Evening star., 1937-09-29
About Vermont Farmers
They Have Abundance Of Food and We.Kept
Buildings, but Statistcaly Are Bankrupt.

the neat, we'll painted farm house,
the adequate barn, the well kept pas
ture, and even the small lawn and
flower garden is the rule and not the
exception. Actually. the average value
OF the individual farm property is
way above the average. for the Nation.
The sightliness of the State, which
attracts tourists and artists, Is not
alone in its natural beauty.
Sons Come Back From West.
Now the total farm income in Ver-
mont is between 35 and 40 million
dollars a year. The income last year
in the 10 or IL counties Of the Missis-
sippi Delta, from cotton and cotton
seed alone, was about 100000
There are about the same number Of
people in the Mississippi Delta as
there are in Vermont. The delta has
the best land on earth, abundant
rainfall, mild climate and almost
a year-round season. Yet it is in
areas such as this that the agricul-
tural problem is most acute. 1t is
here that you see shadeless and un-
slightly housing, unkempt little towns
and a general air of transiency. Sew
enty-five per cent of all the farms in
Mississippi are worked by tenants.
not by owners, and the whole delta
is dependent upon one crop-cotton.
In the 10 years in which I have
lived in Vermont-most of them years
of depression-I have seen the sons Of
Vermont farmers come back from
their ventures in one-crop farming on
the richer soils of the Middle West to
find home with papa, who never has
had BONANZA year in his whole life,
but always has had warm house, ap-
pies. potatoes. canned vegetables and
fruits in the cellar, and great, neatly
stacked piles of wood in the shed.
Farming can be either an industry
or way Of life. If it is an industry
1t needs to be run like an industry,
with capital, with cost accounting,
with science, with organized attempts
to constantly broaden the market and
to profitably cheaper the product by
naturalization. But the farmer. even
when what he has is a soil factory
and not a farm, wants to be treated
as an agrarian.
Statistically Bankrupt.
My neighbor up the road was a
railroad worker in Ohio. When the
depression came and he lost his Job
he remembered that he had inher-
tied from an uncle a Vermont farm.
He came of breed of farmers, and
so he same back to the land with
his wife. He got 80 acres of hill
side, deserted house in bad state
of repair and fields that hadn't been
touched for 3 number of years. He
must have hao a tiny nestegg of
savings; probably he got little more
money on a mortgage. He painted his
house, repaired its roof, propped up
the aarns and replaced the stats. /
saw him start with what looked like
less than nothing. Today he has a
team of good horses. a herd of or
10 cows, fine stands of corn for
his silo, an orchard of young apple
trees, enough chickens to supply eggs
and poultry for his table and some
times for mine and a cellar stocked
with food. He works extremely hard
from May to November. In March
he makes maple sirup with another
farmer on shares. I have seen his
property multiply visibly, his house
improve from year to year, his land
improve. his animals increase. In
terms Of cash income he certainly be-
longs to the "underprivileged," but