Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1902-01-10
AUGUSTA LOCALS.
PROSPEROUS YEAR.
Senator Burleigh Of AroostoOk
Speaks Of County's Progress.
Potato, Hay, Grain. Starch and Lumber Bus'
ness All Thriving.

Hon. Albert A. Burleigh, Senator
from ArOostook county and a Leading
and influential citizen of eastern Maine,
is very enthusiastic over the success
full years business which his section of
the State has enjoyed during 1901.
Never has Aroostook known such
year as that just passed. said Mr..
Burleigh to reporter, yesterday;
never has the county been so prosper
ous as at present. You can tell this in
various ways and especially through
the banks which are overlooking with
deposits. Why, 1 know of one farmer
who deposited last year $4,000 received
Off his farm, while for the farmers to
deposit a thousand dollars is common
occurrence. Yes, indeed, the mortgages
are vanishing from the Aroostook
farms. The county is more flourishing
than ever it has been before and 1 see
no reason whatever why we should not
have another good season and then an
other indefinitely.
The reasons for such a future are
many. We have the goods. Just look
at the magnificent potato crop, the fine
hay crop, the grain crop, the starch in
dnstry and the lumber industry. 1t is
not the farmers alone who are prosper
GUS but everybody is making money
The lumbermen will get out lots o.
timber and the conditions in the woods
are now most favorable. They were Of
course hampered for a time during the
rains. but have since had so good op-
portunities to work that they soon
made up for lost time. Lumber is high
or in the market and the manufacturer
are bound to get good prices.
Look at it any way you will and you
will see that the Aroostook offers q
great field Suppose you are farmer
with a small farm and that you raise
but so barrels of potatoes to an acre
OF course many raise twice that but
let us be conservative.
Suppose you sell your potatoes for .
dollar n barrel. (you can always get
that and often much more) then yOJ
Will have Il profit of $40 or $25 an aCrc
at the most conservative estimate. And
that is better than the far famed
western wheat fields on average to the
acre. WIZ. if | was intending to farm
TO-DAY I would far rather take my
chances in Aroostook than in the west
II know a young man who got dis
contented with life on an Aroostook
farm and went to MaSSa chuSettS. After
an absence of two or three years he
cane back home and bought a small
farm on credit. Last. fall he got his
first crop off that farm and this crop
paid for the farm and his living and
gave him q small balance and that is
what our Aroostook farms are doing
when properly managed. Our farmers
have learned wisdom in the past and
for the most part, are satisfied wher
they can receive a good fair price FOL
their products. The time for gamblint
on the potato market has now largely
gone by
NO there was never such a potato
crop in Aroostook and the farmers ar,
now getting sl.75 to $3.50 at Houltor
ard a little less in the upper portion o
the county.
The only difficulty is that we arc
finding trouble in shipping the potatoes
owing to the scarcity of heater cars
But we will manage to get them out
some way. | should estimate that
about half of the potato crop has beer
marketed"