The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1890-05-08
NUMBER 16.
AN OPEN LETTER TO A NEW ENG
LAND FARMER

| you ana your family should not be
among the happiest and healthiest of
mOrtals this side of heaven.
But just now fresh wave of discOn-
tent is passing over your mind, as you
bread the accounts of the abandoned
Farms of New England" Don't get
alarmed and sell a good farm for half its
real value. With the introduction of
labor saving machinery it is necessary
and best that some stony farms on which
moving machines cannot be used should
be turned into pastures and wood land.
1t is the most profitable use to which
they can be put.
Do not let these things "mOve you"
In order to retain a proper rainfall it is
providential that much land is reverting
to forest growth. Sell these few vacated
houses to city people, who need summer
homes and let the main portion of the
farm "bring forth trees abundantly." ="
And is it not better that you should so
fertilize one acre of land as to get two or
three tons of hay than TO swing a scythe
over three acres of poor, rocky land, in
order to secure the same amount of hay?
But some farmer says, 1--WE cannot
compete with Western farmers.'' Per-
haps not as regards grain and meat, but
when 1t comes to vegetables, especially
garden products and milk butter, poultry,
eggs, honey, berries and many other
things, you can easily hold your own
with the West and the whole world. As
the writer was born on a western farm
and has also lived among eastern farmers
he knows the difference between the
East and West in this regard. The main
advantage in owning a western farm is
the possible and probable rise in the
value of the land. But in the hope of
gaining in time few thousand dollars
thereby, you must remember the danger
of malarial diseases, the poor water, the
location from ones eastern friends and
relatives, and many other deprivations,
while in New England you can buy a
good farm for what the buildings and
fences cost, and where you can, with
machinery, secure living almost, if not
quite, as easily as in the West, with good
society, good water, good roads and
many other blessings which have been
obtained by long patient effort.
With the rapid growth of New England
cities and villages we must have farmers
near at hand to supply what cannot well
be brought from the West. And we
want these rural communities, also, as
the nursuries where our strong-limbed
and arge-brained men and women are to
be grown, as the main reliance of the
business prosperity of our cities, until
city life becomes more normal and
healthful. But" says another, 1--WE are
being driven out of the butter market by
Western creameries and oleomargarine
factories" But why? Good New Eng
land creamery butter will find ready
market now and evermOre. But the day
for kitchen made butter is rapidly passing
away.
People eat suet in puddings and gravies
and they prefer to have butter, certainly
for cooking purposes, made partly of
clean suet, than to buy the smoky, dust
laden and often frouzy butter, made in
the average farmers kitchen. A great
change in the past decade has taken
place in this direction in the butter mar
ket, and you will do well to govern your
self accordingly. Combine with your
neighbOrs and have creamery or else
sell your milk and send it to us in sealed
cans that we may know what we are buy
ing, and there is no good reason why you
should sell milk for three cents quart
| to be delivered to us at seven and eight
cents. You had better unite and hire an
agent to sell your milk in the city and so
save the profit which now goes to the
middle men" who, too often, not only
defraud you but us by milk adulteratiOn.
By thus sending your milk to the factory
or the city you will thereby relieve your
wives and daughters of one of theiI
heaviest burdens, and your clean cream.
cry butter will find constant market at
double the price ever received by youI
ancestors. Then you should give more
attention to small fruits and vegetables.
A wealthy man on Staten Island some
years since showed the writer one acre
of gravelly ground from which he had,
in one year, sold a thousand dollars
worth of blackberries.
| New England farmers must use theiI
brains with which their Maker has SO
literally endowed them if they would
keep up with the changing condition OF
things just as truly as merchants and
manufacturers are compelled to do il
they would succeed.
Furthermore, if you wish to keep youl
wives and children cOntented you must
give them social mental privileges. You
must have public libraries as well as
papers and magazines at home enough
to fill up spare hours with wholesome
pleasure and improvement.
Invite manufacturers to locate theii
business in your town, which at present
is trending largely toward smaller town,
where raw materials and reliable hell
are cheaper.
Invite city people to spend their sum
mers with you, for nearly every town il
New England has become or may bC
made q welcome summer resort fal
preferable for all concerned than the ex
citing life at crowded fashionable sum
mer hotels.
And while the writer is no Henry
George follower, yet there is "singlt
tax" issue which you and we should agi
tate, and so secure Justice. | refer Il
the tax on both mortgage and deed, boil
of which represent the same piece o.
property. If it would be unjust for yOl
to pay taxes on borrowed money foI
which you were paying legal interest i
certainly is unjust to pay taxes on rea
estate beyond what is actually your own
The man who holds the mortgage is tn,
real owner of the property until it il
paid for, and on that mortgage he prop
erly pays taxes. Why, then, should yol
be taxed for the same property on whicl
he is justly paying taxes?
You must also understand and appl'
the sOil-fOOd question better than you
fathers. When the soil can be so easil,
ianalyzed and you can know precisel
what it needs to produce given product
! this knowledge should be used to con
slant advantage.
When we see how steadily soil impoy
, erishment is going ON in this country
pushing the wheat belts to the extrem
! West until even the wheatfields of Cali
i fornia are showing decadence, it is tim
to be alarmed. One writer saws tina
I when Rome built her great sewer, one O
the then greatest engineering feats @
the world, she soon swallowed the agri
/, cultural wealth of Italy, and in time, @
: almost the whole world, as most marke
, products went to Rome with no retur
of fertilizing revenue to the starvin
farms.
2 1t is well that London and Paris ar
being compelled as a sanitary necessit
to utilize sewerage, for this will brin
money also to the farmers pockets. Ii
stead of pushing it out into the water a
q useless substance to pollute air an
I water both, it can be so treated as to r,
! turn TO the soil whence it came, nature
i alchemy, where it will be regenerate
$ and come forth again in forms of beaut
Il and untold value.
Your farm will starve as readily as
person unless it is properly sustaine
and fed. Leaves, muck, pig sty, sin
a drain, night soil, must all be pressed int
service.
; But you need the counsel of a chemi,
to know how to manufacture and appl
! fertilizing material. Hen-drOppinQ
which will kill crop, if applied in fu
|. strength, if properly dried, pulverize
=