14 NORTH SHORE BREEZE and Reminder 
A Few Plain Words About New England 
By GEORGE FRENCH 
T is possible to understand and appreciate New England 
I if one basic fact of her history 1s always kept in mind; 
and we are sure to think of her with more charity and re- 
member her with more reverence, if we are well aware 
of this historic fact. ‘ 
Industrially New England has always been nurtured 
with the dregs of her human product. No offense is meant 
to her vital men and women, and the term “dregs” is em- 
ployed in the sense of residuum, but not that sort of resid- 
uum that is thrown out as useless and harmful. I mean 
that New England has had to get along with the men 
and women raised within her borders who could not go 
westward to “grow up with the country” and to help 
make a country in which to grow up. 
The Pilgrim Fathers had scarcely cléared their first 
farms when they began to work their way westward. When 
there were young men and women they went toward the 
west. After the Revolution was settled in favor of the 
Americans everybody who could went west, and it was 
west then, rather than westerly. The pioneers swept over 
the borders of New England, intent upon conquering the 
remote wildernesses. ‘This has kept New England drained 
of much of its young vigor during all the years since un- 
til almost the present. There is now a tendency to stay in 
New England and ever to return to it. Men whose grand- 
fathers lived there are coming home. Young men are be- 
ginning life there more plentifully and more readily. 
New England shows the results of this renaissance 
in her blood. It is today, in many vital respects, the most 
progressive section of the country, and the section offer- 
ing the best opportunities for enterprise. It is true, though 
seemingly strangely untrue, that in New England today 
there is the best agricultural opportunity the country 
affords. It is true that in New England there are the 
most striking and alluring examples of agricultural suc- 
cesses. ‘There is nothing in the reports of rewards for in- 
telligent working of the land from any section to excel 
those from New England. All of the tales from the apple 
sections of the middle and northwest, alluring as they are 
made by the “boomers” of those sections, can be more 
than matched from the performances of New England. 
Corn and wheat, those great staples of the west, are 
actually raised in New England more profitably than in 
the states noted for their culture. 
A few weeks ago | went all about the suburbs of one 
of the most thriving and delightful of New England 
cities, the city of Worcester. A few months previous to 
that I had been through the west and southwest, notably 
Texas, and had seen all of the thriving cities there. Many 
of them are in the same class with Worcester. While 
these ‘Texan cities are indeed wonderful, they have much 
to learn from this New England city, and from many other 
New England cities. This city of Worcester has been 
growing at a marvelous rate. Within the past few years it 
has overrun much territory. Its farms of twenty years 
ago are now covered with beautiful homes. ° Within five 
years it has taken in many square miles of farms and made 
lovely and populous suburbs of them. Its factories have 
doubled ond quadrupled. Its banks have become swollen 
with surpluses. It has expanded, and thickened, and 
gone skyward with big office buildings. 
The point is that if there had been such growth in 
any western city as has been going on in Worcester of 
lute there would have been such trumphetings as would 
“must look about in New England. 
have made the name of that city ring in the ears of every 
reader of newspapers. But Worcester has gone its swift 
and building way almost in silence. It growth has been 
one of the marvels and miracles of American growth, but 
to know about it one has to go there and ferret it out. 
But Worcester is not the single example of wonderful 
growth among New England cities. ‘There are many 
others with records comparatively as significant and ex- 
traordinary. Springfield, Pittsfield, Providence, Framing- 
ham, New Bedford, Fall River, not to mention Boston 
and the metropolitan zone surrounding it, all present ex- 
cellent texts for whoever wishes to exalt New England ; 
and there are many smaller towns that have made a great 
record for enterprising growth. I am minded to mention 
one, and there are many almost as deserving. 
The lovely town of Littleton, New Hampshire, has a 
record for enterprising growth that would make many a 
western city green with envy if it were generally known. 
Within less than twenty years—mostly within half that 
time—it has been transformed trom about the most un- 
promising hamlet into one of the most extraordinary’ 
towns in the country. The motive has been the energy 
and perseverance of its citizens—of one citizen in particu- 
lar. When I was in Houston, Texas, last summer, I asked 
one of the leading citizens what has happened to trans-’ 
form the sleepy town of ten years ago into the hustling 
and growing city of today. “Oh,” said he, “we just 
thought we would get together and make a real city. 
That’s all. We got together and said we’d put it over; 
and we did.” It was so with Littleton. The muddy 
streets were abolished, there were sidewalks, a fire depart- 
ment, a new town building, etc. Then there were factories, 
and many new citizens, and general prosperity. The peo- 
ple just got together and did things. Now it is a model 
town without one shabby house in it, with many factories 
and industries, with fine streets, beautiful homes, big 
parks, and just reeking with public spirit and the deter- 
mination to do things. 
There are many towns as fine as this one, and as 
enterprising, and growing as rapidly; though none that I 
know of that has gone as far in community socialism, and 
carried it off so successfully. But it is not in the towns 
that we look for the real progressive New England, but 
among the farmers. When we go about among the new 
race of farmers in New England we begin to realize the 
extent and character of the wonderful revolution that is 
going on in this old section of the country. ‘There is not 
a radical departure in the treatment of the land advocated 
by the most optimistic of the theorists but it may be 
found as practical experiments in several sections, located 
among the old-time farmers, who look on with some won- 
der, some interest, and some skeptical contempt. 
Do you wish to find the most scientific fruit farms, you 
If you desire to see 
the perfection of small fruit culture, you must visit New 
England. If you want to see the best corn or oats or 
wheat or barley or buckwheat or grass or alfalfa or po- 
tatoes,the purest bred sheep or cattle or hogs, the best 
kept fatm accounts, the best paying farms run by busi- 
ness mettysthe best hen farms, the best butter and milk 
farms—the best farms of any kind—it is in New Eng- 
land that they are to be found. But while this is all very 
well, very inspiring, the real cause for hope is that there 
is a new spirit in the agriculture of New England. The 
