Farm Abandonment

Diorama scene with an abandoned farmhouse and barn in the background. Small trees are beginning to grow in old fields. A hunter and his dog are in the foreground.

Beginning in the mid-1800s and continuing for more than a century, farming declined on a broad scale across New England. Abandoned pastures and fields rapidly developed into forests. In central Massachusetts and across much of central New England these forests were dominated by white pines. 

Time period: AD 1850