The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-07-14
OLD HOME
 WEEK FEVER
ALL NEW ENGLAND BROKEN OUT
 WITH IT THIS YETR
the Big Cities Calling On Prodl9al Sons and Daughters te Come Home and See Horse Shows, Balloon Races and Renew tho
 Memories of their
 Y0uth.

New England is all broken out this year with Old Home week. In other years the desease has ceen. local and sporadic instead C.. as now. general and acute. If the plans and hopes of the promoters are realized the remain der of the United States will be de- populated for . considerable part of tho hot weather season of 1907 and the continent will tilt in the direction of Boston.
 For the benefit of those who may not know-if any there be SO benighted Lit may be explained that Old Home week is that one h-second part of State when permanent residents extend the glad hand to prodigal sons and daughters and bestow the gracious smile upon the stranger within their gates: when the wandering one, who in earlier years was looked upon as the most unpromising limb of Satan in the place and was the object of con- fident predictions concerning prison bars and a hot time in the hereafter, is urged to come back and meet face to face Farmer Jones. whose apples he stole in boyhood's careless hours, to talk over with Farmer Jones his later experiences; to foregather with the kchoolmaster whose life was made burdensome by him until forbearance
  ment was promulgated; to take dip in the old swimming hole and catch i fish from the pool beneath the mill dam.
 That is, if the wandering one has been reasonably successful in a material wsy and a credit to the home of his youth since the flaming sword was very we'll in its place. but the New Englander has reputation for thrift to maintain, and he Is not urging the coming of those whose return car fare he may be called upon to pay.
 They say that the idea of Old Home week originated in the brain of Cover nor Rollins. of New Hampshire. They" in this case refers to New Hampshire people. Others there are who dispute the White Mountain claim.
 A certain faction holds that Mel bourne, Australia, gave the first dem onstration of what could be done in the way of an Old Home week when Melba returned to her native city some years ago. There is no do@bt that Australia s celebration was brilliant success. Melba sang to the multitude. the city was crowded with strangers. and the municipal advertising which resulted was distinctly beneficial
 On the other hand, it isscertain that before Melba revisited her former nome the 1Qea or TeCdlllHS stray eu children had been put into practical execution in a New Hampshire village and that from beginning 1t spread until now Old Home week Is an established and annual event in the White Moun tain State.
 As they say in commercial literature, there's a reason. There is. undeniably a beautiful sentiment attaching to the call of the country village where you were reared and where the wise men declared that you would never amount 10 a tinker's dam, the call to come home and have little st tmid old sur roundings. There is enough in the sentiment to admit of expansion into a column and a half. with careful handling.
 But there was another side to the ease. New Hampshire had become seriously alarmed by the growth of her abandoned farm district. Thousands of acres of 1t there was-monuments to the disinclination of youth for farm work and the inability of age to con- tinue in active agriculture forever.
 There are lands as beautiful as New Hampshire in summer. but none more beautiful, and when the abandoned acres had piled up sufficiently the pos sibility of exploiting its natural beau ties took hold on the State Results have Justified the hope. Read what the press agents says:
 Tt was decided to exert an heroic effort to induce the prosperous prodi-