The Merits op^ our State. 543 



siderable extent. Emigration from the State has been 

 encouraged. It is common to hear it remarked of a young 

 man, especially if of superior merit : " What can he do here? 

 This is no place for him." The question may be answered: 

 *' If he is ambitious of large business achievements, the 

 example of the Fairbanks and Esteys shows that opportuni- 

 ties may be improved here." If he chooses to be one of the 

 farming nobility, the census returns will show him that the 

 average profit to each individual engaged in agriculture is 

 greater in Vermont than in the fertile States of the West. 

 He may be cited to numerous cases where property has been 

 accumulated in this State, by farming alone, to an amount 

 twice, thrice, ten times, or more than the average held by 

 the farmers in those States. In one of the small hill towns 

 adjoining, there is a farmer whose estate is estimated, with- 

 out exaggeration, at over $50,000 ; til except an iuheiitance 

 of about $1,000 made by farming, and made upon that class 

 of hill lands which there is, at present, such a mania for 

 selling or deserting. It may be said of this man, as of oth- 

 ers generally that have accumulated property, that he has 

 been content to live in a very simple and unostentatious 

 manner. Had his expenses been as large as many modern 

 farmers', he might have added one more to the number that 

 say : " Farming in Vermont don't pay." 



It may be shown by reliable statistics that the value of the 

 products of the farms is greater no w than at any former period,if 

 we except a few years during the war. It is said it was once 

 common here for young men to buy farms, running in debt 

 for nearly the whole cost, and paying for them in a few 

 years from the products. That was when pork sold for 



