yo STATE P0M0r,OClCAl. SOCIETY. 



ican farmer are the silent farm houses with the windows nailed 

 up standing alone on the New England hills. Many of these 

 soldiers when they came back were not satisfied with New Eng- 

 land. The men get the microbe of roving in their bones. The 

 government wanted to settle the west for various reasons. The 

 rural villages of the country were flooded with railroad circulars, 

 and papers and books which told of the wonderful west. They 

 made our young men and young women discontented and it kept 

 on so that until 1890 there was a steady decrease of the popula- 

 tion of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. 



Now I have heard western men make this prophecy, that the 

 centre of government of this country is bound to jump across 

 the Mississippi. They say New England is doomed. It has 

 done enough for the country ! The old farms of New England 

 must be abandoned, and let the woods come back to claim its 

 own. They pretended that this New England of ours could not 

 live. Year after year, they said, you would find the population 

 going west. "Only the old men remained at home." They said 

 ''the west is the place." "New England is not in it." 



The census of 1900 just completed shows that at last the tide 

 has turned and Maine is gaining population faster than Kansas. 

 Kansas with all its wealth and all its "boom" and all its bound- 

 less prairie. The State of Maine outstripped Kansas and the 

 states of Vermont and New Hampshire outstripped Nebraska ! 



The three New England states, Maine, New Hampshire and 

 Vermont in spite of their age have gained in the last ten years 

 15,000 inhabitants more than these two great western states. 

 The tide has turned for the New England States. Men are now 

 glad to get back to the farms of New England. They are glad 

 they went west to see the country, and glad to get back again. 

 The tide has turned, but some will say, "the milling and manu- 

 facturing counties have gained in population, that it is not a gain 

 in the rural counties." That is where they make a mistake, the 

 fact is that the rural counties of these States have gained faster 

 than any other state in this country except one, Oklahoma. The 

 tide has turned back to New England. I wish that some of the 

 money that has been spent out west would also come back to 

 New England. 



