New England What It Is and What It Is To Be New England Edited by George French Boston Boston Chamber of Commerce 1911 Jf Copyright, 1911, By Boston Chamber of Commerce The University Press, Cambridge, U.S.A. Prepared under the direction of a special com- mittee of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, con- sisting of Walter M. Lowney, chairman of the Trade Extension committee, George S. Smith, chairman of the committee on Manufactures, and George B. Gallup of the Publicity committee. Prefatory Note THE reason for this book is the desire of the Boston Cham- ber of Commerce to acquaint the people of New England with the country they live in, and furnish them with the means to acquaint others. It has been a fault of New England people that they have been keenly alive to the growth and develop- ment of all sections of the country except their own, and that they have had a better knowledge of all other sections than of their own. New England has been so earnestly engaged in de- veloping the rest of the country that its people have had no time to notice the growing demand for development at home. Now there is an awakening. We are beginning to realize that there is here at home as much opportunity as anywhere in the country, and we are slowly finding out what that opportun- ity is. This book is not a catalogue of the opportunities nor the achievements of New England. It treats of both. An effort has been made to show, in an impressionistic manner, what New England is and what it may be, if its people will turn their attention to the work of developing it with the same earnest devotion they have lavished upon the other sections. Statistics have been avoided, as also have eulogistic statements. That which is herein set forth is, so far as possible, plain statement of fact, and mostly well-known fact. The possibilities are all soberly stated. If it is necessary to apologize for the manifest defects of the book, or for that of which it docs not treat, or for that which it does not treat adequately, let the apology be that the editor is aware of more, and more serious, defects than the most determined critic can discover; and regrets them more keenly. The editor wishes to gratefully acknowledge his indebted- ness to every person who has assisted in the preparation of [vii] Prefatory Note this book, either by contributing to its pages or by suggestion or information. There are too many to admit of mention of all. Those who have contributed are: Mr. Edwin M. Bacon, Boston, the chapter on " Waterpowers " ; President Kenyon L. Butterfield of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, Dr. E. H. Jenkins of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, Mr. H. F. Tompson, Seekonk, Mass., Prof. F. C. Sears of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, Prof. Charles D. Woods of the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station, Mr. William H. Bowker, Boston, Mr. A. W. Fulton, Springfield, Mass., and Mr. G. C. Sevey, Springfield, Mass., the chapter on " New England Farming " ; Dr. J. A. Bon- steel, Washington, the chapter on " New England Soils " ; Mr. Harold Parker, Boston, the chapter on " Good Roads " ; Mr. Winthrop L. Marvin, Boston, the portion treating of textiles in the chapter on " New England Manufacturing " ; Dr. David Snedden, Massachusetts Commissioner of Educa- tion, and his deputies, Messrs. Charles A. Prosser and Wil- liam Orr, the chapter on " Education " ; Mr. D. F. Edwards, Boston, the chapter on " The Industrial Boston " ; Mr. Thomas F. Anderson, Boston, the chapter on " New England Summer Resorts," and data about the shoe and leather in- dustries ; Mr. George P. Morris, Boston, the chapter on " Religion " ; Mr. Richard H. Edmonds, Baltimore, the chap- ter entitled "An Expert's Opinion"; Prof. F. W. Rane, Boston, the chapter on " Forestry " ; Mr. James A. McKib- ben, Boston, the chapter on " Commerce " ; to the chapter on " The New England States " Hon. Robert Luce, Somer- ville, Mass., Mr. Charles E. Julin, New Haven, Conn., Mr. Colby Stoddard, Newport, Vt., and Mr. J. John Buzzell, Boston, contributed; Mr. George B. Gallup, Boston, the chapter on " Publicity for New England." The New Eng- land Homestead, railroad officials, Mr. J. Horace McFarland of Harrisburg, Pa., school authorities, manufacturers and others have contributed photographs. BOSTON, October, 1910. Vlll Contents PAGE New England 1 The Charm of New England 32 Manufacturing in New England 48 New England Waterpowers 87 New England Agriculture 110 Soils of New England 166 Forestry in New England 179 New England Workmen 189 The Industrial Boston 197 Boston : The Next Phase 221 Transportation 233 Good Roads in New England 250 New England Commerce 260 New England Summer Resorts ." 282 Education in New England 301 Religion in New England 320 Publicity in New England 331 Civic Work in New England 342 An Expert's Estimate 361 Commission Government 372 The New England States ' . -. . 380 Potential New England 418 Illustrations PAGE New England Settlement East of the Mississippi River . . Opp. 7 Typical New England Farm Home 24 A New England Town Hall 30 The Old Oaken Bucket at Melvin, N. H 36 Bringing in the Sap, Vermont 42 Wood Worsted Mill, Lawrence, Mass 54 The Arlington Mills, Lawrence, Mass 62 Factory of The Gorhani Company, Providence, R. I. ... 70 Nashawena Cotton Mills, New Bedford, Mass 78 Print Works of Pacific Mills, Lawrence, Mass 84 A Field of Boston Lettuce 114 A Commercial Apple Orchard in Northern Vermont . . . 120 Mr. J. H. Hale and one of his Apple Trees at Seymour, Conn. 126 Prize Apples at the Boston Show in 1909 134 A Connecticut Peach Orchard Showing Irrigation Method . 142 A Profitable Peach Orchard was Planted on this Land . . . 148 A New Hampshire Country Home 150 A Massachusetts Country House 152 Prize-Winning Oxen at Danbury, Conn., Fair 156 A Veteran Apple Tree in Bloom 158 A Field of Shade-Grown Tobacco 160 Clydesdale Stallion, Native of Maine 164 Holsteiii Bull, Owned in Massachusetts 164 Typical Valley Farm Land in New England 168 Wellesley Farms Station, on the Boston & Albany Railroad . 176 White Pines Forty Years Old, in Carver, Mass 182 White Pine Transplants, Six Years After Setting .... 186 Hale Peach Orchard, Connecticut Two-year-old Tree . . 192 Charles River Basin, Boston 216 Wellesley Hills Station, on the Boston & Albany Railroad . 218 [ * J Illustrations PAGE Wedgemere Station, on the Boston & Maine Railroad . . . 236 Electric and Steam Railroads in the Boston District . Opp. 243 Hoosac Tunnel Docks, Boston & Maine Railroad, Boston . . 244 Map of Massachusetts Showing State Highways 252 Modern State Road, Cape Cod 254 Road Around " Jacob's Ladder," Morey Hill, Becket . . . 256 Pelham Manor Station, on the N. Y., N. H. & H. Railroad . 258 Map Showing Proposed Boston Harbor Improvements . . . 264 Boston Chamber of Commerce Building 278 Approach to Station on the Boston & Albany Railroad . . . 280 Mt. Washington from Base Station, Train Going Up . . . 284 Sportsmen's Cabins at Heald Pond, Maine 2f)0 Looking South from Summit of Mt. Washington 296 Newton, Mass., Technology High School 304 Girls Make Their Own Graduation Gowns 310 A Workroom in the Worcester Trade School 316 Typical New England Village Street 326 New England Credo 336 The Mother of Village Improvement Societies 350 A New England High School 358 The Home of Mr. Maxfield Parrish, Cornish, N. H 366 A Picturesque and Progressive New England Town .... 376 Home of Helen Keller at Wrentham, Mass 378 Typical Boston Suburban Residence 382 Scene in Berkshire Hills 384 A Massachusetts Village Street 386 The "Minute- Man" of 1776 388 Aroostook Potato Field in Harvest Time 396 Summit House, Mt. Mansfield, Vermont 404 The Main Street in a New Hampshire Village 410 Bridge at West Haven, Conn., on N. Y., N. H. & H. R.R. . 416 Village Residence at Hatfield, Mass 420 Within Eight Miles of Massachusetts State House .... 424 One of the Unoccupied New England Farmhouses .... 426 A Boston Suburban Residence 430 [xii] New England What It Is and What It Is To Be New England THE six states of the United States which constitute the arbitrary geographical section known as New England oc- cupy a unique position in the history of the country, and have a story that teems with interest. No other section of the world has had so much that was consequential to do with the de- velopment of this era as has New England, or has done it so gloriously well. The reasons for this are partly natural, partly historical, and partly providential. Nature thrust New England out into the ocean in such a manner as to make it probable that whoever should come discovering from the Old World would be caught on her rocky shore. New Eng- land did catch the vital immigrants from Europe. That they were directed hither instead of to some other section of the eastern coast of the new Western World suggests the germ of the providential element in the story of our beginning, and history is slowly disclosing to us the great fact that the event of the birth of this land was an essential arc in the grand cycle of Christian civilization that Omnipotence was then bringing into view. We trace the workings of conscious design in the development of New England, looking backward in the light of history, and note the part played by physical location, climate, soil, race, religion, circumstance; and that greater than any other force, the aspiration of the human race toward higher civilization, which we are but beginning to understand. While we are forgetting the old geographical divisions of the states of the Union, which classed them as North Atlantic, South Atlantic, Southern, Gulf, Middle Western, North- western, Southwestern, Pacific, etc., the distinction which has set off New England remains as precise as ever, and there is nowhere a disposition to forget or ignore the sectional classi- fication. New England is a unit, in fact as well as in the minds New England of the people of the world, and it is as a unit that it must be considered. This fact does not indicate that the people of New England believe themselves to be in any sense a peculiar people, different from the people of any other section of the country, superior or inferior to any other people of any other state or section. We are set apart, so far as we are differently located and circumstanced, to our advantage or disadvantage, and we are to make the best of the fate that has come to us through physical facts that we had nothing to do with mak- ing and economic facts that our forbears have created. New England is the land of opportunity. It has the greatest potential future of any section of the country, for reasons that are obvious. It is no argument against the future of New England to say that it does not utilize its opportunities. No section of the United States does that. No state does it, nor any town. It has not been necessary to do so, and until it is necessary it will not be done. New England comes nearer to applying the intensive method to its industries and to its agriculture than any other section, and its business men are giving the subject more practical study and attention. They will be ready whenever the country demands more than the cream. They are now ready, in many lines, and there is a vast amount of work now going on in many other lines in the way of preparation. There are commercial bodies, publicity clubs, and various civic associations, which are doing the most valu- able investigation work, and are sending into the country a constant stream of information and creating a steadily rising tide of enthusiasm. There are few towns but have some ex- ample of the new farming, in successful operation and demon- strating what can be done through the application of modern methods and scientific knowledge, some new factory projected, some new industry taking shape, or some practical plan for civic and industrial betterment engaging the constant atten- tion of their citizens. There are many manufactories that are run upon the highest scale of efficiency, as that new profession is understood by its expert exponents. There are many model towns model in the sense that they are organized and oper- ated upon good business principles, and have demonstrated [ M New England that it is quite possible to conduct the communal business of an association of citizens calling itself a town in as economic and successful a manner as the business of a private corpora- tion can be conducted. There are everywhere in New England evidences of the prevalence and the influence of the new spirit in business, and that this spirit exists and is manifesting itself in a practical manner is the most hopeful sign that New England has en- tered upon a new era in its industrial life. This new spirit in business is promoted by a new spirit in social and civic life. The people of New England seem to be seized with the desire to work for the common good, quite aside from whatever per- sonal profit they may believe may ultimately flow from com- munal interests. This is being demonstrated in many ways, but in none with more marked effect than by the work of the associations of business men known variously as boards of trade, chambers of commerce, civic clubs, publicity clubs, and the like. A study of these bodies reveals the business temper and aspirations of the times. The work they are doing is dif- ferent in aim and quality from work ever before attempted by such bodies, and vastly more practical and consequential. The organized efficiency of these bodies is of a high order, and is made possible by the unselfish personal service given by the members. A large proportion of the work of these quasi public bodies is of necessity of a nature which does not reach definite results formative, suggestive, and advisory ; but each of them has a roll of definite accomplishments which so much more than justifies its efforts as to warrant the belief that they will finally lead the way up to some form of indus- trial cooperation which will solve many of the painful and perplexing problems coming from the modern study of labor and social conditions, as well as those more definitely in the field of business. It is the New England character that must be considered in dealing with the question of the development of New England. If there is a hindrance to progress in New England it is that same New England character, which has ever been loath to accept optimism for its guiding motive. The rocks of New [3] New England England make possible the distinctive flavor of the New Eng- land apples, and in like analogy it may be just to attribute the restraint of New England character to the influence and the unconscious memory of generations of contention with the hard natural conditions surrounding industrial life in New