Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1906-10-30
INVITING TO YOUNG MEN.

10 tne eye tTdlneu CO Tedu tue IdT III
conditions of any given section Alright
from the farms and farmers themselves,
New England now presents most in
teresting and significant field for OBJ
servation. The persuasive advice OF
Horace Greeley to young men to sc
west was wise in its generation, since
it helped develop mighty nation.
Now a second seer is needed to counsel
a reactionary flow from land values that
have become excessive to fields once
considered comparatively barren, but
now proved by scientific adaptive hand
ling to be rich in crop productive posi-
bilities.
The ferment of exact knowledge and
improved methods has been gradually
spreading from colleges of agriculture
and experiment stations through the
mediums of the agricultural press, the
grange, and by means of the convincing
successes of progressive farmers, until II
has become patent that, acre for acre,
Maine and other portions of New Eng.
land are able to outyield the vaunted
crops of standard cereals produced by the
alluvial soils of the west.
The past decade has likewise demon
strated that New England has her apple
and peach belts, comprising large areas
of land not easily adapted to modern
methods of tillage, but which, when sci
and developed into orchards, can be
made to return 4 profit equal to or ex
ceediug that secured from the famous
citrus groves and other orchards OF
Florida or California. Examples ol
such achievement are personally wei
known to the writer in considerable
numbers, where the initial value Of the
land planted to orchards was not tentl
of that in the better advertised sections
of our country named.
What is true of orchards is equally
true of small fruits, market gardeI
products, potatoes, the dairy and poul
try plants, while the increasing million!
of hungry consumers, otherwise employ
ed at the very gates of the farms, insure
returns that the farms of the south ant
west cannot hope to equal.
Improvement and advancement ar
everywhere evident in New England a
shown by the keen interest taken il
exhibits of improved farm machinery a
the agricultural fairs, the enthusiastic
reception given to educational special
which have been run over New Englan'
railroads during the past year, and II
the spirited participation in meeting
devoted to agricultural instruction
Dealers in, and agents for farm ma
chinery, fertilizers and utensils, are
unit in accounting the present and re
/ -. ..oo-a xaoord hroo Gara In aa1aa n
commodities named.
New England has long been nurser
in which to rear and send our pioneer
of progress aud captains Of industr
whose efforts have reclaimed prairie
and plains from wild beasts and savag
man.
With all valuable public land prat
tically gone, the rising generation ives
ef the Alleghenies are casting ans lou
eyes toward Saskatchewan and oths
inaccessible regions, not realizing ths
the home of their earliest ANCESTOR
then spurned, is now but waiting fe
skillful, scientific handling to surpai
the widely y-heralded west in net return
for effort expended.
Already the tide of home-seekers ha
commenced to ebb this way as the new
of New England farm possibilities, ,
first skeptically received, gradual
filters westward and Is found to !
based on fact. The New England far
is to come into its own; not with trun
pets and boom methods, common fu
ther west, but none the less surely an
with a steady, substantial, prospero,
development brought about through th
effort of her present sons and the pO
terity of those gone out in other years.
| B. r. w. THORPE.
TO BE MORE FOREST PLANTING.
| There are two things which durir
the past fifty years have affected Ne
ENGLAND sQricultura moro than 9