Ellsworth American. [volume] (Ellsworth, Me.) 1855-current, 1895-02-21

| Three weeks ago / visited the garden of
New England, the most fertile and pro-
ductive section of this country, the mag
nifcent county of Aroostook, which,
larger than the entire state of Connecti-
| cut, forms the northeastern boundary of
the United States. And in the town of
Caribou, I'D near the border line, | asked
one OF the merchants il the hard times
had affected them much up there?
"Why," said he, "if it wasn't for the
newspapers we shouldn't know anything
| about the hard times"
And in general way, that is true OF
the whole State. We miss the flood-tide
Of the sea Of population, but we escape
the streams of undesirable immigration
which pollute it. Strikes andi lockouts
are strangers within our gates; we have
no dangerous classes, no squalor and no
sums. In grandeur, beauty and diver
sity of scenery no equal area OF the sur
face OF the earth SO well epitomizes
Bryant's grandest poem as the State OF
Maine.
| THE hills rock ribbed and ancient as the sun,
The wales stretching In pensive quietness be-
tween,
The venerable woods and the complaining
brooks that make the meadows green.
And poured round all old oceans gray and
melancholy waste"
forming that wonderful combination OF
mountain, forest, river, lake and ocean,
found nowhere else upon the American
continent, II, indeed, upon the whole
round globe. Between the Gulf Of Mex
leo and the Bay OF Fundy there lare but
two points at which old ocean bathes the
feet Of lofty mountains, and bothlof them
are on the coast OF Maine, one at Bar
Harbor, the grandestI seaside watering
place in the world, the other, its future
rival, beautiful Camden by thesea. upon
the western shore oftPenobscot bay. The
Canada goose, seeking the summer SOL
tice of Hudson's Bay, covers two hun
dred and fifty miles OF air line flight
along the coast OF Maine, afrom Kittery
Point in the west, to Quoddy Head in the
east but the more appreciative summer
tourist, tracing the outlines OF those
beautiful bays OF Casco, Narraguagus,
Muscongus Penobscot, Frenchman's,
Passamaquoddy and the hundreds OF
harbors, headlands and peninsulas which
with their myriad islands indent and
embroider that lovely shore, finds three
thousand miles of ocean boundaries
(more than any state in the Union, not
even excepting Florida or California;, so
beautiful as to have caused an eminent
clergyman to say with a a sigh, "What a
!, pity that God is making no more Maine
! Of
twenty thousand square miles of.primeval
woods seven times greater than the
Black Forest of Germany, onehalf of it
as yet still virgin to the touch Of man; by
nature stocked with deer and moose and
!, caribou, with wild duck, woodcock and
cartridges more plentiful than domestic
fowls, and almost "a tame. Is there boy
of you who doesn't recall some one of the
more than sixteen hundred lakes repre-
sented on the map, or one OF the more
than five thousand rivers and streams
alive with bass and pickerel, trout and
salmon, from which he drew the first and
greatest prize of his life?
"For what the joys that we perish to win,
l To the first little sinner caught with pin :
No soil upon earth is so dear to our eyes
A the soil we first stirred in terrestrial pies"
, Let me assure you, sons of Maine, that
r the old homestead is to-day even more at
tractive than ever before. The skies are
} still as blue, the streams are still as clear,
the air is still as pure, and hearts as warm
and fond and true as when you left it and
the fountain OF perennial youth, which
, Ponce de Leon failed to find in Florida, a
live Yankee has discovered in Poland
mineral spring. The State to-day stands
tiptoe on t he threshold of her greatest era
, of prosperity. The development of the
new mort beast, the fertile valleys of the
Penob scot and St. John rivers, are opening
: up the finest game preserves in North
!, America, and the home and playground
of your childhood is day the natural
summer home and playground of the
} manhood and womanhood of all America
To the Chicago sons of Maine bring a
; hearty hail and generous Godspeed from
your brot hers and sisters at the old home,
and in conclusion give you this senti-
ment, Gods country:n
our native State that glorious land
of mountain, forest, lake and shore,
Old ocean sings her ceaseless praise
In diapasons of his roar,
And nurtured on her ample breast,
Full many goodly prospect lies,
. In natures richest grandeur decked,
Enameled with her loveliest dyes.
( Rich pastures decked with flowers of gold,
Like sunlit oceans roll afar;
Broad lakes her azure heaven behold,
, Rejecting clear each trembling star.
And mighty rivers mountain born,
Go sweeping onward dark and deep,
Through valleys where the bounding fawn
I Beneath their shelterng branches leap.
And Graded mid her clustering hills,
Sweet wales in dream-like beauty hide,
Where love the air with music ms.