Spirit of the age. [volume] (Woodstock, Vt.) 1845-1913, 1910-11-05
What's the Matter
with Vermont2

Editor Herbert Myrick of the New
England Homestead has written an
open letter to the governor and legis-
lature of Vermont in Which he out
lines very comprehensive policy
for the regeneration of Vermont.
He urges the people to wake up to
the possibilities within their grasp
and to utilize their undeveloped
resources.
1t is a straight business proposition
from Mr.. Myrick, and our readers
can judge of the feasibility of it's
features from the extracts which
follows:
DRY ROT is ONE TROUBLE.
Dry rot is one trouble in Vermont.
Except in few favored towns. your
population has declined during the
past ten years. Speaking broadly,
the state has been stationary, if not
retroQrading, for nearly so years.
Good farm land continues to revert
back to brush. Some rural towns
have only one-third to one half as
many people as they had prior to
1850.
Your graveyards are too full, your
houses too empty. Your young men
and maidens have not only left the
farms but too many of them have
left the state. Your birth rate is
disgracefully small. and but for the
fecundity of the virile immigrant
from over seas, the proportion Of
births to deaths would be even worse.
Your cities have grown, but 80 has
the decrease in rural population.
1t is only of recent years that your
own people have begun to show re-
newed faith in their own state. They
lost millions of capital in western
Investments, instead of putting that
money into Vermont farms and in
dustries,. backed by men and methods
that would make it yield large divi-
dends. For years your state was
dominated by railroad ring which
sapped your industrial life blood.
Even at the present day and up to
this very hour, no governor or legis-
lature in Vermont has fully grasped
conditions, or effected sufficiently
comprehensive policy and feasible
plan for remedying this state of
affairs.
THE FOUNDATION ALL RIGHT.
The people of Vermont have been
80 self-satisfsd with their progress
down hill, says Mr.. Myrick, that they
need good hot blister to counteract
their lethargy.
Yet you people of the Corpora
tion of Vermont possess brains,
capacity, industry. capital. The
blood of Vermont is of the purest in
the United States. Your public insti-
tutions are the outgrowth of 300
years of freedom, citizenship, self
government. The Green Mountain
state has a glorious history, but has
failed to even capitalize that Much
of your soil, even of some so-called
abandoned farms, is as fertile today
as it was century ago But because
either the people, or the state, or
both have failed to grasp the chang
ing conditions of the past 10 or 20
years, you now face the pitiful reyela
tions of the 1910 census! Although
YOU are at the threshold of the. best
produce markets in the world your
farms are relatively cheaper than
land in almost any other part of
America"
WHAT ARE THE CAUSES?
Some people say these distressing
are due to the Civil war
Why, gentlemen, we are about TO
celebrate the fftieth anniversary OF
that war Yet some of your people
talk and act as though the war were
not yet over
Some folk still bemoan western
competition" blind to the fact that
your land which sells slowly at $40
an acre, will raise as much grain as
land in Illinois or Iowa that sells
quickly at $3.50 to 5000 an acre
You rail at the beef trust, but you
fail 10 realize that You can make
meats and all other animal products