England during its first two centuries. There has been a cer- tain grim liking for adverse conditions in the New England character which has operated to produce reluctant assent to optimism. The old-fashioned New Englander often chose the harder part apparently for the very joy of martyrdom. Not a few of the men of New England seem yet to feel the same impulse. It was long a part of the creed of our fathers that the flesh must be " mortified," and it was their inclination to reject whatever promised pleasure, ease, or comfort. Profit they were in the habit of accepting, if it came to them in obvi- ous guise. They never would concede that one field was better for corn than another. If they elected to plant corn, and it did not elect to grow and ripen into a plentiful crop, the failure was charged up to providence and the same field planted to corn the next year, and the next. The Pilgrims and the Puritans persisted in whatever course they believed was di- vinely marked out for them. They trusted the Lord to provide nitrogenous stimulant for their fields, and would probably have regarded the planting of inoculated clover as an appeal to witchcraft. We of today have plenty of the same spirit. We hope for divine intervention in the matter of the fertility of our fields, and we are inclined to be persistently stubborn in matters of custom and tradition in our business methods. Tell an ingrained New Englander that his old apple orchard can be made to produce twice as many apples as he has har- vested in his best year and he will not believe it; neither will the average New England business man believe that the effi- ciency expert can so order his business that it will yield 10 or 25 per cent more profit. We are averse to the new, we do not like to experiment, and we believe that that which we are told must involve experiment because it is outside of our ex- perience. There are in New England men who have for twenty- five years practised scientific farming, and made money con- [4] New England stantly, and their example has not induced one neighbor to adopt their methods. Nature has made New England different from the other sections of the country, and the circumstances of their ances- try and environment have made the New England people somewhat different from the people of other sections. While a strong cosmopolitan tendency has been bred by modern conditions of business and life, and New England has partici- pated in this trend, there are certain conditions which insure for us a marked individualism. In the not very remote past this tendency was fairly described as insularity; but that phase of our progression has happily passed, and we are now no more individualistic, as a section, than the peculiar climatic and industrial conditions force us to be. The problem we have now to face is involved largely in the full recognition of the nature and extent of the differences which New England has to consider; an estimate of those different conditions, and an assay of our ability and disposition to meet them. Not all of these conditions are such as imply disadvantages ; but few of them are such. Many of the more consequential conditions imply advantages. For a long time New Englanders were conscious that they were the leaders in the building of this nation, and at least half a dozen generations were bred up in that knowledge. From working out their own supremacy New Englanders went out into the wider nation and built it up, and so strengthened the feeling of adequate power which was their inheritance, even though that very process weakened the stock that was left at home, and began the erosion of race that resulted in deteriorated vigor and faltering initiative. The result was that there came over New England an era of halting effort, due to loss of primal vigor to the West, and the other newer sections. New England had scarcely begun to thrive when she was called to pioneer beyond the Alleghanies, and thence to the Mississippi Valley, the Northwest, the Southwest, the Pacific Slope, and finally to Canada. All this time, from the early pioneer days to the Middle West to this day of the Canadian Northwest, there has been a drain of New England [5] New England energy and initiative. The Pilgrims and the Puritans of New England were all pioneers, and they bred pioneers. There has ever been a call for New England to open other sections of America, and the call has always been heeded. It has been in America the call of the. West, and the tide of settlement and enterprise has rolled toward the Pacific, and then northward into the great fertile lands of Western Canada. This tide started from New England, and though it has been reinforced from the South, and later from all the intermediate regions, as well as by the great stream of immigration from Europe and Asia, there has been a constant exhaustion of New Eng- land's vitality comparable only to the giving of her own life to her children by a mother. New England suffered, and suf- fered more acutely and fundamentally than ever will be esti- mated. The wholesale and continued transfusion of her best blood to the veins of the newer states could only mean the weakening of her own constitution and the limiting of her own development. The westward migration of initiative meant such a breeding of the pioneer habit as necessarily must result in superficial and speculative work and habit of mind. So long as there was new land spontaneously to yield crops, so long as there were coming into being new towns and cities to demand growth and sustenance of trade and foster extravagance and ruthlessncss, so long would the pioneer spirit run rampant and ignore in- tensive methods and sane propositions of growth. The stern pioneerage of the early New Englanders, when it was a hardy enterprise to migrate to Buffalo, pushed cautiously westward, and gathered spirit and vehemence with its successes, until it culminated in the mad rush for the gold of California in 1849. Since then sanity has been struggling for recognition, but the drain of New England has continued until almost the present time, diminishing in stress as the material that New England could furnish became limited and as the raw opportunity be- came somewhat abated. It is not adequately accurate to speak of the breeding of the pioneer instinct in connection with the industrial migra- tions of the early New Englanders. This instinct was bred in [ 6] watt 90 Longitude 85 West from 80 Oroeuwkh New England Settlement East of the Mississippi River before 1860. M||New Englan 1 Settlement ESS3 All Other Settlement . From "The Expansion of New England," by Lois Kimball Mathev published by Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston New England their race long before they began to go out from the early settlements and seek for opportunities to found other pioneer towns and states. It was their pioneer instinct that originally brought the Pilgrims to the shores of New England, and the workings of that instinct were so persistent and so powerful that they were drawn from one little community to seek for a site for another long before the first had settled into a condi- tion approaching comfort or economic direction. It is illumi- nating to note the development of the motives which led these people from one crude experiment in civilized communal life to another yet more crude, and having less probability to offer for successful existence. The story is most lucidly and interestingly told by Mrs. Lois Kimball Mathews in her won- 4erfully interesting book on " The Expansion of New Eng- land." Of all the tales of crusaders and pioneers told since the world began there is none more interesting than this, for those people opened the world as they went from point to point, and they carried freedom along with them and planted it in every rood of ground they snatched from the wilderness and jockeyed away from the aboriginal owners. These pio- neers were actuated by precisely the motives that actuate men of today in their pioneer enterprises. They no sooner settled into a township, or the crude form of a township, than some of them began to chafe at the restricting control of their church or the unyielding policy of the communal government they had themselves created; or they conceived that they had not sufficient land. While there were but few settlers to oc- cupy all the land that lay within the limits of the imagina- tion, these men complained that there was not enough, in so many instances and so persistently, as to suggest that at that early time the hunger for land was a dominating motive which operated to open new territory with sure and perennial per- sistency. These pioneers always advanced in groups. Certain families would find that they did not sympathize with the ser- mons of their minister, or protested against the rulings of their chosen officers, or discovered that they did not have enough salt marsh from which to harvest hay for their cows, or that their corn land did not yield as much grain as they [ 7] New England wished, or some other plausible reason would be assigned for the wanderlust that was sure to sieze upon them ; and they would apply to the church for permission to move on. This tendency to migrate toward the west they brought with them, from their fathers and grandfathers in England, and wherever they went they took the habits and characteristics of their county in England. They based their new towns solidly upon the principles and forms they had brought from their first place of residence in America, and from the more unconscious inheritance from England, and the traces of these twin influ- ences may be found in every town New England stock was instrumental in founding, from Plymouth to Seattle, modified and adapted to suit conditions, but there in the foundations. There is in modern history nothing more significant than this march of New England from Plymouth to San Fran- cisco, from Plymouth to the everglades of Florida, from Ply- mouth to Texas, from Plymouth to Los Angeles, from Plymouth to Alaska. There is in this spread of the spirit and purpose of the Pilgrims all the fixed and regular design of a Cook tour of Europe, all the calm persistence of a Napoleonic campaign, all the elements of the steady advance of a glacial drift. The only temporary check was in the early and weak first manifestation of the tendency, when the King Philip war turned the pioneers back by devasting their frontier. The Pilgrims landed in 1620, and within seven years they were pushing out advance guards, and have continued that westward movement until within the past decade. There were eras of special progress, and times of hesitancy. Previous to the Revolution the progress was on a scale that now seems slow and halting. When that war seemed destined to end favorably to the colonies there was inaugurated what was the most considerable western movement from New England, and by 1812 not only had New England itself been pretty well settled but the flow of emigration had passed into New York and Pennsylvania and well over the Alleghanies. Thence the tide rolled on, and New England, having built that unique second self, the Western Reserve in Ohio, proceeded to pour her people into Indiana and Illinois and impress her ideas and [8] institutions upon those states, which had been pioneered in their southern sections by people from Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and some other southern states. After the building of the Erie canal New Englanders went into Michigan and Wisconsin, but many of them were transplanted from New York and Pennsylvania ; and perhaps here is to be placed the first recognizable work of the New Englanders who had origi- nally settled in some other state and were therefore one degree removed from the stock on the mother soil. This second edi- tion New England was thenceforth a very important element in the sweep of the original stock toward the western frontier. There is a close kinship between all these Middle Western states and New England, gained direct from New England, and through the New England dominance of western New York and more slightly of Pennsylvania. And the tide swept on toward the Pacific, and then deflected to the Canadian northwest and to Alaska, and in another direction to the Hawaiian Islands. It has leaped the Pacific, and is trickling into China, Japan, Corea, and the Philippine Islands, where it is likely to lose itself in the broader stream of Americans. The history of Greater New England will not be adequately written until it includes a careful study of emigration as far westward as the Pacific ocean; and this is one of the most vital facts to remember when the industrial history and ex- pectation of New England is being considered, and when the banal suggestion is made that New England is, or ever has been, industrially decadent. New England is now, and since the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth has been, the most vital element in the development of the lands and the indus- tries of this New World. Finally the national phase has changed. Now men are think- ing about efficiency instead of discovery, about methods in- stead of opportunity, about intensive cultivation of that which is at hand rather than taking up new quarter sections, about developing placer and dredge mining in place of prospecting for loose nuggets of metal, about economies of production and better methods of selling and distributing as well as the build- ing of new factories. A great industrial revolution is in prog- New England ress. The question is not now wholly one of enterprise; it involves more particularly problems of economic production and distribution. The industrial and financial subsoil is being turned up, as well as the subsoil of the lands that were not long ago considered as inexhaustable granaries with unlim- ited holding capacity. From being considered and operated as gambling propositions, the various branches of business in America are being turned into sane and sound enterprises, based upon demand and economic supply. The rise of this spirit has given New England its second opportunity, and as it becomes operative this section will again be esteemed for that which it can offer in enterprise and thrift. New England is ready and able to contribute more than its share to the newer conception of business, even as it did contribute more than its share to the superficial pioneer era. With all the drain upon the New England resources while the passion for the new and the raw was burning itself out there persisted a large modicum of the original thrift and in- ertia, and there was always the regenerative processes going on, to the end that we have never lost the power and habit of initiative. The rage for conquest did not exhaust the primi- tive stock, while