The daily morning journal and courier., 1905-09-29
A Good and steady state.

To Editor of the Journal and Courier: Quotation from Country Life:
 What is the matter with Connecticut: 1 Cider tOpers have made the state I famous or infamous"
 Should such a challenge go before all
 readers of Country Life without an an-
 sWer? Admit we have abandoned
 farms. Is there one single state that
 has not abandoned farms? Are there not in every state to be found farms | for sale at less than cost of buildings on the farm? I can instance three such states other than Connecticut, where
 have farmed land, that the above con- | ditions were not uncommon. In 1863, 1 when farms paid better than before or since that decade, farmed fifty acres
 four miles north of Springfield, Mass, where I raised twenty bushels of rye l per acre, which sold in Springfield for | $125 bushel. The land on which this
 rye was raised could be bought for. $10
 an acre, level and free for the blow. Buildings on some of these farms cost more than the valuation of the farm. I leased, in 1864. my fathers farm of 100 acres in Connecticut, paying for the same cash rent of $200 year and all taxes and repairs of buildings for 8 term of fire years. My accrued profits for the term were S4,000. With that money I bought a farm in Maryland, On the eastern shore-price $4,000. That farm contained 140 acres and had pre- viously been sold for $5,000. sunk $6,000 there trying to make profit rais- ing and selling peaches and grapes. Two farms three miles from the farm I bought there sold for $7,000, which was much less than cost of buildings on them-and the buyer at that price lost money. One tract of land there of 250 acres sold for $1, 500, with buildings. All these farms faced the Choptank river, where a steamboat line ran to Baltimore
 The summer of 1874 I farrned 160'acres in southern Minnesota, with seventy acres under the blow; raised sixty acres of wheat; harvested what the neighbors said was the best crop of wheat produced in the three previous years. My crop was nine bushels per acre, all bound in bundles by myself eAI4A O1lC AIicb1l 4lL SAA Ss1y A4tAhA LAlCI at that date would not sell for $10 an acre with buildings. I travelled with team 100 miles further west and passed numerous abandoned farms, It was proverbial that a team of horses would buy the title to 8 160-acre farm. There were no ''cider topers' there, for there was no cider. paid thirty cents for four quarts of apples; these were ship ped from Wisconsin. Maryland had few 'cider topers" for & similar reason, but there were plenty of "whiskey top ers.''
 Connecticut has been known as the Hand of steady habits" which 1t de- serves to this day, and it is good state and one of the best to live in. If men and boys and girls here earn more money in other vacations than farming, that is why farms are offered for sale below the cost of buildings. Western men are coming here to buy farms. Not long will present conditions exist. To those who want farms I say buy now, for not long will present prices con- tinue.
 I have just read in the Connecticut report of the state board of agriculture for 1904 of former conditions of country life here which 8 president of a univer- sity describes and says: There was not much money in it. I do not know how many hundred dollars in actual cash passed through the old leather pocketbook."
 I have just looked over my cash re- ceipts for the year 1868 on the leased Connecticut farm, and find the figures foot up $10,S71.56.
 I will say that one thing doubtless is true which may in part answer the question, What is the matter with Conneeticut?" In no other state per- haps are 50 many ways open to earn money away from the farm, thereby offering many Inducements to leave the 
 A New Haven County Farmer.