The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1889-11-27
New England's Opportunity.

When we began in these columns the
effort to awaken the people of Vermont
to the possibility of attracting an in
flow of population from abroad-to take
the place of our western outflow-we
had but little hope of starting so strong
and practical an interest as now pos
sesses not only Vermont, but the whole
of New England I. must be that we
but struck note in accord with the
general tone of public hought-thought
only waiting for Il " starter" The dis
cussion now going on in the papers
shows, as might be expected, great
difference of opinion as to the causes of
depopulation and the possibility as well
as the desirabiity of trying to arrest it,.
AS it has been with us a subject of
much thought and study, we hope we
may be excused in making few
critical comments on what is being
said about our abandoned farms, :"
and their repopulation.
In the first place, we are glad to see
it noted that our deserted farms are but
in very few cases really abandoned.
They are yet nearly all sources of
revenue to their owners and the state
Perhaps, in some cases, they still re-
turn as large net revenue as when
their buildings were inhabited-but the
people who lived there are gone; and it
is true, even if Vermont is richer, on
the whole, to-day than she ever was
before, that
III fares the land, to Fastening ills prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay"
No one who knows Vermont believes
that her farm lands are exhausted, or
that they can not be as successfully
farmed to-day as at any period in her
history. Let any one take a drive
through our farming districts, from one
end of the state to the other, and he
will see evidences of thrift and pros
perity which utterly do away with the
idea that Vermont land is " worn out, -
or is decreasing in productiveness.
Dozens of reasons are given for what
is enormously called the decay of New
England agriculture, but the fact is that
there has been no decay. The census
statistics show, on the contrary, a
steady advance, and the enumeration
soon to he made will unquestionably
prove that this advance is not lessened.
The only thing wanting is an increase
of population-just exactly what the
newer states wanted, and just what has
made and is making them great.
The truth is that the settling of Yer
mont, very rapid in the early part of this
century, stopped when canals and rail-
roads opened up the free lands of the
West to all our people. That food of
emigration which followed was natural
and inevitable, and the prairie states
especially offered such rich and easy
chances to our young men, and to those
older ones who were not succeeding in
accordance with their desires, that the
yet unsettled agricultural lands of New
England have had to wait until the
great bulk of those free and fertile
lands were occupied.
That time has arrived The wonder
full chances of the West have greatly
lessened, while railroads have opened
up all of New England, and the gem
eral increase of our commercial and
manufacturing wealth has built up for
us large and near market for every
thing we produce.
Now is It not proper and right that
we should make widely known the real
state of the case in regard to the chances
and advantages of New England agri-
culture? Vermont is capable of sup
porting in comfort, upon her unim-
proved lands, a population at least
three times as great as she now pos
sesses. Maine can sustain two millions
in comfort and abundance as easily as
she now sustains her 100000. The
same, to less extent, is true of the
other four states of New England
though their soil is generally not quite
so good or so easily titled.
"The decay of New England,
which many writers who ought to know
better are talking about, has no exist
ence. There has been a steady anC
constant progress all along the line; blu
the progress on our farms has beer
chiefly in making the fields smoother
4ba bu;ld;noo haitian and in tba ~,