The Republican journal. [volume] (Belfast, Me.) 1829-current, 1912-09-19
THE APPEAL TO THE wEsr

Inc demonstration work will 90 on
next year on larger scale even than i
Is at present, and then if, as now seams
certain. the fertility of the soil is fully
demonstrated the colonization scheme
Will proceed. Thirty-six thousand acres
will make $50 fifty acre farms and tho
tracts will probably be divided uD on this
basis. The land will be so plotted that
the numerous water courses which now
run through it and which are filled with
trout and shaded deep in rich meadow
grass will touch each farm, so far az
possible. Roads will be laid out and
houses built by the railroad. 1t will be
possible to supply all this region with
pure water from Schoodic Lake bv a
gravity system, when the time comes
that it is needed, and there is water
power in abundance to be had from this
and other sources. Its white coal''
may some day light the whole region bv
electricity as well as furnishing power.
The scheme will be to call the atten-
ton of farmers on older lands, say in the
Middle West, where farm values have
reached high level, to these new lands.
their fertility and the ease with which
they may be worked, as we'll as the near
ness of the great New England markets.
There is already tendency on the part
OF Western farmers to come back to New
England. This opportunity should in
crease the tendency. To sell Western
farm for $3.50 or more an acre and come
to New England, taking one that can be
worked the first year in good shape. for
only perhaps tenth of that price, would
seem to be an inducement.
And in proof that more than one man
realizes this, one need only tell of the
Florida orange grower who was summer
ing in Maine and accidentally heard
about the region. He visited it in an
automobile, studied it carefully and
bought ten thousand acres. ''When are
you going to begin to FARM" he was
asked.
Farm nothing" was his answer
ten years and otherwise forget about it.
Then III be able to put it on the market
and get just five times what | paid for
it. That's not development, of course,
but it shows how the people from other
States recognize the value of New Eng
land land when they have it properly
demonstrated to them.
TRANSMITTING A DAKOTA FARM.
The old-time New England small field
farming is not the kind which is going to
be done on this great Maine tract, rather
it will be the sort of farming that one
sees in the West, where they know how.
Hunton broke up his land and prepared
it for planting with horses. But he said
it cost him eleven dollars an acre to do it
In that way and he could have done the
same with a traction engine and gang
plows for five. There is room enough in |
these great level stretches for the same |
sort of wholesale cultivation that is seen
in the Dakotas, and the wheat they have
at the demonstration farm would seem
to show that it might be grown in Maine
IN an equally large way and with equal |
profit. Whether this is so or not there
is no doubt about the oats and barley.
The climate of Maine is just right to pro-
duce these crops in perfection, and the
State would do we'll to buy oats from her
own fields rather that from the West, as
she does now to the extent of thousands
of dollars. AS for the potatoes, there
can be no question so long as the supply
of arsenate of zinc for the blue-black
beetles holds out.
Another use which has been proposed
for this big treeless region is stock rails
ing, or more definitely, fattening. All
the winter hauling in the Maine WOODS is
now done by horses. but fifty or more
years ago horses were not so common,
many oxen being used. These, worked
heavily all winter on hay alone, came out
in the spring worn to the bone. The old
settlers of Washington county say it used
to be the custom to turn them loose in
the barrens for the summer and that on
rounding them up in the fall they were
able to waddle. This sounds reasonable, |
for there is much grass all over the pla-
teaus and in the little valleys along the
water courses it is very strong and high
There is plenty of water everywhere and
the section being treeiess as it is, is also
ideal for herding. Gamers" lean
cows, can be bought at the Chicago
stockyards in the spring at three and
half cents a pound live weight. 1t would
cost five dollars head TO ship them to
the barrens, where they should easily pat
on two hundred pounds or more and then
sell for eight or nine cents a pound.
That's the way the men now in Maine
who have had experience with cattle in
the West figure it. Certainly il sounds
profitable, and there is a good market in
the State for all the beef the Land would
fatten. All of which shows mighty in
teresting and indeed surprising state of
affairs for Maine. That region which
is generally supposed to be an untamable
wilderness Of rough hills and cut-over
spruce lands, should be so easily avail
able for big farming is the surprising
part. The whole project sounds more
like the West or South as We know them
today and their opportunities than like
New England. For railroads to show up
the value of land, to invite colonists and
help them to locate and get start is
common enough West. 1t is new in the
East, but this particular project is only
one of many which the New England
Lines Industrial Bureau is pushing at
much present cost to itself, the returns
to come in a generally increased, pros
perity which will repay the outray-in
the future-no doubt many fold.