The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-08-15
SUMMER RESORT
 NEW ENGLAND
(BY GEORGE FRENc1r.>

About everybody, all over this coun- try, knows about New England as a summer resort. That business brings to New England not less than $6o, 900 annually, and a great amount in addition in collateral benefit It is i'm possible to exaggerate the importance of the business as it is, or the possi- bi1ities for expansion For several years it has been taking a form that will eventually add immensely to the permanent value of all New England, and especially Of those sections that are known as primarily resort terri tory. Instead of coming for the sea- son and stopping at a hotel Or farm house, many people are now buying land and building homes in which they live from early in the spring to late In the fall. Many of this class come from the West, or the region that we used to call the West-more strict ly the Middle West New York has sent many people into the mountain regions of New England, where they haev built fine residences and improv-. ed large areas of land This move ment has two phases: The men who buy picturesque locations and build new houses, and break in new farm lands, and the men who buy old farms. rebuild and add to the houses, and inn prove the land that has for genera LAOAS O0OL CO4@1Vdt0Q.
 When the ownership and develop ment drift to New England began it was almost wholly with the purpose of obtaining pleasant summer homes The land was neglected, except for the pur- pose of raising such. fresh vegeta bles as the transient occupants needed. NOW, however, the migration is of quite a different character. The summer people have got the farming fever. All most all of them own large farms and
 work them with more or less intelIi- gence and thoroughnees. Many of thehn make money on their lands. One of the best farms have ever seen, tconsisting Of nearly 10000 acres (nine- stenths Of it woodland) pays a. net profit of better than 10 per cent, the owner paying retail prices for every thing he has off the land, and paying one-third of the salary of the man. ager, on account of looking after the big house and the affairs of the owner. All through New Hampshire and Yer mont and to a less extent Maine, there are scores of such summer-resort places. Tho city owners have, almost without exception, become shrewd far mers One whom I know well gets right down to farm work and man agement all summer. He spends about half of his time on the farm, and the other half in New York. He has a big farm of good land, and he works it to SUCH @OOd 8l1SCI I4Ae1L uS 1Ld4AOS a I1Oy income from 1t, in addition to having an ideal summer home for his family and an ideal place to entertai his friends.
 know a Washington official who bought his fathers small farm few years ago. He has no money and gets but a moderate salary. Yet he has worked the old farm for several years and has bought more land. Now he has a farm that comes near to being 8 model one, he makes some money every year, and every year he makes some innprovem ments. He has got all most to the point at which he can re- sign his official post and live on the farm in plenty and comfort and thrift. I know another, Boston young man, working for a moderate salary, who bought his ancestral farm. in Vermont, 8. few years ago, and has steadily inn proved it, bit by bit during his vaca- tions, until it Is now paying for itself as fast as his mortgage calls for in staIIments, and it is more than twice as valuable as when he took 1t over There is a New York editor of my ac- ouaintance who has a fine New Hamp- shire farm, and is counting the years
 to the time when he can retire to it. It will support him in comparative ease and in absolute comfort. It has been developed from the resort Idea. Theresds a minister in Boston who is
 
 northern Vermont town, tempted to
 the land through summer vacations spent there. He has two ambitions to save souls in the city and raise the
 best apples in his town
 This drift of good business men to the country, and their disposition to apply business principles to the tiIling of the land, has oper ated to spur the
 indigenous residents. Go all through the summer-resort regions and you win find that the local business men the lawyers of the small cities and
 large towns, the state and municipal
 officials the doctors and the merchants are turning to the land. for avoca- tions, and that they are making good
 The lawyer who lives in Brattleboros or Concord, or Rutland, or Montpelier, or St. Johnsbury, or Littleton, is get ting the farm habit, and their farms are found all about. They are always good farms well titled, with good 1 buildings, and paying good dividends. They will compare favorably, so far as ! substantial results are concerned, with the big show places of the hnaneiers from Chicago, New York and other 1ig l cities.
 This practical phase of the more re- cent resort development is largely con fined to the mountain regions. The shore resorts have been developed more generally along aesthtic lines. The places there are mostly for pleasure
 and comfort and health, rather than
 with profit for a secondary motive.
 Yet there are, all the way from Green 1 wich, Conn, to the borders of Blue l Noseland, a. succession of summer homes, the owners of which contrive,
 in one way and another, to make them profitable.
 l It is this practical recognition of the
 commercial value of the land that is making of the resort business in New ' TJE-- 4EzT @T-
 ment in the growth of the six states I
 see in the future for New England. It l appeals to me, in way, more than the beauties of the New England land