Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1901-08-06
VACATED LANDS.

L
Among the many writers who on the
annual return of the vacation season, on
the occasion of re-visiting their haunts,
write so fluently of what are popularity
designated abandoned FARMS" it is re-
freshing to find one who truly compre-
hends the real status of the subject mat
ter under consideration. Fannie Beecher
White writes TO the Massachusetts,
Ploughman: II know of no farm that
can be called abandoned that is fit to be
called farm. With all the improve
ments of this enlightened age, life is too
short to try to cultivate land only suit
able for sheep to roam over"
In a few words the whole subject mat
ter of vacated lands, bemoaned by so
many theorizers, is at once compre-
hended and their future relation to agri-
culture indicated. In the same connec-
tion is frequently heard the further as
sertion that they never should have
been cleared.
In order to trace line of intelligence
through the course of events connected
with these lands, one must have an un-
Outstanding of the relation in which
they have stood, and the important
place they have filled in the agricultural
development in the past. Briefly told,
the first settlers cleared these rocky,
hllly lands for the wise reason that it
was on these lands that they could get
their best crops, and at the least outlay
of labor. These were matters of the
greatest Importance then as they are
now and ever must cOntinue-the pro-
duction of crops at least outlay of labor.
On visit not long since to one of the
best farms in North Aroostook, the
owner was found following the example
of the pioneers before him in cutting
and burning the hard wood forest from
the rockiest and highest swell of land on
the farm. There was intelligence in
such a course. Not for him was it to
consider what would be best for him
who should own that farm in a hundred
years from that time.
Then again, and of a like Importance
from an economic standpoint, the roug Ii
and rocky hillsides presented tritling
obstruction to the hand work of that
early time. The day of machinery in
farming had not dawned. Lands now
''only suitable for sheep to roam over
were all right for the methods and the
tools of those early days. In measuring
the intelligence of those who hewed our
New England farms from the forest, this
one fact had an overpowering impor-
tance. To assert, therefore, that these
rough hill lands should never have been
cleared, shows an utter disregard of the
in which the people of that.
time were situated.
Changes have been gradually going |
on as the years have passnd by. Rail-
roads have wound their way through |
the valleys. Centres of business have
grown up. Business has been called
down from the hills to the level of the |
rails over which its products find way |
to a market. Schools, colleges and
churches centre in the populous villages. |
Farm machinery has been invented and |
put to its work on the land. Change is |
written on everything that goes to make |
up the surroundings of a people, and the |
people themselves are changed in a
measure corresponding. They are no
longer cOntented to climb the long as |
cending heights TO reach their farms, so
in common with other lines of business |
have come down TO the lower levels. |
Machinery cannot be used to advantage
among the powders, and as land free |
from rocks can be bought for less money |
than it will take to clear the other, the |
hill lands gradually fall into discount |
and lose a large measure of their former |
value. Thus it is that the rough, rocky |
hill lands, following the changes going |
on about them, have gradually lost value |
to become outlying pastures. There is |
no resisting such conditions. These |
farms are simply following a law of
progress. Business, farming and even
society gradually yet surely trend to the
point of least resistance, that is, to
where there is least to overcome in order |
to maintain position. Farmers can now do |
better than grow crops among the rocks |
by hand power, climb the hills to reach |
their farms, or make their homes in in |
accessible localities. This depopulating |
of land the least desirable under modern |
conditions and with these later sur
is not, therefore, movement |
to be deplored. Until the population |
SO increases among us as to make these |
lands a necessity the present tendency |
must hold. control. The high, bleak |
hills, the inaccessible localities, the |
rough and rocky lands are less desirable |
than those situated amid surroundings
more in keeping with modern farming |
and the life that goes with it. Until we
have denser population there are still
more lands that had better be given to
the summer pasturage of tocks and
herds