The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1888-09-12
Quebec and Vermont.

There are few more intelligent writers
upon agricultural topics than Mr.. Jen-
ner Fust, editor of the Journal of Ag-
ricult,re, of Montreal. He combines
the thorough agricultural training of
England with wide acquaintance with
American methods and conditions, and
has rare power of approaching facts
at their true value, and of reasoning
justly upon them. What he has to say
is always worthy of attention. Mr..
Fust, however, is not altogether free
from wrong ideas on American ques-
tons of public nature. In the genial
British manner, he has several times
referred to our plan as presented
in The Rural Vermonter of making
English farmers who are finding their
capital decreasing, in consequence of
agricultural depression at home, ac-
quainted with the exceptionally low
price at which good farms can now be
obtained in Vermont. He assumes
that these farms must be necessarily
poor, because they are cheap. This is
an entire mistake, and one that we
should hardly suppose an experienced
agriculturist like Mr.. Jenner Fust would
make. Nota few causes exist, altogether
independent of the quality of the land,
to depress the price of Eastern farms,
not only in many parts of the United
States, but in Canada. The statistics
of our national census fully demonstrate
that Vermont stands among the first in
her agreeable yield of field crops and in
the bulk and quality of her manufac-
tured farm products. This is the way
Mr.. Fust treats the subject. Though
editor, he uses the first personal pro-
noun, and initials his articles.)
/ mentioned, some two or three months
ago, that inducements were being held out
TO English farmers to settle in the state of
Vermont. The following extract from a
paper of that state will show that did not
speak without book. A. R. j.. F.
"a Lamoille county correspondent writes
that he thinks it high time to stop this
blank foolishness of prasing Vermont, and
says that though he was born in the state,
and has lived to be past forty, he would get
out of it mighty quick if he could. He has
been trying to sell his farm for less than half
what it was once worth, and in four years
hasn't had any half decent offer" Is this
one of the farms that the Vermont people
are good enough TO propose that English
tenant-farmers are to leave their homes for
the purpose of buying? Pas 81 betes, mon anil
and then follows this note:
In the Rural Vermonter, mention is made
of good (?) farms, fenced and everything
suitable, for from $500 TO 81 200, and imple-
ments at nominal prices ! A. .R.F.
Queerly enough, in the same issue, a
communication appears, with the title,
"Rural Ruin and Decay" from which
we will make an extract.
SRA question Of vital interest not
only TO Lachute and our neighboring town.
ships, but to the country generally, rudely
intrudes itselfupon our attention. How are
our country people to make a living, when
the land is denuded of its timber? One not
unlikely solution, II we do not mend our
methods, is, there will be no rural popula-
ton left. AS it is, nearly half Of the young
men of the county of Argenteuil have gone
to the United States. There ia scarcely a
family in the township of Granville but has
its representatives in Alpena, Marinette
or Chippewa Falls. In some instances, all
the grown up children, boys and girls have
left, and little wonder, for the dull and mis-
directed drudgery Of the farm Is admirably
fitted to drive them from their homes. Not
unfrequently, rough and worn out farms
are entirely abandoned, where the govern
ment are conceding lots for frewood pur-
poses, every stick worth cutting will shortly
be removed and the owners will then al