it did perennially decimate it ; so that it hap- pens now that there is plenty of material to promote the new spirit of enterprise that is in motion, and there are res- ervoirs of special advantage that have been quietly filling during these generations of missionary work in other sections. Now that the refinement of scientific economics is being studied, and put into practise, we are able once more to offer to the whole country such perfect opportunity as is available nowhere else. But there is this difference, that whereas in the older time it was our youth that went out to other sections and developed the opportunities nature had provided, it is now that we have the economically available opportunity ade- quate for all the latent energies of the youth we are bringing into the field, and for the youth and enterprise from outside our borders that are coming to us. The forces that have brought rich opportunity once more to New England are well understood. The general advance [ 10] New England of production has been forced by industrial conditions. The era of prodigal production has passed, or is passing. The questions that control are different. Demand has, in many lines, crowded so closely upon supply that many things not formerly thought of have become important. It is now the aim of economic production to place products into the hands of the ultimate consumer at the least cost and with the least fric- tion. This means a careful consideration of manufacturing facilities, .labor, transportation, and the availability of raw material. While manufacturing is shifting to meet these con- ditions it is agriculture that is showing the keenest apprecia- tion of them. It was agriculture that made New England possible, and agriculture is likely to play an important part in making the renaissance of New England an accomplished fact. In a certain way, and to a large extent, manufacturing in New England may be said to have perfected its processes and realized its opportunity. In many lines New England leads the world, and the question of improvement in those lines involves the application of the new science of business to existing conditions. This new business science has to do with the making of two dividends where there was one, or the making of one where there was none; and it is in no sense peculiarly adapted to New England. That which is happening in New England agriculture however is the creation of a new industry. The old agriculture is dying, and its demise may be awaited with equinimity. It has had its day, and it has served its purpose. The new agriculture is a new business, a new profession, based upon real knowledge of the soil, the markets, fertilization, and the nature of plant life, along with the somewhat new belief that even in farming business methods are essential. In the soil of New England lies its greatest opportunity, its largest potential wealth. It has been the belief of the people of New England that its soil, except for certain restricted areas, is too poor to repay intelligent effort in farming. It was, in the light of the old-time agriculture, which consisted in putting any kind of seed into any kind of ground, applying any kind of fertilizing and any kind of cultivation, and leav- New England ing the result in the hands of God. Soon after the advent of the weather bureau, and the hostages to fortune that its knowledge furnished for New England farmers, there began to be preached a new gospel of the soil, which gave assurance that miracles almost could be wrought out of the poor New England soil. It was mostly a question of knowledge, and not primarily a question of native richness of ground. The rais- ing of profitable crops of fruits was shown to be a question of care, fertilization, and spraying to kill the pests, rather than the selection of a foreordained site for the orchard. So also of other crops that had been neglected in New England because of inadequate knowledge, or too much information that was not so. Now we know that it is the demand, the trans- portation facilities, the climate, and other correlative condi- tions, such as affect all merchandizing, that it is necessary to study, as well as the adaptability of the soil. If commercial and climatic conditions are favorable, there are large margins of adaptability in the soil. It is quite apparent that knowledge of the soil has been superficial. It is now possible to know exactly what any given soil is, and if the climate, the markets, and the requirements of the people within the zone of profitable distribution are taken into the account, it is not difficult for the farmer to decide upon the best crop for him to raise, and resolve his problem of success down to an estimate of his own ability and resources. But it is first necessary to know what the soil is. This cannot be determined by chemical analysis alone. Indeed, it is not safe to rely upon chemical analysis except as one of the elements of the necessary knowledge. It is of more initial importance to determine the origin of the soil that is to be dealt with. The simplest statement of the processes of soil formation is that it is formed through the action of the weather upon the land areas of the earth; that soil is broken fragments of rock mingled with organic plant remains. From this simple statement of a simple process the student is led to consider the nature of the rock that has been disintegrated, and of the changing vegetation which goes into the soil as a vital element ; of the quantity and periodicity of the rainfall, [ 12] New England of the intensity and continuity of the sunlight, of the nature of the reactions of the chemicals loosened from the rock, of the distribution of local soils by rain, streams, winds, and originally by the glacial drift which so mixed the elements of large areas. It is not unusual to find the soil of a certain area quite foreign to the rock formation of that area, and foreign to any specific rock formation, owing, perhaps, to the fact that a glacier had there unloaded an accumulation taken on from the rocks of widely separated sections. Even this con- glomerate of soil material may be covered by a layer of fine dusty soil which has been conveyed by prevailing winds from glacial deposits hundreds of miles distant. These varying characteristics, and others, are not found exclusively in dis- tinct areas, large or small. Several radically different soils are frequently found on a small farm, or even on a single acre. The rivers are working all the time to carry from the region of their source the rock material there existing to the vicinity of their lower reaches. The vast prehistoric lava-flows in the northwest sections of the United States are being eroded, by wind and water, and the dust distributed far and wide to add another element to the problem of the soil. The minerals of the land are being washed into the sea, gathered into the shells and bones of marine forms of -life, and eventually con- tributing to great phosphate deposits. The beds of disap- peared lakes and ponds, and the floors that were once bot- toms of prehistoric seas, furnish another variety of soil, and a new set of problems for the farmers. It may well be thought that these problems are too intricate and too numerous for the ordinary farmer. The answer is that the farmer need not concern himself with their solution. The United States government, the state governments, the many colleges and scientific institutions, solve them for him. It is however necessary that the farmers of New England rec- ognize the existence of these soil problems, and understand and acknowledge their relation to successful farming. If they do this they will seek for guidance along the lines of the modern conception of the nature, origin, and use of the many varieties of soils that are found everywhere. [ 13] New England New England farmer and manufacturer alike need to study the economics of their businesses. It is not saying too much to assert that the new knowledge of economics makes it possible for more than half the manufacturing plants in all the land to add a new dividend to their profits equal to, if not in excess of, the legal rate of interest, without reducing labor cost or the quality of material or workmanship. More than this may be said of the land. Business methods, with the new knowledge, applied to land may be relied upon to double the product of the New England farms without increasing their area. Inten- sive farming is not the whole story, though an interesting chapter, of the possibilities of New England land. If New England farming could be so reduced to a business proposi- tion as to make the farmer a possible borrower of capital the longest step toward land wealth would have been taken. Much of the manufacturing and mercantile business of the world is done with borrowed capital, at least during the development period. It is not so with the farmer. He is not able to borrow a cent on his business, because he is rarely able to tell what his business is. If he borrows money it is on his real estate. If he was able to go to his bank with balance sheets covering a series of years and showing his actual net profit, and that all expense had been charged against the farm, he could bor- row as much money as any business man, and he would not have to jeopardize his home. New England farms are gener- ally too small. They furnish employment for but one or two men, and the returns are usually no more than the owner could make at day labor. There is in them, as conducted, no opportunity for capital. Their owners are independent only in name. They are bound more firmly, and they make less money, than if they were employed by large owners as super- intendents, or in many cases even as laborers. The farmer who succeeds, by practising the most rigid economy and work- ing " from sun to sun," in putting two or three hundred dol- lars in the bank each year believes that he is making money. Usually he is losing money, as he would realize if he were to attempt the disillusioning task of making a balance sheet. He would find that he was neither getting interest on his invest- [ 14] New England ment, paying for repairs and depreciation, nor allowing him- self a decent wage, not to mention the other fixed, or overhead, charges. There is a strong tendency in New England to better this condition of neglect of business principles. There arc- many farmers who are applying business methods to their business, and who have tliat respect for themselves and their vocation which impels them to treat their matters as other business men treat theirs. This is the first and the most im- portant step in the direction of putting farming upon a busi- ness basis, and interesting capital in it. The fiction of " the decadence of New England," which has for many years been. a favorite topic of critics of this region, and has been too much considered by our own people, may be dismissed with a few words of explanation. It has never had standing with well-informed people, and it could never be substantiated by those who dwelt upon it with the greatest unction. It is a fact a creditable and glorious fact that New England has contributed many thousands of its virile youth to the newer sections of the country, and has itself lost their services and been deprived of their construc- tive work. It is also true that for various causes there are in New England many farms that have become " abandoned," though there are now but few farms that are fairly to be classed as abandoned in the sense in which that term is used by our critics. Many causes have led to such changes as have resulted in the existence of unworked farms, and but a very small minority of these causes give warrant for the offensive conclusion that the existence of these dormant farms implies industrial deterioration as a decadent condition of the whole of New England. New England is the oldest agricultural sec- tion of the country. Its original farms were located when there was no general knowledge of the soil and climate, and no knowledge of social and industrial conditions as they might develop. There were many mistakes in judgment, and many due to lack of knowledge of the conditions that have since de- veloped. The migration of the youth of New England toward the west led, naturally and inevitably, to the neglect of many farms, and, as the older members of the family died or became [ 15] New England unable to work the land, to actual abandonment, though the land might still be as capable of profitable working as ever. Those farms that proved to have been unfortunately located were abandoned for economical reasons. A few families disap- peared in consequence of the strain of trying to deal with ad- verse conditions. Some farmers were incapable of initiative, and went down to extinction with the accumulating conse- quences of unwise choice of farm location. The very fact that the lands of New England are wonderfully diversified in qual- ity and wonderfully varied in capacity accounts for many of the inevitable failures. If the soil of this section was of a pre- dictably uniform character it is evident that the chances for unwise selection and disastrous location would have been tre- mendously reduced, and therefore a quite different construc- tion placed by our critics upon our " abandoned farms " problem. The early settlers farmed for the purpose of secur- ing a variety of crop needed for the consumption of the family. As soon as farming began to become a business of raising produce for sale the problem changed. When the time came for specialization, and many of the staples had to compete with the rich West, there was another and more vital change in New England conditions. All grains became unprofitable crops. Even corn could not be raised as cheaply as it could be bought. Butter became unprofitable, as it was made in New England. These radical changes in the market threw many farmers out of employment. They had not been bred broad enough to adapt themselves to the new conditions. Scientific agriculture was unknown. The market for milk, and many other things that now bring the farmers much money, had not developed. The natural, the inevitable, the economic, result was many abandoned farms. But it was not essentially a New England development. It affected all agricultural sections. It was manifested in New York, and the effect there was more severe than it was in New England ; it affected Pennsylvania, and it spread all through the Middle West. Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa suffered severely. There were great numbers of farms abandoned in those states, and in other states, east and west of the Mississippi river. In Nebraska towns were aban- [ 16] New England doned. It is reported that more than 300 towns in that state were abandoned, some of them having attained to a popula- tion of 5000 or more. They died because, for one good reason or another, they were economic failures, exactly as some New England farms have been discontinued. But the record of New England shrinks to very modest dimensions when compared with the loss of 300 towns in one western state. Those towns were never resurrected, while most of the "abandoned" farms of New England have been again put in commission. Conditions have changed. Knowledge of agriculture has spread abroad. And, what is probably the most significant cause, there has come from Europe another stream of Pilgrims seeking free- dom and opportunity, and they have taken many of the un- worked farms and made them profitable. Today the " aban- doned farm " in New England, which was abandoned because of loss of racial virility, is a myth, and, considered as a special New England reproach, it was always a myth. Practically all of these unoccupied farms have been held by actual owners, who have paid taxes on them and held them for some satisfac- tory purpose. The time has not yet arrived when it is compe- tent for a critic to hold that because property is not earning dividends which seem to him adequate it is therefore aban- doned. In strictness, an abandoned farm is one that has re- verted to the state on account of long continued neglect and non-payment of the taxes assessed upon it. Of these there are very few in New England, and have never been more than a very few. While there has been some tendency toward the diffusion of some of the New England manufacturing over other sec- tions, there has been healthy growth and expansion, and there is legitimate opportunity for more. There are certain facts connected with the general question of manufacturing which are vital but which have not been given quite their due weight. It is becoming increasingly evident that the labor element is a fundamental one in any manufacturing enterprise. In New England there are several lines of manufacture that have been established for so long a time that there are sections which have become great reservoirs of expert workmen. This condition [ 17 ] New England does not yet exist in any other large section of the country, except in a limited sense and with reference to a few products. In textiles, shoes, paper, machinery, tools of precision, cut- lery, jewelry, bookmaking, and many other lines, we have kept the lead. It is not to boast that this is mentioned, but to point out that there are in New England such unique facili- ties for manufacturing extension as are included in the many localities where there is labor skilled in certain branches, that has been acquiring more skill and increasing in numbers through several generations. This fact cannot be equally true of any other section in this country, as no other section has been for so long a time raising up these skilled workmen. This fact of the supply of skilled and settled workmen in vari- ous lines is a great manufacturing asset, and it is being justly appraised and will be fully utilized. The waterpowers in New England are very numerous, and though it is understood that in certain localities they have fallen into the hands of companies or individuals that intend to speculate with them there are still many available opportu- nities for large installations of power-producing plants. The opportunities for smaller plants, suitable for producing power for smaller concerns or for lighting towns, are many, and they are attracting the attention of men who will eventually utilize them. Not long ago a scientific lecturer declared, in an address before the American Institute of Electrical Engineers, that " in the single state of Massachusetts more waterpower goes to waste annually than is found in Niagara itself." Sub- sequent investigation has shown that he greatly understated the matter. In Maine there is more undeveloped waterpower than in any other state in the Union, and in each of the other New England states there is so much waterpower which is not in use that it may not be exaggeration to assume that in the entire region there is enough potential waterpower ready to be harnessed to industry to light all of the New England states, make power for all their factories, and operate all their railroads. Nearly all of the rivers and streams have been made to yield their power to industry, and many of the water rights not utilized have been jealously claimed and guarded by legal [ 18 ] New England process. The Massachusetts supreme court records are loaded with decisions defining water rights, as are those of New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine. Big companies own many of the larger privileges, and of late some of the rivers and streams have been bought up from source to outlet by specu- lative interests. Yet there are many opportunities not secured, so many that the aggregate is almost unbelievable. Nor does the opportunity stop at the enumeration of waterpower privi- leges, large and small, wholly unutilized. Many of those that are utilized, up to the limit of availability at the time they were put in service, might now be made to yield 100 percent more power. Few of the millwheels now yielding 15 horsepower but might be made to yield 30, under the right conditions. The Blackstone river, flowing from Worcester, Massachu- setts, to Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, is perhaps the best harnessed river in the United States. Its banks are loaded with more than 100 mills. It is 45 miles long. Its value, in waterpower used, figured on a coal basis, is reckoned at $25,- 000,000. That is to say, the work that the river does if done by coal would cost 4 percent of something over $25,000,000. Most of these mills use the waterpower to supplement steam, having become so large that the waterpower, as it is utilized, does not give them power enough. Waterpower being so much cheaper than steam it would naturally be supposed that it would be utilized to near 100 percent of possibility. An en- gineer who has made a life study of Rhode Island streams states that not less than half of the water of the Blackstone goes to waste in ordinary times, and that many times its poten- tial power goes to waste in times of freshet. The ordinary half loss occurs nights and holidays, for lack of storage facilities. Figure the actual power of this river for a whole year and de- duct the power utilized and it would appear that the best- harnessed river in America is so poorly harnessed that the vast proportion of its potential power flows idly into the ocean. The full significance of this fact is known and appreciated by the mill owners. They have plans and surveys made for great reservoirs on some of the Blackstone's tributaries to store freshet water to give their power plants more capacity. Even [ 19] New England this expedient will conserve but a moiety of the lost power. That would involve an industrial revolution of great magni- tude the adoption of such drastic intensive methods as the operation of plants during the whole 24 hours of the day. Another example, by way of illustration, is the Deerfield river, in western Massachusetts and Vermont, which has a total fall from source to mouth of 1162 feet. Its least dis- charge during the three summer months is 500 cubic feet per second. During the spring freshets this discharge rises to 28,000 cubic feet per second, 56 times the summer normal amount. But 15 per cent of the normal flow is utilized. This is a pretty busy river, but it is seen that only a little more than .02 per cent of its potential power is used. The possible use is not represented by this view, since there are many good dam sites not now in use, giving opportunity many times to multiply the gross power that may be utilized. These examples, drawn from busy streams, give faint con- ception of the enormous possibilities afforded New England manufacturing enterprise by the unused waterpower in the six states. To express that opportunity in figures would be to dazzle the intellect. For all practical purposes it is illimitable. Careful examination of many lines of business reveals a con- dition much like that which has been indicated in the frag- mentary manner of the preceding pages. Some of the grounds for the attitude of the New England optimists will be more specifically stated in succeeding pages. It is not possible to neglect that which is one of the vital and effective agencies in the building of this section, the matter of education. Not, let us understand, the schools as schools, nor the work of the professional educators, as educators ; but, if we can grasp a thing so intangible, the growth in the minds of men of that impulse making for progress which is the real power behind whatever of progress it is possible to record or to hope for. Wherever one goes in New England, with an open mind, there are found many concrete examples of the workings of the new spirit which is transforming the whole region from whatever it was in the way of conservatism and stagnation toward whatever the optimistic estimate of its future may be. [ 20 ] New England It is characteristic of New England temperament, ancestry, and historic inclination, that when the impulse of progress at- tacks its men they should seek first to instil the principles of the mental attitude which must furnish the motor force for the realization of the new conception of industrial progress, to infuse into the people the cultivation necessary for the proper development of the new spirit in business. This is an uncon- scious motive, an instinctive reliance upon character and breed- ing, which has come into its expression without direct plan or specific attempt to correlate it with the hoped-for material progress. It is the racial habit of New Englanders to appeal to associated and communistic effort, and the developmental movement that is so evident in every part of the country is working here in New England in a manner which bids fair to direct expression through a peculiar but intensely practical mutualism which has for its object the improvement of civic life and the development of business. This is everywhere in evidence. There is scarcely a town or village, or agricultural district, within which there may not be found some sort of or- ganized effort to better actual conditions and promote busi- ness. These organizations differ in form, in stated purpose, in method of work, but they are one and all trying to accomplish the general purpose of definite betterment through coopera- tive work, through the device of federating the individual con- ception of the newer conditions and the individual desire to take the fullest advantage of the benefits offered to industry through the recent revelations of agricultural and industrial research and the tremendous growth of the markets. In some of the cities and towns there are boards of trade, chambers of commerce, commercial clubs, publicity clubs, or associations bearing other names but identical in purpose. In others there are men's church clubs or distinctive civic clubs. In many towns there are no clubs or organizations, but there the spirit is at work through some one vital citizen or group of citizens, and not infrequently through the town government itself. The churches are yielding to the spirit of physical and business betterment, and it is not unusual to find them systematically studying the questions connected with the betterment of their New England towns in their Bible classes, their week-day meetings, and in other ways. The public schools are seething with the spirit, and in many of them it goes so far as to organize the pupils into miniature civic clubs through which the whole theory and prac- tise of municipal government and development is taught. All over New England there are special schools for the teaching of specific trades and industries, and the towns and cities are more interested now in the study and development of voca- tional training than with any other phase of the educational problem; and everywhere that there is attempt toward voca- tional training there is the coincident attempt to turn that training to the specific advantage of the local industries. This is especially true of the agricultural colleges, high schools, ex- periment stations, and the work of the Grange and the agri- cultural and horticultural societies, many of which have the aid and countenance of state governments. The work being done by these agencies for agricultural education and training is of vastly more importance and significance than is generally understood. They are reconstructing the industries connected with the land, and spurring and fostering individual initiative and enterprise in a manner at once astonishing and gratifying. They are inspiring and directing a very marked movement of private capital toward the business development of the land. Everywhere business men are using their spare capital in buy- ing and developing farms. It is exceptional to sit at a country hotel breakfast table and not hear some man relate his experi- ence with this fascinating business. It is talked in Pullman smokers, and wherever men gather. And it is not altogether the farm that attracts the business men toward the natural resources of New England. They are taking up the study of the waterpower wealth that lies invit- ingly half developed all over our hills and valleys. " A few of us have bought up the river for the ten miles nearest our town " is a remark often dropped by the busy lawyer " on cir- cuit," or something like it by some busy man of affairs. So also of other natural business opportunities, and opportunities for manufacturing. The minds of the live New England men [22] New England are turned toward development in New England as they have never before been inclined during the whole of our history, and the visible fruits of this tendency are beginning to be very much in evidence. One of the greatest natural assets of New England is its adaptability for summer residence. This is not a newly discov- ered asset, but it is evident that it is to be promoted in a new and better way, and that the development is to be along lines not until recently developed. The areas especially adapted for summer residence have not been utilized to the extent of 10 percent, probably not to the extent of 1 percent. In this par- ticular New England has no rival in America. Whatever may be said of other regions, and there are several regions that present very great summer-resort attractiveness, there are no sections that in any sense compete with New England. Its of- ferings are unique. Therefore the lines along which their devel- opment should proceed shouid also be unique. There is nothing in the way of New England's assets which would be likely