Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1892-07-28
THE SUMNER soARDER.
He Is Making Useful the Deserted Farms
of New England.

Maine farms are now a center Of attrac-
ton, for the twofold reason of their desira-
b!lity as place for summers outing and
Of the agitation concerning agriculture rs
business Whether the motive be obser-
walton or pleasure. the tide Of travel is
countrywarl. Contrary to generally pre-
vailing notions, the more remote. obscure
and quiet the district, the more il suits
certain and better class of summer visitors,
The fisherman, instead Of the lakes, tries
the brooks Of his fathers; the hunter wan
ders over the paths he trod in boyhood and
the college professor or the clergyman
studies nature in the country fields rather
than the forest depths.
This blending Of city and country is
helpful to both, and perhaps in time may
bring about a solution of rural troubles,
which all the wisdom of Legislators and
writers 80 far had failed to do. Farmers
in New England, | think, have failed to
properly understand the functions of their
business, and have considered their par.
ticular stretch of territory as valuable
only when certain crops could be raised
with profit. The great crops for national
consumption are now produced on the al
business enterprise, a fierceness, almost,
and certainly success that has caused the
eastern farmer to thrust his hands into his
pockets with despair, while his fields fill
with friendly pines and his barns are
empty.
1t is at this stage that the summer
boarder steps in, bright bird of passage,
and brings to his notice that there are
| products on his farm that le has never
cultivated. He sees the transformation in
the pale cheek of the city child which a
few weeks sunshine and pure air can give,
and now that his jealousy of the we'll
dressed stranger has ceased, for almost
| the first time in his hard scramble for q
| living he looks up to notice an unbounded
sky and around u diversity of landscape.
Surely this is no place for a matter-of-
fact business, but vast pleasure ground
for rest and recreation, and now he under.
stands in part the wise order of the Gre
ator and the fierce struggle with competi.
tion he has been through. He is learning
principle.
Sky and landscape have a commercial
value. Already the problem of the de-
serted farms is being solved. The dwellers
of cities are buying them, not as battling
grounds with the agricultural west, but
as pleasure grounds. Bat the farmer, the
bone and sinew of the land, whose puri
tanic sternness and simplicity have for two
centuries impressed us and been typifed
by the acres of land reclaimed from nature
and inclosed with miles of stone wall
what is to become of him? Honesty, hu
mility, simplicity, contentment and thrift
"a word which in his vocabulary is synony
nous with hard work) were his principles
Laughter to him was almost a sin anG
Artemus Ward riddle. How a man with
such surroundings could "goak" may vel
be a riddle to any one.
He was not an exotic, and this fact can
not fail to be important as basis for fu
ture Judgment. The future rural inhab
liant of Maine may smile and enjoy hi!
environment, even though his paterna
fields are covered with forests-a survival
perhaps, of the fittest
The attraction of factory life, where
man can earn more in six months without
expenditure of capital than in twelve O
farm work, to say nothing of the loss of in
terest on capital, with pleasure and intel
lectual life not attainable in the country
is decimating the population of Main,
farms; but those who have tasted countr,
sweets can never entirely cease from long
ing to return, at least for the summer, ant
their cottages, even of democratic sim
plicity, are dotting hillside and valley Will
increasing numbers. Certainly this health!
summer siesta, this lifegiving vacation OF
hill and in valley, is no mean product o
the Maine farm.-Maine Cor. Boston Com
monwealth.