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��INDUSTRIES IN HOPKINTON.
��vanced. The prosperity of this branch of farming industry soon met with an ignominious defeat. The revenue laws of 1832 and 1833, reducing the duties on imports and discouraging local manu- factures, so reduced the price of wool as to materially depress the interests of sheep growers. The flocks declined. A little impulse was given to this branch "of industry during the war of 1861, ow- ing to the demands for wool created by the army, but it was only temporary.
The soil of this town was adapted to growing, all the staple crops of New England, but its subjection to the uses of the husbandman was a work of prodi- gious effort. The dense, heavy forests go extensively prevailing, were subdued by labor without direct profit. Wood and timber, so much in excess of the de- maud, were comparatively worthless. Even many years after the complete oc- cupation of the township, a large pine tree, several feet in diameter and full of clear stuff, was sold on the stump for the insignificant sum of twenty-five cents. The freedom with which the best of tim- ber was employed in the humblest uses of building attests the low marketable estimate placed upon it. Acres upon acres of primitive forest were cut down, the logs rolled in heaps, and the fallen debris— trunks, branches and boughs — burned to ashes. Following this ex- ceedingly laborious toil, came not only the difficult task of plowing and plant- ing, but the almost endless labor of re- moving the rocks and stones that thick- ly cumbered the surface of the ground. Stones were utilized in the division of lots by walls, which were often thick, or double. On an ancient location on Putney's Hill, can be seen stone walls that are six or eight feet in thickness. Heaps of stone thrown up in waste places are significant monuments of the severe toil through which the early in- habitants of this town reclaimed the wilderness. *
With experience and increased social facilities, came improvements in the quali- ty of the products of the soil. The in- troduction of improved varieties of fruit was a more notable event on ac-
��count of the facilities for improvement afforded by the process of grafting.. About seventy years ago the Bald- win apple was introduced into this town by Stephen Gage. Since then it has become the standard winter apple in every household in the community. We need not speak of the many varieties of roots, seeds and scions that have come and gone, or come and remained, since the earlier times. The history of our town, in this respect, is substantially uniform with that of many others in its vicinity.
Upon the ancient farm of Mrs. Eliza Putney, upon Putney's Hill, lies an an- cient broken grindstone, a symbolic relic of a past rude husbandry. It is of common granite rock, and for a long, time was the only grindstone in the im- mediate vicinity. People came long dis- tances to grind their scythes upon it. Before its use, people from this town, used to go to Concord to grind their scythes. A general scythe-grinding took, place only occasionally. The scythes were kept sharp with whetstones as long as practicable, and then a party gathered up the dull scythes in the neighborhood and took them away for grinding. Snaths at that time were made by hand. The axe-handles were straight. The plows were at first of wood., faced with iron. Implements of all kinds were rude and imperfect, besides being mostly the products of the skill of the local blacksmith and carpenter. The intro- duction of modern implements has been a gradual but comparatively thorough work. The ancient richness of the- soil having been in a great measure exhaust- ed, the introduction of fertilizers from outside has become a permanent traffic. The utilization of the newer and richer fields of the West has brought to our doors an abundance of corn and grain, and the accidental forms of cereal pro- ducts. In the accidental improvements of farming— draining, building, etc., — our town has made creditable progress. The proximity of Hopkinton to Concord and Fisherville, populous places, has latterly given an impulse to the depart- ment of the dairy. Improved dairy
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