The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-10-31

former owners or from acreage, by those who a few years before had been classed as emigrants. These lit tie farms are worked by men who are
 factory hands, and spend their entire
 eight hour day at the looms, the 1athes, the foundries, or some other
 manufacturing proposition. They
 work their small farms during the
 early mornings and after their late suppers. These small farms are all
 prosperous. They are a great element
 in the economic lives of the new citf- zenS, far more than offsetting all the ttabandoned'' farms that can be found by the most enthusiastic advo- cate of the agricultural decadence of
 the region. They are of the greatest
 value to the community, as they en-
 able their owners to live economically, and save money with which to edu- cate their children. Their owners may be almost negligible political fac7 Etors. They may not be very good GUS toners of the local grocery stores, or of the dry goods stores, but they are
 spending themselves making good American citizens for the next gener-
 ation, and their small farms help inn
 menseIy.
 Not only is the abandoned farm a myth, in the sense it is used by the critics of the region, out in other and. more positively consequential ways the men who are operating the land of New England are rapidly discrediting the reputation given them by people who are, for some unknown reason, jealous of the section It is becom-
 ing almost impossible to describe all of the men who work the land as farmers. The old-time farmers hard
 ly deserve to be allowed to continue
 to use the term. The new men, who
 are getting some of the potential
 money out of the land, deserve bet
 for fn all the term suggests, in the way of lack of enterprise and initiative. They are as unlike the o1d-time farmers as any two industrial classes can be unlike each other. They are business men
 first, and then they are scientists
 When they put a heavy dressing of
 COW manure onto their meadows they
 do not consider it a concession to the favor of some all powerful force that
 may, or may not, vouchsafe them
 crops. They think of their acts as di- rectly connected with the chemical
 natures of the manure and the land and their relations with the climate and the peculiar character of the crop they design to get off of the particu- lar piece of 1and- The old time farm CT manured his land in much the same spirit, and with about the same degree of definitness of hope, as was manifested by the ancient heathens who sacrificed to their gods to in duce soil fertility.
 The men who are now demonstrat- ing the extraordinary value of farm ing lands in New England are prac- tical agriculturists, and usually good busin less men alSo.- Some of the most valuable demonstrations that have been made during the past dozen years have been made by men who were neither farmers nor agricultur- ists-just shrewd business men. The man who has been trained to place line of dry goods in a certain field with a view of selling there a definite quantity cf the output of his mills, will be pretty sure to look upon land as capable of putting into his cribs so many bushels of corn, or into his eel lars so many bushels of potatoes, and then he is pretty certain to find out just what it is necessary for him to do and with the land to assure his es- timate. When a city man now goes out into the country to buy a farm, he is not thinking of getting 9 pleas ant and healthful place to live during the summers; he is thinking of a place where he can demonstrate that bust ness methods that will make the land yield good dividends. It would be in teresting to be able to compute how much these men have added to the farming value of. New England. The figures would aStOund a great many people, including the old time farm CTS who are fond of saying that the cucumbers of the city mans farm cost him dollar apiece. five dollars, just as the spirit of raiIery may at the time prompt.
 Another large element of success for the men who are working; New England land is the agricultural col leges and the state experiment sta tions, with the efficient and highly specialized assistance that the rail- roads and other big corporations are giving. This phase is worthysof a sep arate article, though it must go over to another opportunity. It was fer ti1izer concern that made New Eng land corn famous as a prize-wfnne CT against the whole country. It is the big pulp and paper companies that