AGRICULTURAL DEVELOPMENT. 109 



unemployed portion of our population set at work to a 

 sufficient extent, at least, to produce the food they consume 

 and the clothes they wear. 



There seems to be an inclination on the part of some agri- 

 cultural writers and those interested, possibly, in the sale or 

 settlement of western lands, to promote organized migration 

 from the east to the west, and to induce young men to leave 

 New England and especially Maine, for what they are pleased 

 to call the better conditions for profitable farming found in 

 the newer sections of the great West. There is no necessity 

 for such a scheme, and we of New England, of Maine, need 

 to counteract this idea to the greatest degree possible ; know- 

 ing, as we do, that Maine and New England offer opportuni- 

 ties for profitable farming, together with all the fiicilities and 

 advantages of good markets, a high civilization and a breadth 

 of culture which new countries do not provide — and such as 

 few of the proposed western communities can offer. The 

 superior lands of Aroostook, of the Dead River valley, of 

 northern Somerset, Piscataquis and Franklin, capable of 

 growing thirty bushels of wheat, seventy bushels of shelled 

 corn, and two tons of hay per acre, are a heritage of riches, 

 available to all young men of industry and character, who 

 will, by a course of honorable economy and energy, occupy 

 and improve them. Not by any spasmodic action, but by a 

 steady, determined effort that means business. How much 

 better off, think you, in ten, yes, in five years, would have 

 been those hundreds of young men from our own State who 

 scraped together a few hundred dollars and left last fall for 

 the "Black Hills" — had they gone to Aroostook, taken up a 

 farm, expended the money in improvements, and endured 

 only half the privations which they did in Dakota and Mon- 

 tana? And should we not, in the future, by every possible 

 means, do all we can to prevent this exodus of our young 

 men from the State ? 



I can think of few sights more displeasing to an industrious 

 person, than to see a young man with heavy frame and strong 

 arms, who would be a hero in the hay field, spending his 