to respond so readily and generously to the proper promotive treatment as the summer-resort business. It is large, and it is unique, but it is to be said that it now exhibits the need of new methods and different conduct. Many causes have operated to change its character within the past few years, and none more than the rise of the automobile. The managers of the railroad doing the bulk of the summer-resort business in New England assert that at some points as many as from 60 to 70 percent of the visitors arrive in their own motor cars. This fact is significant of the situation. The motor car promotes flexibility in summer resorting. It makes frequent change not only pos- sible and easy but almost inevitable. Many of the resort houses have become of indifferent quality through wear and tear and the rise of new demands. The present day resorter is not in- clined to accept that which he once was satisfied with, in room or table accommodations. A too large proportion of the sum- mer hotels have not kept up with the times. They should be rebuilt and their menus should be radically reformed. There is a decided tendency also to look with less favor upon the re- sorts that are located remote from lines of travel and towns. [23] New England The auto has brought this about also. Whereas in the old days, when it was necessary to rely upon the horse for local travel, people resigned themselves to isolation for the sake of being near the mountains or the fine beaches, they are now less inclined to do so. The motor car has changed that. Now re- sorters may locate where they can have the benefit of the facili- ties of a town and also place themselves in daily touch with the natural beauties of all the country within a radius of 50 miles, or even more. So the towns in the vicinity of resort areas are likely to be given more consideration. This is a mere detail of reconstruction. The great fact is that the mountain and seacoast regions in New England are for it an asset of the greatest value, actual and potential, and there are plenty of indications that they are to be intelligently developed. No competent estimate of the money value of the summer business in New England has been made, and it is difficult to make even an intelligent guess. If we were to estimate that not less than 50,000 people go to the White Mountain region in New Hampshire, each season, for a stay of a week or longer, we would probably be guessing well under the fact. But 50,000 people staying a week or more must of necessity expend more than $5,000,000. Probably the facts are that there are many more than that number in the White Mountain region every season who stay a week or more, and probably they average to spend more than $100 for their holiday. And the White Mountains form only one of several mountain regions, while there are the seashore resorts and the innumerable other sum- mer outing places to be considered, as well as the thousands of people who go here and there, attracted by personal inclina- tion, kinship, memory of youthful days, or some other reason. It has been the rule for several years that resort regions have reported unsatisfactory business, mountain and seashore alike. Yet the people continue to visit them, and in increasing num- bers. The reports of failing business come from the hotels whose managers have not realized the change that is coming over their business in consequence of the automobiles and the disposition to seek for distinctive and personal facilities. Ownership of country places has been an element that has [25] New England drawn from the hotels and at the same time given a permanent character to resort regions. A great many men have purchased places and improved them with houses ranging from simple and inexpensive summer cottages to costly and elaborate coun- try residences. The extent to which this movement has attained cannot be realized except by going through the resort sections and noting the succession of individually owned estates. This feature of summer life is spread all over New England. There are few towns, having any pretensions to beauty or attractions of climate, which do not boast of from one to a score of sum- mer places. And this disposition is becoming more and more manifest as time goes on. It is stimulated by the return-to-the- land sentiment. The thrifty town dweller unites the resort idea with the scheme to build up a good farm as a property propo- sition, and while he and his family are enjoying the country air they are at the same time looking after crops that are to furnish their table during the coming winter with fresh vege- tables, and often with eggs, poultry and pork. The facts of the resort situation give, therefore, no ground for concern on the part of the well-wisher of New England. The shadow that rests upon it, if indeed there is a shadow, is a question of en- terprise and expediency for the hotel and transportation men to deal with. Broadly considered, the summer resort business is every year becoming more of a factor in the prosperity of New England, and if it is also becoming more of a business proposition for the visitors, that is a matter for rejoicing. Every man who buys a farm for the purpose of having a sum- mer home in New England, wherever his business may be located or wherever his winter home may be, becomes more of a New Englander than anything else, and may be depended upon to boost New England to the extent of his ability and equivalent to his satisfaction with the New England climate and character as he sees and experiences them. New England has been the nursery of literature, art, and music, in America, and remains such. It is no special merit that these arts began here, since the country began here, but it is notable that they persist here in as strong and virile ini- tiative as ever. It is sometimes asserted that literature has de- [26] New England serted New England for New York, and even for Indiana or California. There is not the shadow of plausibility in the sug- gestion. That other sections of the land have bred writers, that the business of distribution of books has been divided with New York, matters not in the least when we are considering the maintenance of standards and quality in New England. That we have lost in literature in a proportional sense is true, and none have more pride in that fact than we. The other sec- tions have advanced to that degree that they are now pro- ducers, and their ratio of advance is reckoned from the zero they registered only some few tens of years since. The literary manifestations everywhere except in New England have been sporadic. Even in New York there is but little literary pro- ductiveness which did not migrate there from New England, directly or through one or more ancestral generations. Yet we are not insistent upon our absolute rights in this. We glory in the growth of literature, music, and art, in all the country, and insist upon no more credit than acknowledges our ability and constant desire to maintain our historic standards. Bos- ton, let us assert, remains the literary and bookmaking city of the land, while New York has become the bookselling head- quarters and has induced many writers from all sections to locate and prosecute their vocation there. From Boston there flows a constant stream of the best books produced in the world, and from Boston the best, and the only, strictly literary monthly magazine continues to be published. While there may be some question about the bulk of educational books, whether it is greater in Boston or elsewhere, it is certain that from Boston there is sent out the larger proportion of educational books that are strictly consequential. When it comes to the matter of manufacturing books Boston takes the lead. It has the three concerns which are more notable than any others, both as to the quality and as to the bulk of their product ; and it has half a dozen others that are second in rank only as to their volume of output. It has the distinction of being the home of the best commercial and de luxe bookmakers in the world, and of producing the finest books marketed anywhere. In music Boston has the most notable orchestra in the world, [27] New England and the most deserving music school. It has the second largest musical merchandize house in the country, which is also prob- ably the most prolific publisher of music. Boston, and in lesser degree New England, is permeated with music in its most ar- tistic and delightful manifestations. It is the original home of the chamber concert, and during the season the events are so numerous that the devotee is obliged to exercise rigid selection. Barring grand opera, it is not too much to claim for Boston that out of it comes at least three-quarters of whatever is of real worth in music, and that it produces more good music every season than any other city in America. This is not be- cause there is any conscious attempt to make of the city a musical Mecca, but that the people demand the service of melody that is always being served up to them. In art, it is more the appreciative faculty that guages a people. Artists are so few that it is never just to assert that this region or that is the more prone to produce them. It is the region that knows and possesses art that is the artistic region. New England has produced its quota of artists, and it pos- sesses its proportion of works of art. That its people are, as a class, artistic, it would be folly to assert. No people are ar- tistic. It is only the slender proportion who are capable even of feeling the meaning of art. New England has its proportion of these artistically inclined people, possibly more than its numerical proportion, and it has many industries that are reckoned producers of works of art. It has the most notable museum of art in America, and it is utilized by the people. New England lends itself to the cultivation and propagation of esthetics, naturally, historically, climatically, educationally, and racially. To these states come the men who write, the men and women who paint, those who wish to become finished musi- cians. To these states come those who wish to live within the zone of the best development of literature, music, and art, in America. We welcome them, but we do not so much glory in the fact that they come as in the fact that New England is such as to invite them not indeed specifically because of those returning pilgrims so much as because of those who arc and have always been with us, and must here remain. It is that [28] New England these ameliorations of life are so free in New England as to be the common possession of all, and that they owe their existence to the tastes and requirements of the great bulk of the people. It is that New England, as a definite section, is literary, mu- sical, and artistic, that gives the prevalence of those arts their vogue here. That this is so is indicative of the nature of the people, and has an important bearing upon their ability and capacity in business. New England thrift is manifested even in the esthetic development of the people, and manifested in the true New England manner. There is reasonable ground of justification of the belief that New England is about entering upon a new era in its history, so far as its material development is concerned, and that a great industrial future is rapidly taking shape. Many of the elements that have tended to keep it in the conservative atmos- phere of the past are also of the past, and the constructive and pioneer spirit of the Pilgrims bids fair to resume its influence under the newer conditions. It is fair to assume that New Eng- land is to show that growth which comes from initiative and knowledge of new business conditions, put into practical opera- tion by enterprise attracted by opportunity. It is not longer destined to be content with the residuum of its best human product, while the vigorous proportion is drafted to develop other sections of the country. That there is a decided drift of enterprise to New England is the most hopeful sign now ap- parent. The men of New England have always been its greatest asset, and the greatest asset of the nation. Now it is apparent that the keen-eyed and restless enterprise of the men of America has convinced them that there is a field for them in New England, and we find men turning to this section because they perceive that here there is a fair chance to reap the large rewards they seek. A study of conditions and tendencies in New England reveals a strong probability that the men of the six states are justified in expecting that all of the great staple industries will greatly increase in production, and that busi- ness and wealth will multiply themselves. While the market will continue to demand greater supplies, it is evident that now there is an outlet in New England for greatly increased New [29] New England England production. In some lines of produce our markets are supplied with but a fraction of the demand from our own pro- duction. New England should produce, for example, poultry and eggs for shipment to other sections, being admirably adapted for that business, whereas it actually does produce but about one-fifth of its own consumption ; and something comparable to this is the fact in many other lines of produc- tion. The hopeful consideration is that New England people are now awake to this condition, and are busy remedying it, A NEW ENGLAND TOWN HALL or preparing to remedy it. New England is industrially in much the condition the Middle West was after the war of re- bellion a fertile and inviting field for pioneer enterprise ; and that fact has come already to be so well established that there is a tide of immigration setting into New England from other sections of the country, which is supplementing the gain through the check to emigration and joining with those of our own sons who are turning to the home opportunities for their careers and their prosperity. New England is thus receiving that infusion of vigor it has long needed, and is already re- sponding to the stimulus. New England is also receiving treatment conducive to its betterment in the way of publicity of the right kind. The people are being told of the new possibilities for enterprise, [30] New England and their faith in the section as a promising field for profit- able enterprise is mounting. We are being told what can be done, in the way of money-making in agriculture, and we are referred to specific examples. We are assured, by coldly- figured reports of actual accomplishment, that great dividends may be made in apple-raising, in raising peaches and plums, in potato-raising, in sheep-raising, in hay-raising, in small fruits, in gardening, in stock farming, in hog-raising, in poul- try-raising, in timber-growing, and in other specialization