Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1884-07-01
IaaiIu Ifnnfbfr Journal.
why Does Maine Bring Corn from
the West?

Inquiries Name paper:
G. A. Virgin has just put in his ninth car
load of Western corn since last June, which
is about the average sale, with one car load
of shorts; and reiailed mostly to farmers in
that vicinity, and this valley of the Andres
eoggin is called one of the best for raising
corn.
Thus writes correspondent of the Ok
ford Advertiser from the little town of
Hanover. Think of it farmers of the An
droscoggin and Ellis rivers. From this
one point some 5000 bushels of Western
corn distributed, costing 80 to 80 cents a
bushel, when farmers can grow it upon
their farms for so cents bushel. Is not
reform needed in Maine agriculture This
example is common ali over the State
Farmers send their money West to buy
corn which can be grown upon Maine
farms. Here in this little town of Han
over and on both sides of the beautiful
river are splendid intervale farms extend
ing all the way down through Rumford.
Then up the Ellis river from its confluence
with the Androscoggin, bordered upon
both sides with intervales of more or less
width extending nearly across Andover.
There are good farms ali the way and a
class of farmers many of them who have
made their farms pay, as their stock and
well-kept and commodious farm buildings
show. These farms are capable of grow
ing corn to perfection. These fine inter-
vale fields can be cultivated to this cereal
with little hand labor excepting the har-
vesting of it. When the crop of corn is
taken off. grass is crop which farmers on
the Androscoggin pride themselves. Stock
| ~,sl - .y,t1 "A
the farm be made to increase its pro-
auctions.
But there is one hopeful sign for Maine
agriculture. Farmers are becoming awake
to the possibilities OF Maine farms, and the
experience of the past few years has
taught them that the road to prosperity
is in home productions of the essentials
of living and the transforming of the
products of the farm into other produc-
tons which sold from the farm remove
less of the essential elements of fertility
than the products themselves. Hence. stock
husbandry, dairy husbandry, sheep hus-
bandry, and the raising of good horses,
are gaining every year in Importance in
the economy OF Maine farming. Again is
it well to feed so much corn, especially
if it has to be bought Are there not
other crops that can be cultivated which
can be raised with certainty and prove
nearly as valuable, bushel for bushel, as
Western cornP Mixed provender, COM
posed of oats, peas. barley and wheat and
rye. makes a valuable feed, and large
crops can be grown, Will not farmers
look at these things and see if there be not
more excellent way than that of sending
West for SO much corn and feed which we
can produce at home at less price, We
sincerely hope Hanover will have halt of
the 5000 bushels of corn supplied from
her own and adjoining farms the present
season, and in 1885 Mr.. Virgin get the
same toll he now does from grinding good
Oxford county corn, which will pay all
hands better, and make more growth,
meat, curd, butter and cheese.
This is true of other New England
States besides Maine. Let them all en-
gage in raising more corn for their live
stock, whether cattle, sheep, horses or
pigs, or all combined. The foregoing
statement seems to contradict the old say
lug. "No corn, no horn," for farmers buy
Western corn, which costs them more
than it would to raise it. If it be true, as
stated at farmers institute In Massachu-
sets by the Maine secretary of the State
Board of Agriculture, that good hay in
Maine had been proved TO net the feeder
of it to mich cows more than 800 ton,
IS shown by experimenting at the college.
let the farmers then raise their corn and
feed their hay instead of sending the lat
ter to the Boston market, where for the
past winter it was sold from $15 SIG per
tor, invoice prices.-Agr. Ed.