The Bennington evening banner. (Bennington, Vt.) 19??-1961, 1911-07-15
. q n 81 ~ @ Ilfa1s11aall
VERMONT
Continued from sixth page

to his doorstep daily On his table
will often be found a larger assert
ment of current literature and high
class reading matter than most peo-
pie in Boston think they have time
to glance at.
The tendency of population in Yer
mont to gravitate from the country
side to the villages and cities need
not be emphasized by Mr. Rossiter or
anybody else to the states discredit
or to intensity any statistical picture
of gloom. Precisely the same thing
is going on in every state in the I'm
ion. Right now in Massachusetts the
press has been discussing the very
identical problem in the Bay State
The tendency to leave the fields and
build cities is as old as the story Of
the human race. 1t has brought up
on Europe tremendous economic
problem that her wisest statesman
ship has not solved. 1t will do the
same thing for America unless we
prove ourselves more gifted with wis
dom than any of the human family
that have lived and died before us.
Why single out Vermont, then, as a
horrible example?'
Few or No Abandoned Farms
But this drift from the rural reg
ions does not mean that the country
side Is being deserted, neglected and
is going to waste On the contrary
the farms of the state never were SO
hn
farmers never followed so faithfully
the latest approved precepts of the
science of agriculture as more and
more of them are doing every year
There has been something of a rev.
olution here in this respect in the
past decade even and specialized and
intensive farming, maple sugar max
ing, orcharding, Bookkeeping, tobac-
co raising and similar interests are
fast being developed to abundant
prosperity. Not only that, but the
so-called abandoned farms" are not
abandoned farms at all If the pion-
GERS that settled Vermont had enjoy
ed the light of modern knowledge of
the science of husbandry they never
would have cleared those farms for
tillage purposes. They are forest
soil. never will be anything else and
should revert to the forest And that
is what they are being left to do now.
When the second growth has been
established, the owners of such pro.
perty will take a greater annual pro
fit of the land by the employment of
expert forestry methods than a far.
mer could have taken out OF tilling
the soil for generations. Does such
change as this indicate "decadence'
or simple business common sense?
The fact is the public at large has
long had the notion fixed in its mind
that Vermont is an agricultural state
and almost nothing else, and pretty
much all comments on its people and
the conditions under which they live
are read and understood in that opin
ion The truth is that less than 81
per cent of the inhabitants ten years
old and over engaged in gainful occu
pations are engaged in agriculture
Vermont is an industrial state and
her Industrial interests are growing
fast. The special census OF 1906
showed the total annual value Of
manufactured products (of concern,
with a product valued at $500 anC
over to be 500, Os3,61l. a gain o
22.5 per cent over the figures of tn,
census OF 1900 There was alst
shown a gain of 474 per cent on IN,
total capital invested, an increase o
1875 per cent in the number OF work
men employed and of 1872 per cen
in the amount of wages paid. Tit
census of 1900 showed the annua
gross value of farm products in Yer
mont SSS,57O,s92, while the gross val
ne OF manufactured products was S57
623,S15. There were then twenty-on'
cities and towns out OF Vermont's "a
that had TO their credit annually man
ufactured products TO the amount o
$31,S6l, 29S, or only about S2,000,00l
less than the total agricultural prod
ucts OF the whole 246 When IN,
census of 1910 is completely tabulat
ed, the contrast will be even great
!