in crops. In many of these lines we know there is being more money made than is made in manufacturing a much larger percentage of profit and smaller percentage of risk. And we also know that in many lines of manufacturing the new oppor- tunities that have opened for New England are being utilized with great profit. This knowledge is making it evident to the observing that New England is just looking through the door to a wonderfully . bright future. We can see that trade and manufacturing and agricultural tendencies are gathering a momentum which is carrying us swiftly and surely toward an industrial future which will double and treble and quadruple our output of staples. It is not simply a hope ; it is cold calcu- lation based upon actual progress, and the sordid observance of tendencies manifested in terms of performance. We are now doing those things which are to produce the enlarged condi- tions we foresee. We have not been too prone to see these signs of promise. We have been obsessed with the stale idea that New England was a sucked orange, with respect to its human en- terprise and its opportunity. We have not taken the pains to look into the matter. Now there has arisen in the economy of the world a great need for the latent wealth of New England, and along with this need has come the new methods and pro- cesses that enable that power to be utilized; and there has come into the minds of men the vision and the prevision neces- sary to turn the latent wealth into supplies for the new needs. [31 ] The Charm of New England WITH the New Englander, resident, expatriate, or descend- ant, the charm of New England does not have to be stated. It is chiefly quality rather than condition, and does not come easily within the limits of spoken or written words. Physically, it ministers to that love of variety in beauty which is im- planted in people, and is stronger with those who are not con- scious lovers of that in beauty which most readily lends itself to artistic analysis and statement. The natural attractiveness of New England is of that order which appeals to our instinct for beauty. The mountains, the forests, the rivers and their valleys, the lakes, the conformation of the land everywhere, the seashore, the eastern background of the illimitable and myste- rious ocean, the capricious, but mostly charming and always health-giving, climate, tell their own story and make their own appeal. They require no sophistication, they admit of no for- malization or artistic setting devised by man, they need none of the terms of art in description, nor any artistic knowledge for appreciation. They are, as a matter of fact, indescrib- able. He who attempts to portray them in words falls into a slough of verbiage and flounders in a pit of vain attempt. The scenery in New England embraces examples of about every variety that has ever charmed beholders, from the grandeur of the mountains of New Hampshire and Vermont and Maine to the pastoral beauty of the stretches of the fertile valley of the Connecticut, and from the placid lullabies of the long reaches of sandy beach on the shores of Long Island sound to the tur- bid grandeur of the tumultuous sea along the craggy coast of Maine. There may be, somewhere in the world, varieties of scenery which are not found in New England ; there may some- where be beauties of seashore which are not duplicated some- where along our coast line ; there may be more peaceful and fertile valleys, and more picturesque farming lands ; but they f 32 1 The Charm of New England have not been brought to the attention of the world. We make no claim to excess of size, dominating heighth of mountains, awesome depth and extent of canons, world-beating capacity of harbors. We are speaking of that quality in these manifes- tations of nature which gives great and lasting pleasure to the beholders. New England is, in this respect, the world in rep- lica, sometimes in comparative miniature. Yet its extent is as large as the mind can compass. It does not inspire with awe, and daunt the imagination. It pleases the esthetic senses and it gladdens the heart. Its mountains and seashores give health. Its valleys give wealth. Its streams are lovely, and they turn millions of mill-wheels. Its acres are beautiful, while they yield bountifully at the behest of the wise and industrious husband- men. Nature in New England is a perpetual inspiration. She exacts labor for her fruits, but she gives freely of her abund- ant beauty. The beauty of nature is one of the leading assets of New England a charm that pays large dividends. Not only does it promote an enormous summer-resort business, which brings to us many millions of dollars each summer, but it adds an ap- preciable value to every man who lives within our borders. The farmer is a better farmer for the influence of the mountain which may bound his view in some direction ; or for the lake to which he may resort for fishing, rowing or bathing ; or for the river that meanders through his farm ; and his farm itself is likely to be a Corot picture if located in one of the valleys, or a scene fit for a painter of mountain views. Likewise, many of the manufacturing cities and towns are located in the midst of interesting scenery where it is possible for the operatives to be under the constant influence of Nature in her most ameliorat- ing moods. It is no more than a short trip from any of the New England cities into the midst of scenery which cannot be surpassed for placid or grand beauty. This has its effect upon character, and to it is to be ascribed at least a moiety of the quality of New England and New England people. Other sections of the country boast of one or two good things, in the way of natural charm, but New England can scarcely catalogue all hers. California has sunshine and a [ 33 ] New England background of blue mountain chains. Florida has summer tem- perature in winter. The Middle West has the effect of limit- less space. The Rocky Mountain region has terrific mountain scenery. Minnesota and Wisconsin have their thousands of lakes. Arizona has the Grand Canon. And other places have their peculiar charms and advantages. The only other portion of our country that could pretend to vie with New England in variety of charm may be portions of New York, Pennsylvania, and the Blue Ridge region. The latter would be our greatest rival were it accessible and exploited. It is not easily seen. One must ride a horse or walk miles to get a glimpse of a charming vista, a lovely valley, or a waterfall. But he who may freely choose his home in New England may locate it where the pounding of the ocean upon granite shores is always in his ears ; or he may dwell upon a mountain top, look down upon the hills and valleys, and listen to nothing but the winds. He may bask on the sands of Cape Cod, or wade knee-deep in the clover fields of Maine ; or he may watch the serried ranks of the tobacco in the fields of the Connecticut valley. He may es- tablish himself upon some breezy hillside, or elect to place his house by one of a thousand lakes or rivers. He may choose among a hundred quiet villages, with elm- or maple-shaded streets, or he may settle into one of the scores of larger towns or small cities. If he be in search of sport, he can trawl for muskallonge and pickerel in Lake Champlain, lure the shining trout from the streams in northern New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine, or look down through the limpid waters of Rock- port harbor and see the two-foot cod taking his siesta on the bottom. He may pursue the fickle moose and buck in Maine, and he may bag the wary partridge in any of the four north- ern states. He may play tennis at Newport or Longwood or Lenox, or golf at Bretton Woods or almost anywhere. The New England seacoast is the most varied and charming of any in the country. Along Connecticut, Rhode Island, and the cape portion of Massachusetts, it is generally sandy, the shores low, and the water warm enough for bathing in sum- mer. Generally north of Boston the shores are " stern and rock-bound," and the water is colder. When Maine is reached [ 34 ] The Charm of New England coniferous trees predominate, and the coast line is much broken with innumerable bays and inlets and islands, along and among which coastwise steamers constantly ply. Lovely sum- mer colonies are sprinkled all along the coast, and many of the sightly promontories are crowned with great hotels or fine villas. It were vain to try to enumerate the rivers and lakes. There are but three navigable rivers, and they are open but for short distances : The Connecticut to Hartford, the Penob- scot to Bangor, and the Thames to Norwich. The waters of New England are naturally clear and limpid. Some of the rivers are polluted with sewage and mill waste, but they are being purified as rapidly as is possible. But two of the lakes are polluted with sewage, and they not materially. The brooks are a delight, because of their picturesque environment and the sparkling purity of their waters. The rivers add their pictur- esque element as well as turn the innumerable water wheels for factories and to generate electricity for light and power. Our forests have gone into the paper mills, for the most part, and to the match factories ; but there are some large sections left one in Maine that is still untouched is larger than the famous Black Forest in Germany. When forests are cut off the scar is quickly healed with a second growth, if the land is not put into agriculture ; and, now the big paper companies, the railroads, and many private owners, as well as the state govern- ments, are doing a great deal of reforesting, so that the outlook is good for a restoration of our prestige as a lumber region. New England is made of mountains and hills and the valleys be- tween them. They are everywhere. There is absolutely no level country, as there is in other sections. The valley of the Connecticut is the nearest approach, where there are plains several miles wide, but there are hills in the midst of them. Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke rear themselves from the plain. It is only in the White mountains that peaks rise above the timber line, and there may be found mountains to satisfy any craving for grandeur, and there can be found plenty of untamed nature. Some of the peaks in the Franconia and Presidential ranges are as wild as the most inveterate moun- tain-climber could wish. It is useless, and impossible, to at- [ 35 ] The Charm of New England tempt to enumerate the lesser mountains and the fine hill- and-valley scenic gems. In the Berkshires, and the same ranges in Vermont where they are called Green mountains, can be found scenery as fine as the world affords not awe-inspir- ing, but beautiful. The hills are rounded and covered with verdure, and in the valleys lie towns, villages, farms, streams and lakes. The valleys must be seen. So of all New England scenery: Words are colorless; it must be seen, studied, lived with, loved. Even the climate of New England, much maligned by some who have felt its pinch in winter or its dry scorch in summer, is indeed the best climate in the world, if to its diverse and often fickle charm there be added its man-building power. It is necessary to know our climate and be able to coordinate its influence to the traditional virility of New England character if it is to be truly estimated; it is necessary to consider it as summer and winter, and in the light of a series of years. It is indeed also necessary to be very forbearing, as it tries the patience and the faith of the critical, and those not inclined to consider averages and ultimate results. But our climate is a large element in the New England character and the New England race. It makes hardy, clear-headed, robust, tolerant, active, virile, men and women ; and no better product can be hoped for in any climate. And it is in itself charming. It not only makes for health and physical stability, but it nurtures the esthetic and the moral nature. " Variety," we are assured, " is the very spice of life." We have variety of climate, about as much variety as the world furnishes. We have touches of the tropics, and touches of the arctic regions ; we have the chill wet of the California winter, and the scorching drought of the Arizona deserts; we have the snows of Russia, and the balmy days and evenings of the Riviera. There is nowhere, so far as contemporary records inform us, varieties of climate which are not sampled in New England, and there is no bodily ill which may be corrected by change of climate that may not be made to yield to some one of our climatic conditions. The climatic ills with which we are inflicted in one section disappear when we migrate to the antithetical region. The mountains [ 37 ] New England correct abnormal tendencies induced by the sea, and the sea is the antidote for the ills bred in the mountains. And every- where is that infinite variety which stimulates and soothes, which delights and satisfies, which ennobles and builds character. The historical charm of New England is scarcely less potent than its natural charm, and touches all good Ameri- cans with the same spirit. The native New Englander feels the honor involuntarily bestowed upon him as something akin to personal merit, and is prone to mildly exalt himself before men. If he cannot spy out his lineage back along the dimming genealogic trail leading to the Plymouth beach and the deck of the Mayflower, he seeks to discover direct or collateral con- nection with some of those whose historical vision may be clearer, more definite, and better authenticated. There are many desirable sources of ancestry in New England history, and plenty of potential consolations for those who feel that they are indeed of the blood, but may not peer so far into the past as the Mayflower. There are the various expeditions to found new states, undertaken willingly or under certain duress, as the migration of Roger Williams and his friends to Rhode Island ; there are the various wars, such as the several collisions with the Indians, the Revolution, the war of 1812, and so forth. These latter were not strictly New England affairs, we are forced to admit, but certain of the chief actors were natives of this section, and that is a fact not to be for- gotten by either direct or collateral descendants ; and many of the most stirring events of the great war for independence were fought on New England soil - the battle of Bunker's Hill, we do not forget, decided the liberties of the American Colonies. We see now, down the vista of history, that it did, and we delight to remember that Washington made that decla- ration when the news of the fight was brought to him, and clinched his opinion at Dorchester Heights, some