The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1903-07-30
VERMONT.

Here is another exemplification of
the wonderful push, omnipotence and
omniscience of official Vermont in
these later times
In the last week of May the board
of agriculture gave notice that it was
farms for sale and places for summer
resort - Copy would be furnished the
I'd or Sd of June and the first issue
must be ready in ten days after copy
is received - And so on.
Well, the summer weeks have rolled
along, the tide of summer travel has
been rising meanwhile and is near its
flood Now comes the issue of the
pamphlet which in May must be
ready in ten days 1t is like mer-
chant advertising spring and summer
goods after the season has eliminated
and the people have bought elsewhere
and are wearing their summer cloth
ing.
1t is a rather sumptuous publica-
ton. The printers, the Messenger
Company Of st. Adams, have produced
pamphlet that is fine, indeed, in all
the details of the art preservative. F"
Aside from the pictures the contents
are meager, and these, excepting the
advertising of the real estate agents,
are largely and somewhat excessively
rhetorical--in prose and poetry, an
other characteristic of official Yer
mont. Buncombe is the chief stock in
trade
As to the pictures, the photography
of the Desert of Sahara may make
that vast waste of sand and rock, in
spots, an extremely attractive region
for the tourist and FOR persons seeking
rest and recreation; which goes to
teach that by skillful employment of
the powers of selection the most God
forsaken region in the world may be
made to appear a Garden of Eden.
Pictures amuse children but with
practical people they count for little
or nothing in an advertising scheme
like this of the Vermont board of agri-
culture. The profuse picturing of
carefully selected summer homes"
like the 'Buena Vista FARM, Wind
sor-a part of the property of the late
VIM. M. Everts, or the 'Grout Farm"
in Caledonia county, or 1000 bushcl
corntields" in undesignated localities,
phenomenal hayfields, ETC., etc. these
are not the Vermont of fact: these are
the Vermont OF romance, of summer
homes" created by the lavish expendi-
ture of money earned or made"
elsewhere. 1t was, also, happy
thought to include in the picture pages
a cut of the Vermont School for Re-
Fiction" at Windsor, to wit, the
States prison. But the exclusiveness
of the editing body is open to crit
cism; it should have honored Rutland
with views of the house of correction,
and each county with a cut of it's jail,
to show prospective summer visitors
what pains have been taken to pre-
serve them from injury while sojourn-
ing among the Green Mountains.
In the prologue Vermont is declared
To ne one of the smallest States of
the z, 7nion." Having an area of 9515
square niles, the State is nevertheless
-spnarfc, ally - larger than Massa-
chusetts nv "A bout 1000 square miles,
but smaller by !. ONE 1000, 600 inhabit-
ants, and vastly 81. aller sui materi-
ally. The wide dispe> 'portloh III peo-
pie and wealth is not "i'ose'i'er d
latter Of natural disadvatie. goo -, III
some large degree the explanah> - o4
elsewhere and is the result, in g,
measure, of very narrow and uneli-
frightened State policy, and this, Ill
turn getting back to the source OF
things--is the consequence, the PEN
atty, of a system of representation that
grossly violates the fundamental prin-
ciple of a republican government.
The prologue reciter is frank enough
to say--or was it slip, fall down,
in an imagination that saw the
Garden of Eden pleasantly located in
almost any part of the State ?"-is
frank enough to say that the columns
OF statistics will show that but small
proportion Of the States acreage is
titled; he expatiates on the wealth
of timber annually harvested upon her
hills but did not say that but one
annual crop is ever taken from any
given hill, which then lapses into a
fire-swept or flood ravaged desert,
and becomes a contribution to Ver-
mont's large proportion of unculti-
waited and uncultivable-a now
estimated at some 1000, 900 acres, OF
one third the area of the State. He
says nothing either Of the continued
and wasteful harvesting of this
wealth of timber" or of measures
TO restore the vast wasted area thu
harvester leaves behind him to produc
ton of any kind, and particularly thu