New England, as is well known, was forced to adopt manufacturing, because the inhabitants could not extract a living from the soil. It is difficult to say where is the most sterile region, but in Massachusetts it seems to be generally agreed that the town of Ware, on the Ware River, northwest of Worcester, is hard to beat in this respect. It is a picturesquely located mill-village, with a soil that is stony and sterile. The original grant of the land was made to soldiers as a reward for bravery in King Philip's War. They thankfully accepted the gift and went there, but after examination left, and sold all their domain at the rate of about two cents an acre. President Dwight, of Yale College, rode through the town, but never wanted to see it again, saying regretfully, in describing the land: "It is like self-righteousness; the more a man has of it, the poorer he is." Someone wrote a poem describing the creation of the place, of which this a specimen stanza: "Dame Nature once, while making land, Had refuse left of stone and sand. She viewed it well, then threw it down Between Coy's Hill and Belchertown, And said, 'You paltry stuff, lie there, And make a town, and call it Ware.'" MOUNT HOPE BAY. On the northeastern verge of Narragansett Bay is Mount Hope Bay, its shores attractive alike in lovely scenery and the most interesting tradition. It is also a region of most venerable antiquity in America. Hither came the ancient Norsemen Vikings, who explored it, and sojourned there almost a thousand years ago. These wandering Norsemen, early colonizing Iceland and Greenland, are said to have discovered the mainland of North America in the tenth century, the energetic Leif, a son of Eric the Red, afterwards, in the year 1001, sailing along the American coast, and finding first, Helluland, or the "Flat Land," supposed to be Newfoundland, then Mark Land, or the "Wood Land," now Nova Scotia, and Vinland, or the "Vine Land," being the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and wintering in Narragansett and Mount Hope Bays. The next year Leif's brother, Thorvald, came along these coasts with thirty men, and also passed a winter in Mount Hope Bay. The following season he sent a party of explorers hither, and in the year 1004 he again came personally, and was killed in a skirmish with the Indians, his companions returning to Greenland. There seem to have been subsequent Norsemen visits, and the name of Vinland was given by them on account of the profusion of vines growing on the shores and islands, which was a novelty to these wanderers from the far north.