The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1889-11-21
VERMONT MANUFACTURES.


The vacant farms ofVermont, since at
tention has been called to them by the
legislature, have received boom through
the State press which has been taken up
all over the COZ ntry, such as has been
accorded to no other matter of a similar
nature. Our leading agricultural papers
have published lengthy reviews which
have been not at all discreditable to the
State, and, altogether, the discussion
has been healthy one. And all this
has been done without the expense OF
the first dollar to the commonwealth
in striking contrast to similar enterprises
undertaken and carried on in the new
States.
1t would seem from the information
thus disseminated that confidence in
Vermont farms has been largely restored,
and in farming as an industry also. 1t
has been shown that farms have been
deserted in good communities, alongside
other farms that are being titled at
profit, and no good reason has yet been
given in the main for these things.
Good farms with better buildings than
can be found upon an average in the
West, can be bought for from three to
five dollars an acre, where money can
yet be made by the contented occupant.
1t may be that many of these farms
have been run" by their holders and
neglected, but no more so than in some
other quarters after one hundred years
or more. 1t is not to be doubted that in
the same time farms in the new States
will average no better. There is plenty
of vitality left in the soil yet in Yer
mont, and all that is lacking is the farm
or of good judgment and good vitality.
But what Vermont needs as much as
anything, if not more, is the develop
ment of manufacturing to brace up her
farming interests. There should be a
larger market within the State for the
agricultural products of the State. Ire
land was robbed of its vitality by the re
moval of its manufactures to England,
whereby it was left as a purely agricul-
tural State. That community attains
the highest prosperity which possesses
the elements of strength in the most
eminent degree, and these come from
agriculture, manufactures, mining and
commerce combined. Situated as Yer
mont is, she cannot expect to take rank
in commerce, but there is no hindrance
in her way to manufacturing. She is
through her quarries of granite, marble
and slate, which have no superiors in
America. These industries, especially
the granite, must sweep on to an untold
extent with the growth of the country,
and 80 far as their influence is felt the
State will obtain riches.
The weakest point in our industrial
system is discovered in our limited man
ufactures. Vermont has always been
regarded as the richest and best agricul.
tural State in New England, and her
pre-eminence in this respect answered
very well for her inhabitants until the
opening up of the Great West swept
over her. Then she had a mammoth
competitor to supply the same manufac-
turing and commercial towns in New
England she had been providing for.
Not that there was any more money to be
made in Western farming, but the farm.
er of that section could pay his way, de-
pending on the rise of his land for his
profits. While Vermont relied upon
her farms, already strained to their
highest value, and dreamed of future
prosperity, Massachusetts, Connecticut,
ETC.. set about manufacturing in earnest,
and before we we're aware of it were
supplying us with about everything we
needed il the line of manufactures. To
enumerate these articles would require
the columns of newspaper.
Mills formerly dotted our streams
everywhere, in all of the small towns,
but they have gone to decay. They were
mostly lumber and grist mills, cardiug
machines and fulling mills, which were
no longer required in the changed con-
ditions that capital and inventions had
wrought. There are no old gate" saw
mills now, neither carding nor fulling
mills; and but few grist mills are left.
We had no manufactures of the fine, ten
thousand things in daily use. Capital
moved in to sustain and to build up these
latter manufactures where they were
established, and other mammoth enter
prises of the same classes grew up all
around them.
Once capital was not so essential in
manufacturing as now. A large part of
this work was done by hand, here and
there, but now capital does the work, or
provides for it. What was once posi-
BILE in Vermont has ceased to be posi-
bllIty even, and now capital is required
to accomplish anything of consequence
successfully in manufacturing. Our
. streams, capable of furnishing abund-
ance of water power, are running to
waste for the lack of capital to build the
wheels and to run them, and for no 9TH
er reason. There are abundance of
these facilities all over the State ready
to be utilized-facilities largely beyond
the average of States. 1t would seem
that the problem of Vermont's ultimate
prosperity, such as she has reason to
hope for, lies in increased manufactures
for Its solution. And we have the capt.
tai if it was rightly employed.-T. Al
bans MESSENGER,