months later. We concede, with generous pride, that the Revolution came to a dramatic and glorious end in Virginia; and we realize that it was the glorious end of a struggle begun in New England. We like to hark back to that war, and those I 38 ] The Charm of New England of us who can trace a direct relationship with any of its heroes remind others of that fact with the occasional sight of modest buttons on the lapels of our coats, and regale the world every year with reports of fervent dinners. But these things are but the embroidery of history, the pleasant devices we adopt to keep vital within us the spark of patriotism that was in those days of the past fanned into such roaring flames by men who blundered into the roles of tyrants. That in the history of New England which most attracts us of today, which constitutes its principal charm for us, is that it is the story of the germination of a great nation, and more even than that: that it is the story of the beginning of the greatest and most significant era in the world's history. The little knot of Pilgrims who were led out of Holland to America were the pollen of that great and fragrant flower, Civiliza- tion, and they were rudely shaken off their parent stalk, after the fashion of Nature, by harsh and hostile forces, that they might seek out and fertilize the, to then, barren and undevel- oped blossoms that were ready in the western hemisphere. As this story of the making of the newer and greater world on this western hemisphere recedes into the past it takes on a new and different character. It becomes softened as to outline and definite as to motive and purpose, and we see in it something more than the fighting of battles with Nature and with tyran- nical rulers, something more than the winning of freedom for the people who even then felt that they were destined to create a great race and build a great nation. We see the greater plan to loosen the bonds of thought, of intellect, of aspiration, of religion, of science, of imagination, of art; in short, of all the forces that make for higher civilization, fuller life, greater opportunity, and the bourgeoning of humanity. In the light of this truer view, the throes of those early days in New England both shrink and enlarge. It is seen that they were of little consequence, in themselves as throes, but that they were the birth pains of an era of the world. We of New England do not desire to monopolize these hallowed historical memories. We realize that we have a very large interest in them, and that it was in New England that the initiative was [ 39 ] New England first and most emphatically made manifest. There are other sections that can claim almost coincident settling, but none of them received this pollen of freedom and progress that came to New England with the Pilgrims, and landed on Plymouth Rock. While we are not inclined to take credit or unction to ourselves on account of this fact, which we are certain was arranged by that Providence which orders the courses of the world, we do take just pride in the other fact, that we are of those who were the instruments of that Providence, and that we are now permitted to live within the aura of the first physi- cal contact of that radical principle of human freedom and progress. It constitutes one of the most potent of the charms of New England, which has been distributed into the utter- most parts of these United States and is now as much their heritage as ours. Yet, despite the spreading over all the country of the people of New England, there is now in New England more of the original character that has made it distinctive than even we ourselves appreciate. New England is yet emphatic- ally New England. There have come to us hordes of people from other countries, and there have gone from us other hordes of our own people to other sections and to other countries. But there remains a great majority of the old stock. Not only have the newcomers not spread over all the land, but they are gradually being swallowed up in the historic New England. The change that has come over us on account of the new people who are coming is not as great nor as per- manent as we are wont to believe at times, when we come closely in contact with the new elements. It is always to be re- membered that the new people come from the same countries that our fathers came from, many of them, and that the mo- tives that send them here are, in many cases, even more preg- nant with a desire for human freedom than were the motives of our fathers. They fled from religious intoleration and from material oppression, but the intoleration and oppression that is driving the Poles, the Russian subjects, and the northern Europe peasantry generally, to this country is more real and much greater. In former years the Irish fled from conditions [ 40 ] The Charm of New England worse than those that drove the Pilgrims hither; and the Italian and German peasants are not leaving beds of indus- trial roses to come to us. These people, who come here to escape intolerable conditions of life, are contributing to the charm of New England because they are doing for themselves almost exactly what our fathers did for themselves, and be- cause they are assimilating themselves into the life of New England. We are prone not to remember facts when AVC think of the immigrant problem, as we call it. We have taken pos- session of the country, and have imposed upon it our language and our habits. We have not changed much. We came with the^ English language, with our religion fixed, with our dress, with our ideas of social life, with our ideas of domestic life, with our framework of law, with our industries. We have all these now, and we mean to keep them. Not only that, but we mean that everybody who has come here since we came shall also adopt them. And they are doing it. That is distinctively one of the charms of New England, that its character is not being eroded away by the people who come from the other side of the Atlantic, but that they are becoming New Englanders ; not as rapidly nor as generally as some of us wish, but, as to the more desirable among them, surely and steadily. Then there is the New England thrift. It is one of the great charms of the section. New England has no copyright on thrift. Other sections have it, in a degree greater or less than we have it. But it has happened that New England thrift has enabled us to be of greater consequence in the development of the other parts of the country than any other group has been. It was our fortune, due to primacy of origin and settlement. The conditions of life imposed upon the early New Eng- landers imposed also upon them the most rigorous thrift. To support life they had to save every penny, and they had to search diligently for the pennies to save. This hard condition bred thrift. At the first our fathers could not spend if they would. They did not have the money, and they could not get it; but if they had had money they could not have spent it, because there was no more opportunity for spending than for earning. Thrift was imposed upon the first New England gen- f 41 1 The Charm of New England eration by conditions they could not escape, and it became the habit of succeeding generations. It is still a New England characteristic, though its rule has in the cities become modi- fied. It has given the country a continuing stream of money, and that stream is still flowing. New England money has made many of the cities of the West, built many of the railroads everywhere, developed many of the mines, made farming pos- sible in the early days of the Middle West, harvested the crops in the grain country until within very recent years, and moved the wheels of progress generally. And there is plenty of it now where it has been coming from for three generations in the savings banks of New England, and in the strong boxes and leather wallets of the New England people. This may be es- teemed a sordid element to account one of the charms of New England, but a little reflection will dispel that view. It is that which New England money has done, can do, and is doing, which makes of this habit of thrift one of the distinctive and distinguished charms of New England. It is not put out to usury. It is collected by the savings banks, the building and loan banks, the great industrial corporations, the national banks and the trust companies, and made to do its part in the development of the country. It has been, and it is, adventur- ous. It went into the western farm mortgages, and much of it was lost there; but it played its part in making farming there possible and profitable. It has never shrunk from taking heavy risks, in the missionary spirit that has ever been a New England characteristic. It has been, and it is, an amelioristic element in the country's finances. One of the especial charms of New England is the New England sociological spirit. It is distinct from the sociological spirit of the country, and it is that difference that makes of it a New England charm. Sociology is, one may say, rampant in the world, and no section of the world is justified in claim- ing its devotion to sociological thought or work as a distinc- tive or exclusive charm. There is in New England however a variety of sociological development that is perhaps in its in- tensity not to be found elsewhere, and it offers to the thought- fully inclined, and to the altruistic, an opportunity to indulge [43] New England their penchant such as is nowhere else available. It is the fashion in Boston, which is really the capital of New England as well as the capital of Massachusetts, to devote some share of one's time, money and enthusiasm to the service of Man, and to do it in a very practical and result-bringing way ; and the example Boston sets is followed in the other cities and towns. To a large and increasing extent these manifestations of sociological bent which originate and focus in Boston are participated in by people in all the states, so closely have the trolleys, the telephone, the automobiles, and the improved service of the steam railroads, drawn us together. That new spirit in business which is accomplishing such great things for business, and which is lending business methods to sociology and philanthropy and religion and education, is having a great and significant development in New England. We stood by and watched the sentiment blossom and fruit elsewhere, not in a spirit of criticism but to note the methods and the re- sults. Finally, when New England was ready, we took up the work, and began at once to show remarkable results. In Bos- ton there is now going on what it is perfectly just to describe as the most remarkable movement in applied sociology that is anywhere at work. The visible mediums for this work are the Boston Chamber of Commerce, Boston-1915, the Pilgrim Publicity Association, the Boston Young Men's Christian As- sociation, the Franklin Foundation, the school authorities, the labor associations, some of the boards and associations of the state, the Metropolitan Park, Water, and Sewage boards, the churches, and many other organizations and societies. The first and third named associations are essentially business or- ganizations, but they are conducted on the theory that better business results if there are better men, and so their work has often a very strong sociological flavor, and their whole force is often focussed upon the accomplishment of purposes which have but a distant relation to business. There are in Boston many small informal associations of men working for some special end, such as getting a business course into the curric- ulum of Harvard University, or Yale, or focusing the ener- gies of groups of more or less visionary societies upon some I 44 ] The Charm of New England practical reform or advance movement, or lending the aid of disinterested citizens to the work of school authorities, or turning the attention of churches and their related associa- tions to civic investigation and work. New England is a verit- able caldron of sociology, and its manifestations are so vari- ous that there is not the slightest chance that the predilections of any individual cannot be exactly satisfied. One of the more desirable and hopeful of the tendencies of this flood of good- will formalized is that it is realizing that it is not altruism that is to be desired, but mutualism. So in New England the thing is not so much for brother to help brother as for brethren to work together for their mutual benefit. Much has always been said and written about New England culture, and some of it has had at least a suspicion of a fleer in it. Both the statement and the fleer in it have been deserved. We are devoted to culture, and some of us mistake informa- tion for culture. If we know about things we wish it to be ac- knowledged that we are cultured. Some of us know better, and realize that culture is more than knowledge, and different. Culture is not a sectional quality. It is prone to follow in the wake of age. Where men have been for a long time, have over- come the obstacles of nature, and have found time to discover themselves, there is sure to be culture. It is not that New Eng- land is New England that culture abides here, but that New Englanders have had more time to ripen; and perhaps also that they brought a quantity of well-developed primal stock from the old land. But there is no quality of exclusiveness in New England culture. It is altruistic, and it seeks to distrib- ute itself as democratically as possible. Here one has only to have the desire and willingness to accept the opportunity and almost every kind of knowledge that goes for the foundation of culture is freely at his disposal. One of the charming things about New England is that it is, in some respects, the most finished section of the country. There is here the sense of the benign work of Time. Every- where, even in the midst of the most flourishing and progres- sive cities and towns, there are examples of the work and evi- dences of the lives of the fathers old houses, rows of stately [45 ] New England elm trees, old business buildings with their queer gable ends to the street ; while ever and anon there are still to be encoun- tered men who adhere to the dress and fashion of life current two or three generations ago. The Webster style of blue swallow-tail coat with brass buttons has but just disappeared from one of the New England legislatures. There are every- where reminders of the glory that was. There are many house- holds that are conducted almost as in the colonial times. Supper is yet the evening meal throughout rural New Eng- land, and in a goodly proportion of the city homes as well; and it is not only supper in name but the same foods are served in the same manner. What are