No. 4.] COUNTRY ROADS. 261 



law through in the State of Maine, — and it would not hurt 

 Massachusetts much. 



Now, on this matter on the removal of fences, I venture 

 to say that the farms in Greenfield will sell to-day for from 

 fifteen to twenty per cent more than they did before they 

 took away their roadside fences and trimmed their trees. 

 A gentleman came into the State of Maine a few years ago 

 to buy a farm. I went with him into two or three sections, 

 and found a few farms for sale, none of which seemed to 

 please him. Afterwards I met him, and he told me he had 

 purchased. I asked him why he bought there. He said, 

 " Come up, and I will show you." Going into that section, 

 I hunted him up and asked him again why he bought the 

 place. Said he, " I will tell you. The guide-boards at the 

 corners of the roads, the school-houses and the roadsides 

 brought me here." There was hardly a fence to be found 

 anywhere, and the cultivated fields came right up to the 

 roadsides. Last year I drove with my wife through 

 Aroostook County, and for miles and miles I could almost 

 reach from the carriage and pick the wheat heads and the 

 potato blossoms. The fields were cultivated right up to the 

 driveways. There is a picture in my mind of a drive that I 

 took with her a few years ago through another section of 

 the State ; and those farms are not advertised in the papers 

 as being for sale. We drove one day about the first of 

 June, when for miles and miles the petals of the apple- 

 blossoms were drifting down on our heads, and the air was 

 sweet with their fragrance. I assure you it left a pleasant 

 impression upon us both. 



Now, these are the things, gentlemen, which give value 

 to our premises. Gentlemen of Massachusetts, I should 

 tell the people of Maine, if I were down there, that I 

 believe, if we had given a little more of our thought, a little 

 more of our attention, to these questions, and not spent so 

 much time telling stories around the corner grocery, or 

 discussing, the tariff, — if we had put our energies into 

 making our homes more attractive and our roadsides more 

 beautiful, and to securing better roads, as a natural result 

 the farm would have been more attractive to the young 



