The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1911-08-03
THE ABANDONED FARMS.

In an article on 1.-The Abandoned
Farm, IN The American Magazine for
August, Walter Prichard Eaton shows
how the deserted homesteads of New
England may be reclaimed, and how a
real country home is within reach of city
people of moderate means.
1--WE want to see our abandoned farms
taken up by those from the cities who
have little money to invest in sum-
mer home, who delight in country life
and country freedom, who will love our
streams and woods and rocky hills, who
know the primitive hunger to grow
tnelr own garden truck, and who will
mlngle IN our community on the terms Of
good will and equality which it's ancient
stock deserves.
and our abandoned farms are so
cheap. No one who buys farm with
good view, good air, pure water, and
plenty OF trees is making poor invest
ment. There are at least $4,000, 900
more people in the United States than
there were when our independence Re-
gan, but there are no more acres " the
territory we now cover. A New Eng
land school teacher with family of chill
dren bought a small house, still in good
condition, barn 60 by 40 feet, one hun
dred acres nearly half wooded, including
the shore of lake, and fine mountain
prospect, for $500. Why pay summer
rent?' ne asks"
THE true explanation of the aban-
doned farm lies not so much in the ma
tive quality of the farmers-or their
supposed lack of quality-as in the fact
that a pioneer society cannot exist sur
HaS NV 81 Hix,i1iz
a Pandora's box of desires and ambitions
and discontents, and it creates, too, an
increased eXpensiveness of living which
a pioneer society, without changing its
methods, is unable to meet. To make
the farm pay under the new conditions
requires knowledge the pioneer, slow
and simple by nature, too frequently
cannot acquire. Take the matter of
lumber. In our valley twenty years
ago, several parcels of woodland were
sold for $3.50 each. Last year, tiey
were resold to the pulp men for $1,000
each, and that was less than their value
1t Is the men who originally sold their
lots at such ruinous prices who have
been forced to abandon their farms.
Two years ago the farmer next to US
sold the standing timber off his wood
land for 81, 600. Some of it was first
growth white pine, the rest good spruce
One thousand dollars seemed "a heap O.
money to him. The purchaser took out
$4,000 worth of lumber and pulp in a
winter, but stripped the forest to bare
soil in the cruel process"
One of the reasons that the old New
England farmers were forced to abandon
their homesteads, is that they did rot
conserve their resources. Through lack
of foresight, they sold for small sums
property which was afterward immense
ly valuable.
''But we have one citizen,'' he says,
whose unfortunate lack of foresight
even we can appreciate. He is close on
ninety years old now, and last Fourth of
July we got out the great ugly yellow
landau in which General Grant was haul
ed by eight pairs of horses from Fran
COMA to the Profile House on his famous
tour of the country, we decorated it with
streamers, and we rode Old Man Cheney
through the town, as a tribute to one
whose luck was so collossally bad Old
Man Cheney once owned the Profile
Notch, ID he sold it all for S1OO. To-
day, of course, it is one of the most
valuable tracts of land in summer-resort
America. 1t must be admitted, how
ever, that some Of US pity the old gen.
tleman more than seems necessary. His
life has not been perceptibly shortened
by depression. He allows he had a verv
good time with that S10On'