Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1892-02-11
Rural New Hampshire.
From Harper's Bazaar

1t must be remembered that the older
regions of our country are undergoing
one of the greatest social transformations
ever seen. The American visitor to
Scotland, who expects still to fluid Rob
Roy in every glen, and Helen McGregor
striking a dramatic attitude on every
crag, is bewildered when there is put
into his hands stout annual volume in
which all Scotland is subdivided into let
tings for summer sportsmen. Yet even
in this newer country we have an eXpe.
rience not unlike this when, on visiting
that New Hampshire from whose gran
tie peaks the voices of Stark and Lang
don still resound-at least in Whittier's
verse-we are provided with pamphlets
issued by the state itself, and Offering
farms by the hundred for the disposal of
summer visitors. If there is pathos in
the Scotch glens and their groups of de-
serted hearth-stones, so there i pathos
in the 60 abandoned cellars to be found
within radius of two miles at one point
in the very town where | write. The
very views from the hills offer to one
who remembers them dozen years back,
a distinct increase of forest and diminu-
ton of cultivated land; and when we
find state official, in published report.
pointing with pride to park of % ,000
acres now created in New Hampshire
and peopled with deer and buffalo, where
once were so farms, it is impossible not
to see that the same process which has
transformed Scotland is now at work
among Americans. 1t makes, of course,
vast difference that the Scottish peas
antry were tenants, and were largely
evicted and transported by no action of
their own. whereas the fifty farmers dis
placed by Mr.. Corbin sold their lands
willingly, it is to be presumed, be-
cause they thought they could do
better elsewhere. But the result on
the social life of the rural community is
the same; the buffaloes cannot vote, the
moose cannot belong to farmers
grange" and the whole popular life OF
the township and the county is impover.
man to-day holds %, 900 acres for a deer
park, why should not another mar few
years hence hold that number of square
miles for the same purpose?
Apart from this remoter solicitude
there is temporary satisfaction in the
thought that this shifting of ownership
tends, on the whole, to cheaper the sum
mer vacation; that is, it gives room fol
avail themselves of the changes going or
in community ,hus shifting. Il he officia
pamphlet of New Hampshire offers
farms of 500 acres for $500. and of 15(
! acres for $500; and this with building,
standing, and within few miles of rail
read and postoffice. "Secure home il
New Hampshire" it says, cheerfully, OF
the title-page, ''where health, comfort
and prosperity abound" The scale OF
prices seems hardly compatible with
pros perity, except for the purchaser
but perhaps it is the purchaser who i
meant. And when one considers the
number of modest house holds for which
few hundred dollars may thus furnish
permanent summer RET reat into purel
air and outdoor existence, the sugges
ton of prosperity for them seems no
unreasonable, after all. Lowell wa;
right; it is not the summer itself that i;
costly, but the accessories we choose tt
put with it. If we once adopt ThOreau
motto, Simplify, | say, simplify june
is free to tolerably poor corners, aftel
all. Why should people be unhappy
because they cannot drive four-in-hanC
at Newport, Rhode Island, when al
Newport, New Hamp shire, they can buy
for $500 farm of 100 acres, house
with twelve rooms, barn, horse-barn
wood-shed, carriage house, and twenty
five grated fruit trees-all within easy
reach of Mount Sunapee and Sunapet
Lake? Why cannot a reasonable family
spend ''the lavish summer very cheap
~ in such farmhouse, provided the
household includes girls enough to lool
after the chickens and boys enough tt
drive home the COW? They can b.
guaranteed some visitors which the ut
most wealth or the Rhode Island New
port cannot secure-as, for instance. tn
wood-thrush and the whippoorwill.