New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-06-10
FYN EIGHBOR upon the right
MI Simpkins-has ploughed up
lVA his front lawn, so long his

oride-and put it into potatoes. Blitt-
tins-my neighbor upon the left
rielding to the urgings of Mrs. Bliff-
Inns has refused to plough his front
,ou,n But he has preserved his patriot
;sr bv renting an untitled acre on the
.sra Of the town and hiring a man 10
.rltivate and raise potatoes upon 1t.
rones-who lives across the street from
II Of us-is frankly a scOffer. He has
neither ploughed his lawn nor engaged
TWO horny hands to till the soil in his
behalf. On'the contrary, it was Jones's
voice, raised in definite protest, that
saved the golf course-lOng since pro-
rounced one of the sportiest between
MAGNOLIA and Del Monte-from being
completely ruined by the potato
planters.
"What do we know about the potato
Oame?" said Jones, in his brutal, icono-
elastic way. Lets stick by our knitting
and try to help save the country by
doing something that we really know
about. The seed that is going to be
wasted in this year of grace, 1917, by
amateur efforts at gardening, properly
utilized. would fill the breakfast tables
If half one of the good-sized countries
of Europe
Which only goes to show, of course,
. that Jones is not merely an iconoclast.
INIT 2 grumbler and Pathfinder as well.
And he is completely at variance with
tbe sentiment expressed by every one
else in our town, from the Trustees OF
the Second Church, who prepared the
first set of resolutions on the subject,
down to the Boy Scouts who mobilize
with hoes and rakes each Saturday
morning. ready to do their part.
Maine knows potatoes. If the good
old Pine Tree State had a middle name
it probably would be Potatoes. A man
from our town who had done wonder
fully well in the Neutrality-suspicious.
business went down into Maine a few
years ago and bought little narrow
gauge railroad that ran from out of the
cut-over country down to the coast.
From It's inception the railroad had beer
a dismal failure. The man from our
town Topped off a useless branch and
made it pay-hauling potatoes. Some
other Maine institutions have been made
to pay-through potatoes.
Take Aroostook County, for instance.
If you do not know Aroostook County,
Maine, it is time you found out about 1t,
For it is the largest county in Maine
one of the largest counties in the entire
land, East or West. It comes within
mere four or five hundred acres of being
the exact size of the state of Massachu-
sets. And whereas the densely settled
state of Massachusetts, with its mar
yeIously developed system Of improved
highways has an automobile for every
thirty-eight inhabitants, Aroostook has
one for every nineteen. And the last
thing that Aroostook brags about is
good roads. For it is still new coun-
Try, as fragrant and as virgin as the
more newly developed portions OF Ore
gon or of Washington-a country, II
you please, just emerging from wilder
hess into civilization.
But neither Oregon nor Washington
is more prosperous. In Aroostook al
most every farmhouse has its hardwood
floor, its automobile, its telephone. Not
one Of the fourteen banks in the county
has capital of more than $4,000, yet
this spring the total deposits in all
fourteen exceeded S10,000,000. And
banker in Bangor told me the other day
that, by the first of May, this amount
bad uept UP to between S12,000,00o and
sl5,000,O00 and was still increasing.
There we're farmers by the dozens in the
county who had made quarter OF a
million dollars apiece; the hundred thou
sand dollar men were hardly worth
counting.
And what was the reason for this
prosperity?