The Newtown bee., 1903-06-19

ford, Garrett Marshall Stack, Louis Frederick Talbot, Frank VintOn.
 Miss Laura A. Hatch'S excellent paper on "The Rural Problem" is giv. en in full:
 Seventy-fve years ago in any of our New England states one could have driven for miles over the many hills and through the valleys, past a sue cession of prosperous farms and happy, peaceful villages, each village with it's meeting house, SchOolhouSe and coun- try store. On the farms we would have seen large, homely but comfort able farmhouSes, in the kitchen spin ming wheel, with the farmers wife moving slowly back and forth spinning yarn for the family needs. In the fields toiled the stalwart farmers, men whose ancestors helped to make this land and whose love for their home is second only to love of country.
 To-day: In neighborhood where 50 years ago were found l2 or 15 prosper ous farmers living with their families, in comfortable farmhOuSes, we now find perhaps one or two, perhaps not ants. In their places we find foreign Clo3 "AO l4dNC 1lCClC lOSC lOl Ul1lo NOuu- try or for their work save as means totally abandoned, still the property of their former owners but conside red by them as hardly worth the labor of cultivation. Few people will believe that in Litchtield county alone there are 70 farms of this description.
 Driving through one of the northern counties of Connecticut one might see somewhat dilapidated farmhouse, surrounded by little group of still more dilapidated outbulldings. At one side of the house we see an old we'll with it's long, heavy sweep and mess covered bucket. Thinking that drink from this we'll might be very refresh ing, we go to the door and ask for some water. Just inside the door, with his chair tipped back against the wall, we find the farmer peacefully smoking his pipe. Is he the thrifty, hard working farmer of 50 years ago? We ask for drink and he says: ''The bucket fell inter the well and I haint had time yit ter git it Out." The con- dition of the outbuildings, fences and the general appearance of the place would indicate that the bucket in the we'll is not the only thing he has not had time to attend to ''yit."
 Old residents remember when mod est, even large fortunes were made on farms. How was this done we ask? Then the farmer lived on the products of his farm. His own farm was his best market. He went without many of the things which, though they seem bare necessities to us, were luxuries to him. The farmer of 50 years ago loved his farm and his work. Are the COL ditions the same with the farmer of to-day? No, the average farmer of to- day remains farmer simply because he is unable to do anything else and because there is nothing else for him to do. He only works when he is really obliged to do so, and in many villages near large farming sections, we would see ten o: dozen of these farmers
 unning themseives on the porch of the pOstOftice or village store on a field at work. In winter he goes fish ing or dozes by the kitchen fire. We wonder, perhaps, at this indolence which will in time result in the aban- donment of his farm.
 This state of things may be account ed for possibly by the fact that the men of enterprise have moved to the nearby cities and towns where the op- portunities for acquiring fortunes are much better. Their going has left behind the men who care nothing for their work and have no ambition whatever. Then the farmers who made fortunes years ago, invested them in land, whose value has depreciated and the farmer of to-day is left with a large farm and no means wherewlth to cultivate it. The average farmer after trying for few years to make a success of a large farm, gives up the attempt entirely because he is unable to hire men and buy machines neceSSa. ry for the cultivation of so much land. As d usual thing he starts out with very little capital and runs in debt fol farm machinery or even the farm itself He does not seem to realize that he can work less land to better advantage. With only few acres it is not neces. Sary to hire many men or buy expen. sive machines. He need not wear out h life so bard, getting no adequate ability to cultivate large farm to the same advantage that he cultivates a small one, the large one can be made profitable. But to cultivate large farm prOftably one must have more genius and capital than most men possess.
 The cause of most of the evils in the South is laid at the door of the Civil War and justly; but what was the eff. feet upon our New England farms and farmers? During the war most of the able-bodied men were at the front, and consequently the farms were much neglected. The women, boys and mer doing what they could; few crops were raised and good land was allowed tc deteriorate in value. After the,warlthe men came home, many of them broker in health and filled with restless, un easy spirit which made the steady farm work irkSOme. Few of them haC any money to hire men and plOdded or alone, it is no wonder that during that period of depression many of them lost courage. Some of the farms were sold far below their value and their owners went westward in search of new anG more fertile lands.
 Still another cause has been the es CONTINUED ON PAGE sEVEN.I