It was not long before Irish immigrants found their way to
the section and replaced the natives in the mills. The old social
and racial unity began to break down. [Footnote: Woollen, "Labor
Troubles between 1834 and 1837," in Yale Review, I., 87; Martineau,
Society in America, II., 227, 243, 246; Chevalier, Society, Manners,
and Politics, 137; Addison, Lucy Larcom, 6; Clay, Works, V., 467.]
Agriculture still occupied the larger number of New England people,
but it was relatively a declining interest. As early as 1794, Tench
Coxe had characterized New England as a completely settled region,
with the exception of Maine and Vermont. The generation that
followed saw an expansion of agricultural population until the best
valley lands were taken and the hill-sides were occupied by
struggling farmers. By 1830 New England was importing corn and flour
in large quantities from the other sections. The raising of cattle
and sheep increased as grain cultivation declined. The back-country
of Maine particularly was being occupied for cattle farms, and in
Vermont and the Berkshires there was, towards the close of the
decade, a marked tendency to combine the small farms into sheep
pastures.
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