1907.] MY FRIEND THE HEX. 



lOI 



I do not think that New England farmers, as a rule, have any 

 conception of the immense amount of money which they are 

 paying- out for supplies in the shape of hay and grain from the 

 west. If you can do anything to raise your own grain it will 

 be one of the most sensible things that you have done in a long 

 time. I correlated some figures the other day on the question 

 of how much the grain bill of Connecticut might be. I wrote 

 to what I considered were good farmers in different parts of 

 the state, and asked them to tell me how m.uch the value of 

 grain sold in their market town amounted to. I picked out 

 generally the secretaries or presidents of your county agricul- 

 tural societies. It seemed to me that that would make a fair 

 proposition, and I am going to read just a few of those figures, 

 and if they do not astonish you, you are made of different 

 material than I am because I had no idea that Connecticut 

 was expending any such amount of money. For instance, 

 take a town like Rockville, Conn., and how much do you sup- 

 pose was the amount of the grain sold in that town in one year ? 

 Figures carefully compiled show there is about $125,000 worth 

 of grain sold in Rockville each year. Here is a statement 

 from Putnam, Conn., $200,000 worth of grain. After con- 

 siderable figuring it is a fair estimate, T think, to say that 

 $200,000 worth of grain is bought annually in the town of 

 Putnam in this state. Here is another statement from North 

 Woodstock, Conn., $80,500 is said to be a conservative estimate 

 of the amount of grain that is imported into that town. From 

 WalHngford, Conn., a statement was made up of the grain 

 ' sold by the four or five grain dealers, and on a conservative 

 estimate, the figures having been compiled as carefully as 

 could be, it amounted, in round numbers, to $95,000 worth 

 of grain annually sold in that town at the high prices which 

 have prevailed. Another statement was from Torrington. I 

 got a very fair estimate from that town, showing about the 

 same ratio. Another statement from the town of Branford 

 showed that about $65,000 worth of grain was annually 

 imported from the west into that town. Here is another state- 

 ment from Simsbury, Conn., showing that a conservative 

 estimate is that $85,000 will not pay for the amount of grain 

 that is brought into that town. As to Hazardville, Conn., 

 $40,000 is considered a conservative estimate. The state of 

 Connecticut, in all probability, is importing from the west 



