The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1911-04-13
ArOostook Co. and The Potato

AS Aroostook county has been consid-
erably in the limelight ecently, and as
some alleged agricultural journals and
5elf-appointed agricultural teachers have
set about defaming its farm methods and
dlspa raging its citizens as business men,
short sketch of the county, its achieve
ments in the past, its possibilities of the
present and its hopes for the future NAV
not be uninteresting.
Aroostook is the most northerly county
in Maine. 1t contains 6, 4OS square miles.
The county increased in the value of its
estates from 1900 to 1904 from S18, 49,, 431
to $23, 59S, SOP, or 80 per cent, and larger
ratio of increase has continued since then.
1t has no cities, but in its villages may
be found everything by way of business
and residential structures. Their streets
throng wit men and teams at all times
and the hum of business never ceases.
Its towns are rich in their fertile farms,
fine farm homes and in the wisdom,
strength and intelligence of their citizen
ship. Their young men are active work
ers with their fathers and are receiving
as broad and as liberal an education from
the splendidly equipped and expensive
oSiiSoA tHaS CNVI WHSlC dUOuIl,
as are the young men of any city or town
in the State. Taking the county as
whole, it's school buildings and churches
are far superior to those of any other in
the State. Its grange halls are numerous
and excel in architectural usefulness and
beauty. All this has come about we'll
within the memory of many who are still
active, and practically all of it has come,
directly or indirectly, from it's splendid
soil, through advanced methods of spe-
cialized farming. | recently spent
night with man who is still young, VINO
/ thlrty-three years ago took his wife and
baby boy and all his belongings upon a
sled and with pair of horses drove 300
miles from Southern Maine town to the
farm where he now is and stored every
thing he had in an abandoned lumber
mans camp in the forest, with only one
or two small clearings in sight from the
highest point of land. Together the man
and wife have worked, raised a large
family, some Of whom have married and
settled near them, cleared their farm,
acquired more land, built good farm
buildings, and equipped them with every
modern convenience. They have also
taken time to get much out of life in
social and grange circles. AS l stood
with him just as the sun was rising
across the snow-covered fields, noted his
surroundings, looked across the country
upon the broad fields of others and the
farm homes of others, and then looked
at the man, tall, straight and broad
shouldered, with not gray hair show
ing, | said, ''This, too, is a modern
miracle" This mans condition and sur
roundings are no exception. l could fill
pages of the Tribune Farmer with de-
scriptions of others just like his, and
probably better. And still certain agri-
cultural (D editors mourn and wall be-
cause there are men, who, considering
all the conditions, and knowing the fate
of many farmer who has sold his own
line of endeavor when everything he had
to sell was low and when all he must buy
was high, have the foolishness to advise
Aroostook farmers not to change their
lines of farming suddenly, and to t'keep
on raising potatoes. Aroostook farm
ing is not enc crop farming. In no Sec
ton of New England is there more
active or regular system of rotation.
Nowhere are the plough and other tillage
implements used oftener or more intelli-
gently than here. A few figures may be
instructive.
Last season, in addition to her large and
exceptionally fine crop of potatoes, the
county raised 100000 bushels of wheat,
and 1000, 900 bushels of oats. She raises
more farm horses in proportion to the
number used than any county in New
England, and she is the second county in
Maine in the number of her milch cows,
and | saw cows there that were milking
from 40 to so pounds daily, with the ther.
mometer outside the barn below zero anc
the wind blowing gale. which speaks
well for the COW and for her owner. The
county exports large quantities of hay
which she can we'll afford to do under the
present system of farming.
Everywhere in the county the people are
uniting in an effort to bridge the chasn
that separates them from the tables Of
tine consumers of their product, and they
ask the cooperation of every interested
person everywhere. They are moving
toward. the establishing of distilleries tt
take care of their unmarketable potatoes
and to supply themselves with the prod
ucts of these stills in heating and lighting
their homes. B. Walker McKeen in N
Y. Tribune Farmer
HAR~~SA pn-~A