The sun., 1904-07-17

. few rows OF unkept apple trees. theil
roots ohoked with plantain, wild oats anc
golden rod, and then a field Of weeds behine
q fallen fence, and after that the house.
1t is, likely as not, a colonial house, 30 vel
made In the only real native style Of Ameri
can architecture, 30 picturesque in its
dilapidation, as to make the heart Of ar
artist jump. The odds are that it has q
Colonial doorway, a Joy forever, with the
soft tones OF age upon it, There Is no
more beautiful example In America Of the
real colonial doorway than the entrance
to an abandoned farmhouse on the road
between Riverhead and Wading River.
The windows Of these houses are boarded
up, and the good old roofs, with their double
slopes, are falling in. The neighbor, driv-
ing past, tells his load OF summer boarders
that this belongs to the Smith boys or the
Jones outfit.
Good placer
1Oh, yes but the boys didn't want to
farm 1t and nobody wanted lease. Least
ways, nobody but passel Of Polacks that
wouldn't pay enough rent to feed q cow"
Between these farms there lie, In some
parts, tracts as strange to plough and
harrow as an Indian reservation Of the
West. These were forests Of oak and pine
In the old days, but the trees have been cut,
mainly for firewood. The stumps remain,
shooting out sprouts with every spring.
These sprouts never grow to saplings of
any size. because every two or three years
there Is a brush FIRE. So the country is
covered over with dense growth Of scrub
oak, perhaps two or three feet high, dotted
aoA,, ~f 4
phantoms Of burned saplings. On the
road between Riverhead and Wading River
you drive past Ave miles Of this under
growth and only one farm. The owners
don't clear it; neither do they sell. First
because they are ever holding out for rise
in values, and second because there is no
one to buy.
Now, in the old days the help" In plough
ing and harvest time was composed of
farmers sons, as is natural In any small
community. When the sons began to 10,
the farmers began to look for hands
elsewhere. It Is hard to got hands in a
place like Long Island. The farmer
along regular lines Of travel can pick up
wandering workmen or tramps stricken
with O sudden madness for work. But the
roads Of Long Island lead only to Sag Har-
Dor, and Sag Harbor is not metropolis.
The Long Island farmers had to hustle
and do the best they could.
At first the best consisted of Poles. These
Poles weren't satisfactory. To begin with,
the farmers sons had always mixed with
their employers on terms Of perfect equality.
They lived in tho house; they ate at the same
table. An American farmer hates to share
his yictuals with a Polish laborer. So
there was the social complication OF n
establishment. Then the Poles
weren't satisfactory as workmen, and thew
were disposed, as soon as they got a few
dollars ahead, to 60 back to Poland. So
the Long Islanders bounced the Poles
and tried tho Southern negroes. And the
negroes didn't suit their employer ideas
Of industry, either. They, too, would make
9 few dollars and then away to the Sunny
South.
All this had bearing on the abandoned
farm problem. Its the history OF American
farming everywhere that the country boys
don't stay with tho farms. Their places
are taken by the immigrants, and some
times the ~ sssD who have como in,