The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1889-09-19
NEW HAMPSHIRE FOLLOWS YER
MONT.

editorially, says: The legislature has
placed at the disposal of the governor
and council the sum of $4,000 annually
for the purpose of calling the attention
of emigrants and others who are seeking
homesteads in this country to the unoc-
cupied lands of this State, and the
governor has designated the secretary
of the board Of agriculture to plan and
perform the work. giving him, we be-
lieve, the title of emigration commits
sioner.
This is, OF course, an experiment. 1t
may fail, and when it dues it should be
abandoned, but we are glad to see it
tried, for the expense will be small and
there is, IL seems 10 us, chance to
bring about very desirable results. AS
our readers know, the Mirror has long
maintained that the constant rush to
the West of eastern farmers and thrifty
emigrants from the old world has been
in large measure due to a mistaken
conception of what farming is there and
here, to an exaggeration OF the advan-
tages of the prairies, a concealment of
their disadvantages and an unwarranted
prejudice against New England farming,
created by unjust comparisons between
this section and that. Agriculturists of
all classes have been shown only the
bright side of Kansas, Nebraska and
Minnesota, and only the dar K side Of
Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont,
and the idea has obtained that while
New England farmer could barely
make the ends meet, his western COM
petItor was steadily and rapidly getting
rich, when the fact was that the same
industry, frugality and good judgment
that were succeeding in Kansas, would,
as rule, have done as well or better in
New Hampshire. That the West ha-
wonderful agricultural resources we all
know, That its farmers who were
fortunate enough to secure its fertile
lands in favored localities at nominal
price have grown rich is certain enough,
but their wealth is due more TO the adj
vance in the market value of their land
and to their living without many things
which are deemed necessary in this sec
ton than to any profit on their crops,
and, all things considered, those of them
who deserted the old homesteads here
have prospered no pore than they
would had they remained where they
were born, In brief, the abandonment
of New England farms has been, as we
have said. a mistake, and as lands grow
scarce and high in the West 1t becomes,
if continued, worse and worse mis-
take, which there il great need OF speed
lily correcting.
The emigration commissioners OF the
Western States and railroads have con-
trIbuted in no small degree to the settle
ment of the tracts in which they were
interested at our expense. 1t has been
their business to spread the story OF
Western fertility not only in the East
ern States, but in every part of the
world from which emigrants come, and
they have done it with such ability and
persistency that it has had great effect.
Now the time has come to set against
these fabulous tales the hard facts in re-
gard to New England, and the appoint.
ment of an emigration commissioner is
an attempt to do this. These facts are,
not that all the deserted farms in this
State can be probably reclaimed and
cultivated, but that hundreds of them
which can be bought for less than the
buildings and fences upon them cost can
be made when judIcIously managed, to
yield an industrious farmer better liv
ing and more margin OF profit than he
can get in the West; and, secondly, that
there are within our boundaries in the
northern counties thousands of acres of
virgin soil OF great fertility, well wooded
and supplied with an abundance of the
purest water, in localities where the air
is veritable elixir, and which are with
in easy reach of railroads and markets,
that can be bought for less than the
price of wild lands in the West, and
converted into homesteads such as the
West cannot boast. In the town of
Pittsburg there are more than twenty
square miles of such soil as this. just
across the Connecticut in GAINESVILLE
there are 80, 900 acres more, and in every
other town in northern Coos are great
tracts. This soil will not grow corn or
apples, for it is too far north, but it is
in the same latitude as northern Mime
sofa and Wisconsin, and its capabilities
in the way of producing grass. potatoes
and small grains are almost limitless.
To leave such section to the deer, the
bear and the trout and go to land Of
bizzards and drouths, of insect pests
and Indians. of eight per cent interest
and hog cholera, st ems TO us the height
of folly, and when the truth is known
the man of sense will see that energy,
thrift and economy have as fair field
right here as elsewhere.
1t is the theory in some quarters that
the Yankee is no longer fit for farmer
that he has become too eneI waited, too
much accustomed to expensive living
and too fast to put into the business the
hard steady work. the close calculation
and saving, and the contentmeDt with
slow progress that ia essential to success
in it; and that we must henceforlh de-
pend upon the S. andiDavian, German
and Gel to till our coil. There is some,
too much, tiu'h, in this. The sons and
daughters Of the New England farmers
of the last generation are weaklings
compared with the men and women
who established our old homesteads.
They are neither able nor willing 10 do
the work, undergo the hardships or
practice the economy which enabled
their ancestors 10 accumulate property
in farming. But this is no reason why
the lands they inherited should be left
to grow up to bushes. for there are
plenty OF foreigners who are not only
capable Of cultivating them successfully,
but have in thCm all the elements of
good citizenship, aud to these our com
missioner may well direct his attention.
The location ola thousand Scandinavian
families upon the unoccupied lands Of
this State will add immensely to its
strength and greatly advantage them.
The nonular hIood nnrifiar uood,s