St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1886-07-01
A VERMONT BOY VISITS VERMONT.
Some Things He Saw with Some Pat
Local Hifa.
From Boston Record. june %.


tricts hereabouts-he is told by the
chief crOaker of the neighborhOod, in
to whose hands he falls invariably,
that the country has got pretty near
the end of the rope. Farmers paying
out more for phosphate and Western
corn than they can possibly make in
profits on all the stock and butter they
IA can sell. No use trying to raise horses
i for the Boston market, because they
"A eat up more feed in the long, cold win
ter than they will bring in the spring.
Same as to pigs. Can't make butter
to compete with Western axle grease.
Farmer takes all the grain he can raise
to mill under the seat of his buggy,
and has to have an OK cart to carry
home the phOsphates that it takes to
raise that amount of grain. Drought
every year now. Cattle wearing the
soil all off the hills. Pretty soon you
can't raise mullen stock, much less a
disturbance, anywhere except on the
best river meadows.
One would infallibly gather the i'm
preston, after listening to as much as
. quarter of an hour Of such talk, that
grim visaged famine was about to stalk
through the whole of New Hampshire,
fl Vermont and the hill part of Massa-
chusetts, and that the Parnellite par
liamentary fund must soon give place
to public subscription for starving
Yankees. 1t was consequently of in
terest to the historian, when he took n
run up into Vermont last Sunday and
Monday, to meet an old farmer, of
grave and shrewd aspect, who, when
H asked heavy hearted question about
this starvation prospect, discOursed i'll
Il somewhat encouraging manner.
GEDhncnhafac said tho old formar
"well, we have to have 'em, that's a
fact but guess we wouldn't get many
of 'em if we didn't have the money or
produce to pay for 'em. They don't
hurt the land any good deal like Civ
in hard wOTkin' man Il cup of coffee
not very strengthenin', but kind of
encOuragin'. Our poor old land can't
compete with the prairie land on the
quantity of products, so it's on quality
that we have to fight 'em and the
II phOsphates help us to do that. | guess
we do fight 'em on quality, or we
wouldn't get the prices on our stuff in
the Boston market that we do. / tell
you the land i'll VermOnts better than
it was % years ago, and prOducin'
about twice as much, year by year.
Droughts Why, man alive, the
drOughts are IL benefit to the land.
They rest it, and keep the goodness in
1t. They're IL Just provision of the AL
mighty to keep graspin' men from rid
in the free boss that He gives 'em to
death. Whenever my crops are short
from drought, says | to myself, Il shall
get it all back again and sure enough
III I've never failed to get it yet. It's IL
part of Our business to get all we can
out of the ground if some years the
4 drought prevents us from getting as
much as we do other years, it's there
just the same, and it has got to come
out some time, with interest. A good
year makes the produce run over the
average good deal more than 1T runs
a under in Il bad year. The land amt
i the kind up here that you've only got
q to tickle with the hoe to make it laugh
4 with the harvest. We have to give it
* an ALFRED OK power ticklin', backe d
up with expensive machinery, and it
n don't laugh as if twas tickled mOre'n
half to death then. Bnt we manage to
4 get pretty fair sort of IL Twin off from
it, after all. Yes, sir, we've got better
buildings, our women are better dress
ed, our girls are better brought up,
more of our boys go to school at st.
n Johnsbury and Hanover, we've got
more money i'll the bank, than ever
before. We may have to ask you
folks down country to subscribe to
keep us from starvin' to death, but
not for some time to come yet-nOt
81 for some time to come !"
Coming down from the nOrthward
one strikes unparalleled signs of pros
"A pcrity, at any rate, when he has pro-
ceeded us far as the domains of the
Lord of the Isles. The other name of
8 the Lord of the Isles is Stillson Hutch
IA i,S lii IsIaS
4 bosom of Lake Winnipesaukee. Hutch
Fl ms, who has made vast sums of mon
Il ey, entirely in the newspaper business,
of course, bought few years ago the |
n island in Winnipesaukee, called Gov !
II ernOr's island after old Governor Went |
q worth. He bought it for sOng-a
$1,000 or $1,000 song. There are 700
& acres of good land on the island, and
" Hutchins, with Il nose for speculations,
E saw II chance to add to the fabulous
revenues of his Wholesale newspaper
business by starting Il stock farm. The
advantage of producing milk for the
. Boston market on II farm totally sur
rounded by water struck him in an in
slant as by an inspiration. Inciden-
tally, too, there was an opportunity to
establish a place to entertain his
Washington friends, where he could
ins is very hospitable. SO he went at
his improvements on his island He
Il laid out roads and macadamized them
beautifully, so that his OK carts travel
more luxuriOusly than any other OK
carts in the world. He opened up
8 fields and set out orchards and shade
+ trees, and established easy means of
S communication between his milk sheds
and the lake shore.
1t all paid, or something paid, so
we'll that lIutchins set about building
s himself magnificent house of stone.
This has gone on so rapidly that to-
day the fair proportions of a barOnial
mansion, called StillsOn castle, are Wis
IDLE To any body who, sitting in a car ut
the Weirs, casts his eye across the fair
b face of Winnipesaukee toward the
island shore At first blush the unin-
formed takes StillsOn castle for an in
sane asylum or an orphans home, SD
cleverly has Mr.. Hutchins's architect
cOunterfeited the style usually en-
ployed by the builders of such institu
tons. He has built palatial barn,
too, and has installed in it some 40 or
<S& 80 blOoded horses. He has erected
upon the beach number of cottages,
"a where his numerous army of cOlOred
4 Tetainers from Washington are housed.
This island doesn't represent all of
Hutchins's Winnipesaukee possessions,
# by any means. He has bought several
u other islands in the vicinity, and ex
poets to buy more and more as the
profits of his new type setting inven-