Oxford Democrat., 1921-12-13


1--WE had an old horse named Barneo,
He died when he swallowed cameo,
They made boots from his hide
Both narrow and wide,
And the rest was made Into oleo."
An Abandoned Farm.
There are good many abandoned
farms In Oxford County and good
many, the status of which Ia undeter-
mined. In the latter class are large
number of farms With buildings nm
occupied, but with the land owned and
cropped-that is II there Is anything left
to crop-by the owners. There Is an
other class of farms, where the buildings
have been burned, or have rotted down
perhaps. but the land cropped by own
ers. In fact there are few absolutely
abandoned farms. The land Is owned
by some one, although nothing may be
done with It.
Land left to itself has way of grow
ipg up to forest. Some of the lands may
be 80 exhausted that the trees which
spring up are of uuimportant varieties
scrub birch, wild cherry and poplar.
Perhaps 1t may be we'll to qualify this
latter variety. Poplar onoe was CON.
sidered near the BOZ tom of the list Of
woods for value, but that was before 1t
was used for pulp. White pine will
grow upon impoverished land, and no
one pretends to call its waving plumes
valueless. Upon stronger soils other
varieties of wood flourish, 80 at last all
abandoned farms will support forest,
therefore the owners expect to get
something out Of them sometime.
An abandoned farm always provokes
curiosity and interest, however. One
wants to know why 1t was abandoned,
and there are many human interest
stories to be heard and told about them.
There is one crop which always -four
ishes about any farm and that is the man
crop. There have been those-''not all
there'-who have lived on some of them,
and these Of course are not expected to
succeed; and there have been geniuses
on some Of them who did not get along
much better than the first named class
simply because their genius did not run
to agriculture; and there were others
whose genius was SO we'll defined that
they knew what they wanted, 90, II it
was not agriculture, they left the farm
and went out after the other things.
Misfortune has been the cause OF many
and misfortune has also
been the cause of many returns to aban-
doned farms; SO no matter what the
story may be 1t Is interesting. Many of
them are sad, perhaps most of them, but
most sad stories are interesting.
There is an abandoned farm down In
Hebron, upon which the buildings have
disappeared and the fields grown up to
bushes, which is interesting. It's situa.
tion is picturesque for one tbing-the
first thing. 1t is at the foot of Matthews
Pond, q striking little body of water be.
tween the Hebron and Oxford bills.
Like most ponds, 1t is held In place by q
ridge of land over which the outlet tum.
bles and through which IL wore q gorge
for itself. Humans, with an eye for the
main chance, have always damned such
streams and made them turn the wheels
of industry, and the outlet of Matthews
Pond has been no exception. For many
years 1t sawed the trees foated down to
the landing into various forms of lum.
Der, and the grain which grew on the
ueighboring hills into meal and -four
The mills were an adjunct to the farm.
This farm was known as the Bearce
farm, the Moses Bearce farm, to distin-
guish 1t from q half dozen other Bearce
farms in the town OF Hebron. Mr..
Besrce has been dead for many years
and his family is scattered, although
the land Is yet owned by q member of
the Bearcs family. Moses Bearce, al
though hard working man, did not
succeed In agriculture, that is, he did
not make money. Not only did he fail
TO make money but he lost money. He
had to mortgage his property, or at
least some Of 1t. Some Of the money he
borrowed was advanced by a relative,
Horace NJ. Bearce, q native of Hebron,
who had succeeded but not In agricul-
ture. This Mr.. Bearce was q shoe
maker and once owned and ran fac
tory in North Auburn and later In Mas
sscbusetts.
He WAS the inventor of the copper cap,
which once adorned the toes Of the shoes
every boy and girl wore. He made
fortune out OF these. Later he specu.
lated in land, and was accounted q mil.
liopsirs. In 1870 or thereabouts he
owned most of the land upon which
Back Bay In Boston is now built. Not
only had he invested about all the mon
ey he possessed In this property but
had borrowed to large extent. When
the financial panic of 1873 came, he was
forced to repay his loans, and on fall
ing market could not dispose of this
property 30 he was ruined-that is
financially.
Mr.. Bearce was of a studious disposi-
ton and lover Of art and music. Be-
fore bis loss, he and bis family bad trav.
eled considerably in Europe, and he had
made the most of these travels. Not
only bad he kept bis eyes and ears open
but had come into some knowledge of
tho languages spoken over there, par.
ticularly French.
Shortly after the financial crash bis
wife died and bis children married, and
he found himself an old man aud alone;
so he came back to live upon that part
Of the Bearce land which was left bin.
As might be expected, In the solitude OF
this retreat he pondered upon his life,
it's successes and failures. He tried to
fiud reason for things, principally
economic. While In France he had
learned something of Proudhon and
bis theories; and In this solitude In ad.
dition to the little farming he did, be
set to work with grammar and lexicon
to read this philosopher, because he
could find no translations.
At this task he would cit up late
nights and sometimes lie abed late morn.
ings. On one of these nights ct o late
hour while busy translsting, tramp
knocked at the door of his cottage and
asked for something to eat. So inter-
ested had been Mr.. Bearce that the sup
per table had not been cleared away;
therefore be bade the man enter and
help himself. When his guest had fin-
ished he asked him II he would like to
stay all night. OF course the stranger
was glad Of the chance. Then, very
much like good Bishop Myriel in Les
Miserables, he said, "Go into that room
(he indicated the door, where you viii
| find bed. It is not made mp but you
will find the clothing to do 1t with. =
may not arise very early In the morn.
ling but you will find the material for
breakfast In the kitchen. II you know
how TO make one 60 ahead and cook It."
When his guest arose next morning
he found the table strewn with books
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