Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1904-11-08
Low Priced Lands of the East.

The Maine Farmer never has tried to
evade or cover up the fact of the ex-
tremely low selling value of desirable
farm lands in the East, and especially of
such lands here in Maine. The writer
has had occasion during the harvest just
past of riding up and down both the An
droscoggin and the Kennebec valleys
and noting some of the recent farm
sales. In natural productiveness, in
location and market facilities, lay of the
land and beauty of scenery, these val
leys, and Others in the state, are not
excelled and rarely equalled in any
other section of the country. Yet the
selling value of lands and their improve
ments here as well as elsewhere in the
East, is astonishingly low, so low that
those who learn of such values are wont
to conclude therefrom that they are in
fertile, undesirable and valueless. These
lands are not for sale for any reason of
being undesirable and unproductive.
But people grow old and can no longer
carry the burdens of care and labor.
So, too, people die and estates must
change owners. Such changes are nu-
merous in every locality. These are the
principal causes that put these desirable
farms on the market. They must be
sold regardless of value.
A professor well known throughout
the country, and of high standing in
one of the colleges of agriculture in one
of the states of the middle west where
farm land is current at one hundred dol
lars an acre, recently stated TO a student
privately that if he were going to locate
in farming he should 60 to Maine.
A Wisconsin correspondent of the
Country Gentleman writes 'that instead
of paving one hundred dollars an acre
for land in Wisconsin he should go
East, for as sure as the sun rises and
sets" he continues, II believe there
will be more money made in the advance
in price of land in the East than there
will be in the West. The land and build
ings are all there; railroads and markets
at your very DOORS"
These men have caught on to the
situation. This shows that what We
want if we would bring back the value
of our fine Maine farms is to advertise.
The great influx of people into this
country do not know that here in Maine
we are offering them more for the money
than can be found in any other section
of the country. Note what Strout's
agency is doing through its advertising
in the sale of real estate to parties from
other states. Consider conditions in
Aroostook county-there are no low
priced lands there. Every man in the
county considers himself commissioned
to whoop her up and ring the changes on
all occasions on the potato crop for those
Aroostook lands, and we on the outside
are helping them do it to the neglect of
our own equally inviting and in some
respects more desirable valleys. If the
state would spend the money and give
the attention to booming the farms and
the farming in their true light that it
has done and is now doing to attract
attention to our wild lands and the game
running therein, the increase of property
values resulting therefrom would mount
up into thousands where now it is only
in dollars. What is needed here is more
people in the rural towns. The way to
get their attention is to advertise the
opportunities here to be found. No sec
ton of the country, as statistics show,
produces better crops than are harvested
here in Maine At the same time no.
where is the land that produces them
rated at SO low value.-Maine Farmer.