, although the settlement can not be called altogether prosperous.

There have been, as has been noted, a good many desertions, usually because of failure to make a living on the land. There seems to have been no great exodus at any one time, but the great drawback to substantial growth has been the transitory nature of the settlements in certain places. In this respect the Millis group seems much more solid and stable, more like an enduring community, than those who have settled nearer Holliston. All told, the numbers are small and the only prospect of increase or of maintaining the present population is from without, for practically none of the children seem to have any intention of remaining on the paternal acres or of farming at all.

CONDITIONS OF AGRICULTURE AND COUNTRY LIFE.

There is a large acreage of land with good soil, well drained, freed from rocks and apparently capable of raising grain and grass in paying quantities in these three towns. The native farmers have good homes and appear for the most part fairly prosperous.

The Hebrews raise little vegetable produce for sale; one or two sell hay, of which every farmer raises a few tons, and for which there is a ready market; two men reported sales of vegetables and one of sweet corn, in no case more than a few dollars' worth annually. Potatoes, millet, corn, rye, and hay are grown, but chiefly for home use or for feed for farm stock. Vegetables and poultry products are consumed in large quantities by the summer boarders or lodgers, but many farmers do not produce nearly enough for their tables and buy large quantities of produce, often from the Boston market.

The average Hebrew farm has less than 10 acres, often less than 5 acres, in staple agricultural crops other than hay, and it is noticeable that the larger portion of all crops is destined for grain or roughage for live stock. Oat hay, corn fodder, ensilage, millet, rye hay, as well as the ordinary hay grasses, are utilized as stock feed. No wheat is raised for grain, and oats are not often a satisfactory crop.

From 10 to 20 acres are devoted to the production of tame grasses to be cut for hay. The yield is from 1 to 2 tons per acre in a normal year, and, in addition, a crop of rowen is sometimes cut when there has been a favorable summer with plenty of rain after the first mowing. Hay finds a ready sale at good prices both in the immediate vicinity during the winter and, when baled, in Boston and Providence. Many of the Hebrews sell no raw products of any kind, but those who do commonly report sales of hay. Not many farmers raise enough feed for their own stock, and in several instances the purchases of grain and forage exceed the sales of vegetable products. One farmer, for example, reports $960 worth of grain bought for cow and horse feed in 1908. His sales of milk amounted to $1,500 during the same period.

As was said, milk products, i. e., whole milk and a little cheese and butter, are the chief products disposed of. In Millis 7 of 13 farmers report 12 to 18 head of dairy cattle, as shown by the books of the assessor. The other 6 are assessed 5 to 10 head each. Several have large, well-built barns and house their cows by night and feed them grain or meal during the entire year. None of the dairy barns visited were models of neatness or cleanliness, and while many of the dairy cows are more than average milkers, Hebrew dairymen with a single exception seem to devote themselves to no one breed. Perhaps there are more grade Holsteins than any other one strain, but since almost no farmer raises his own cows, but depends on the public market to keep up his herd, he is likely to possess cows of several different breeds." The butter and soft cheese which some make are sold locally. Milk is carried to the nearest railroad station every morning and shipped to Boston. Returns, though certain, are not satisfactory. It is doubtful whether any of the dairymen, American or Russian Hebrew, in this section is making any surplus whatever over cost of production from the whole milk he sells, winter and summer both considered. For example, one farmer whose annual milk sales

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