Oxford Democrat. [volume] (Paris, Me.) 1833-1933, 1907-08-20
The Abandoned Farm Myth.

Well, here ls TO Frank ID. Ward OF Ba-
tavia, NY, "msy he live long and pros
per-" His article on New York's aban-
doned farms is most timely, manly and
courageous defence of home conditions
and home institutions. l have been
through practically all of Maine, much
Of New Hampshire and Vermont, and
have studied farm conditions here as
Mr.. Ward has studied them In New
York, coming to just the same con-
clusions that he has. The cry of aban-
doned farms has done much to disparage
New England agriculture. No enter
prising, ambitious young man wishes to
locality for a lifework If the trend of the
people Is away from the business and
from the place. There is constant
tendency on the part of every one to 60
where others are going and to do as
others are doing. The power of ex-
ample is great and must be reckoned
with everywhere.
All through New England there are
villages and towns that were built un-
der conditions as they existed before
railroads were built. When the rail-
roads did come they were laid from city
to city, or along some waterways of easy
grades. Business began to 60 to them,
and as the towns around railroad centers
were built up, other towns which had
been dependent upon the business they
were getting failed of their support and
gradually came to decay. Let no one
mourn for the old times that kept these
now remote towns alive; rather let us
all put our shoulders to the wheel and
help push things in our business centres
so tfat demand for the products of
the soil may be created sufficient to war
rant the cultivating of lands far removed
from markets. Then the wood and tim
Der question is more and more becoming
an important one in our country. 1t is
folly to resist nature on lands unadapted
to tillage, for If let alone she will soon
clothe them with crops that shall return
many fold their former income, and with
no cultivation or labor on the part OF the
owner. Fifteen hundred dollars worth
of fine timber was recently sold from the
stump from seven acres of land near me,
and the young pine now stand too thick
for their best growth on the same land.
Fifty acres of upland pasture at The
Pines given up to nature in the early SOS
will sell for more than the whole farm
would have brought at that time for the
pines growing there.
Then, again, natural as we'll as COM
mercial conditions change. Our sweet
corn is growing this season on land that
was too low for any hoed crops when
cleared. In fact, the older people at
that time counted him foolish who took
an axe or scythe into the lower inter-
wales, thinking to ever harvest paying
crops for his labor He who would raise
corn, rye, wheat or potatoes In those
days must cling to the highlands and the
rocks. Let us not blame our forefathers
that these now barren hillsides were
ever cleared, but in taking advantage of
the changed and far better conditions
that exist to-day let us take courage and
thank God for their labOrs.
Oldtime agriculture was essentially
muscular. No machine came in to
tighten labor and increase the capacity
of the laborer. Then competition was
fair; now, with the machinery available,
it is the easily titled soil that gives pay.
ing returns. When the young men OF
one farm or of one locality are riding on
the cultivator, the plow, the moving
machine and the harvester, those of an
other locality will not willingly walk in
the furrow, cut weeds with hoe, or
swing a hand scythe; neither should
they, as the work can never be made to
pay.-B. Walker McKeen, Fryeburg,
Me-, in Tribune Farmer.