called primitive customs survive. The curfew rings from many church steeples, though leniency is practiced with respect to the ordering of lights out at the same time. The district school exists everywhere in the more remote and smaller sections. The town academy has not wholly surrendered to the modern high school. A majority of the farms are still worked as great-grandfather worked his, though this is cited solely as a pictorial element of charm, not as an industrial fact to flaunt. The New England style of architecture gives way to more modern conceptions with stub- born slowness. Most of the country churches are redolent with suggestion of the storied past, and the echoes from the pulpits often serve to strengthen the illusion. The old-fashioned gentleman and lady are present at every church service and at every village function. We cling to the memories and the habits of the past, and by so doing we exasperate the more progressive among our younger people. But we who are charmed with these survivals, and believe that they are among the valuable assets of New England, believe that we recognize a more tolerant spirit with reference to them. That charm which appeals with the greatest force to many people is that more or less intangible relict from the past which preserves for the New Englanders of today the essence of the past, manifested no less in the settled air of having already lived than in the substantial evidence of real estate and bank balances. New England is full of the charm and lure of the past, the old New England. There is everywhere the [46 ] The Charm of New England feeling that we of the present are indeed heirs of the past, and that our ancestors were careful to consider our needs and our wishes. The old houses in many of the larger towns and cities attest their builders' regard for their posterity. The stately avenues of trees everywhere are eloquent of the care which our fathers and our grandfathers had for the generations that were to succeed them. They built, in many ways, for the pleas- ure and the profit of the generation of which we are. They built for the permanent charm of New England, whether con- sciously or not is answered by the elms of the Connecticut valley, which need two generations for their adolescence, by the wonderful houses of old Salem and Hallowell and Hart- ford and other cities, which are even more attractive now than when they were built ; and by the thousand and one other evi- dences of planning and building for futurity which are met with on every hand. Time has given New England that restful air of being finished which is so grateful to the senses. The raw, the unfinished, the temporary, the experimental, the transitory, are notably absent from our lands and waters. A goodly proportion of New England farmhouses have melted into the general prospect so amiably as to seem to have been designed to complement the scene, and many of our towns and cities have become merged in the landscape as though they too were included in the scheme by the great landscape archi- tect who fashioned the country. The charm of New England lies in the fact that New Eng- land continues to be New England. Sentiment, romance, the halo of youthful memories, the sacred aspirations of patriot- ism, the roots of innumerable families, the tremulous first breath of universal political freedom, the motherings of a new continent, the adolescence of America, the nourishing of the nation, all of these sentiments and memories come and clamor when New England gets into the minds and hearts of the people of America, and it is then that we know that New England is a section of the land that is not to be permitted to live for and unto itself, but that it belongs to all the land and all the people of the land, and will always live in the hearts of all the people. [ 47 ] Manufacturing in New England AN ungenerous soil for the greater part, scant mineral wealth embedded in great rock formations, noble but not con- tinental rivers falling from mountain lakes and streams across its territory to the sea, a long rocky coast indented with numerous harbors, these were the natural resources of New England which the pioneers found when they came. At the outset their labors were of necessity devoted mainly to the cultivation of the soil to supply the means of subsistence. Their first industry was home building. Their first artisans were the carpenter and the blacksmith. Their first mills were the grist and the saw mill. The rivers were their first high- ways. The " pinnace " and the ship constituted their first system of transportation. Simultaneously with the clearing and planting of the land, the sea was cultivated, and the fisheries and the carrying trade became the first gainful oc- cupations. Their first products, other than fish, were drawn from the forests that environed their settlements and bor- dered the rivers and streams. Less than three years from the planting of the Pilgrims the ship Anne sailed out from Ply- mouth on her return to England laden with two hogsheads of beaver and otter skins, and " good clapbord as full as she could stowe." The Puritans of the Bay colony, as soon as es- tablished, were taking up the same industry. Very early they were sending their products from the forests clapboards, pipestaves, hoops, rough hewn lumber, not alone to Eng- land, but to the West Indies, where they found a welcome market in exchange for the commodities of the islands. In the infant settlements on the coast of New Hampshire and Maine all were busiest in the conversion of their almost inexhaus- tible wealth of timber into merchantable forms. Close upon the carpenter and the blacksmith came the shipwright and shipbuilding, for the fishing and carrying trades became a paramount industry. So too, as an auxiliary [ 48 ] Manufacturing' in New England to the fisheries, the manufacture of salt was begun. A ship- wright and a saltmaker were among the accessions of the Plymouth colony in 1624. The shipwright, as Bradford records, " quickly builds two very good and strong shallops, w,ith a great and strong lighter," and gets out " hewn timber for ketches," while the saltmaker attempts the manufacture of salt for their fisheries, first at Cape Ann and afterward on Cape Cod. But in the summer's heat the shipwright " falls into a fever " and " dyes," to their great loss and sorrow, and the saltmaker fails in his efforts, for he is " an igno- rante, foolish, self-willed fellow." Pretty soon the Pilgrims had better luck, and by 1627 had turned out a neat pinnace and were getting salt in fair plenty. By 1634, only four years after the beginning of Boston, the New Englanders were sending out their commodities of cured fish, lumber and furs, and bringing back articles of convenience and even of luxury. Their well-laden ships were voyaging to England, the West Indies, the Canaries. In 1636 one of Cradock's ships arrived from Bermuda with " thirty thousand weight of potatoes and store of oranges and limes." The Boston ship Tryal took out fish to Bilboa, and in the spring of 1644 returned home from Malaga laden with "wine, fruit, oil, iron and wool." This, the chronicler notes with satisfaction, was " of great advantage to the country and gave encouragement to trade." A year or two earlier the writer of "New England's First Fruits," remarked: " Besides many boats, shallops, hoyes, lighters, pinnaces, we are in a way of building shippes of a 100, 200, 300, 400 tunne, five of them are already at sea; many more in hand at this present." This he devoutly held to be one of several " remarkable passages " of God's " providence to our plan- tation." And Hubbard, in his "History of New England," wrote of the period between 1646-1651 : " The people of New England at this time began to flourish much in building ships and trafficking abroad." They were moreover building ships to be sold abroad. By 1645 New England-built fishing vessels were venturing so far as the Banks of Newfoundland. By 1650, as Captain Edward Johnson noted in his buoyant "Wonder-Working Providence of Sion's Saviour in NewEng- [ 49 ] New England land " : " Many a fair ship had her framing and finishing here, besides lesser vessels, barques and ketches, many a Master, besides common Seamen, had their first learning in this Colony [Massachusetts]. Boston, Charles-Town, Salem and Ipswitch our Maritan [maritime] Towns, began to en- crease roundly, especially Boston, the which of a poor coun- try village in twice [thrice] seven years is become unto a small city." From these slender though substantial colonial beginnings were developed the great shipbuilding interests which gave New England wide fame before and after the Revolution, and in which she led through two centuries. Along with the development of the lumber trade, the fish- ing industry and shipbuilding came domestic manufacture for home consumption. When in 1641 immigration had fallen off and, as Winthrop wrote, " all foreign commodi- ties grew scarce," and their own " of no price ; corn would buy no thing, a cow which cost last year 20 pounds, might now be bought for 4 or 5 pounds," these straits set the people on sowing hemp and flax, as well as on fishing and lumber cutting, and " to look out to the West Indies for a trade for cotton." In his " Plain Dealing : or Newes from New England," wrote the observant lawyer, Thomas Lech- ford, who had been in the colonies in 1637-1641 : " They are setting on the manufacture of linnen and cotton cloath." And the pious recorder of " New England's First Fruits " found a further " remarkable passage " in the prospering of " hempe and flaxe " here " so well that its frequently sowen, spun, and woven into linnen-cloth ; and in a short time may serve for cordage." " So," he added, " with cotton- wooll (which we may have at very reasonable rates from the islands) and our linnen yarne, we can make dimittees and fustians for our summer clothing. And having a matter of 1000 sheep, which prosper well to begin withall, in a com- petent time we may hope to have woollen cloath there made. And great and small cattel, being now very frequently killed for food: their skins will afford us leather for boots and shoes, and other uses. So that God is leading us by the hand into a way of clothing." The spinning wheel was now an important adjunct of the [ 50 ] Manufacturing' in New England home, and the housewife and her buxom daughters were be- coming adepts in their first domestic manufactures. The shoe- maker and the tanner had arrived, and were plying their trades in Plymouth and in Boston. Thomas Beard, in Ply- mouth, who came over in 1628 bringing out with him a supply of English hides and of leather, and William Copp, in Boston, whose dwelling and shop at the foot of the north- ernmost of Boston's three hills gave it the name of Copp's, were the forerunners of the great shoemakers of New Eng- land who brought this industry to the foremost place and to a high state of perfection. Francis Ingalls, a first settler of Lynn, who set up the first tannery in the colonies in what is now Swampscott, and George Keyser, a close follower with his tannery in Lynn, were the beginners or founders of the great hide and leather trade in which New England early led and still leads the country. By 1641 ropemaking had begun, and the shipbuilders were no longer dependent upon the home country as before for nearly every kind of ship rigging and tackle. Close upon the home building and the cultivation of the soil and the sea, mills were set up ; and early the rivers and streams nearest the coast were harnessed. The first saw-mills were water-mills. The first corn-mills were wind-mills, but waterpower was very soon substituted for wind. The pioneer New England mill appears to have been a wind-propelled corn-mill in Massachusetts ; the first water-mill was a saw-mill in New Hampshire. The corn-mill, tradition says, was first set up in or near Watertown, on the Charles river ; but " be- cause it would not grind but with a westerly wind," it was taken down in 1632 and removed to Boston, where it was reerected at the North End on the hill that became Copp's hill. The saw-mill was on Salmon Falls river, near Ports- mouth, and was running, as some local historians say, as early as 1631, although the first mention of it as apparently in operation is in 1634 or 1635. The first water-propelled grist-mill was Colonel Israel Stoughton's mill erected, "by leave of the plantation," on the Neponset river, at Milton, where the oldest of the chocolate-mills now stands, and it [ 51 1 New England ground " the first bushel of grain ever ground by water in New England," in the autumn of 1634. Antedating all of these was a Pilgrim water-mill set up beside " Billington Sea " in Plymouth ; but that was simply a pounding mill by which corn was cleaned from the hull and prepared for samp, or nausamp and succotash, the use of which the colo- nists learned from the Indians. It may have been the first mill to take the place of the primitive mortars borrowed from the Indians which the Pilgrims first used to crush their corn. In 1636 and 1637 more water grist-mills sprung up in the Bay colony in Salem, Ipswich, Newbury ; and about the same time water saw-mills began to multiply along the streams of Maine and New Hampshire. Rhode Island was slower than its sister colonies in utilizing waterpower, dependence being on wind-mills for a considerable period. But it was early en- gaged in the lumber industry, making first exports of lumber, pipestaves, and so forth, in 16391640. In Connecticut the first saw-mill was at New London, set up previous to 1654, an enterprise of the younger John Winthrop. Early iron works were established, and this younger John Winthrop was their chief promoter. It was he who discovered iron ore in New England. The first furnace in America, set up in Lynn in 1644, where bog iron in considerable quantities was found, was quickly followed by the second, in Braintree ; both owned by the same company, which was instituted by Win- throp, who was also subsequently concerned in an iron works in New Haven. Thus Lynn has the distinction of having first introduced the manufacture of iron as well as of leather into the colonies, and the merit of having developed these indus- tries to substantial proportions. These pioneer iron works continued in operation, with variable success, for a consider- able period, the Lynn works for more than a century, and from them graduated workers who were the progenitors of great American iron masters. Among these graduates was Henry Leonard, one of the earliest employed in the Lynn works who assisted in making the first castings in Amer- ica. He, with his brother James, establishing a forge in the town of Raynham in 1652, was the first of a long line of [ 52 ] Manufacturing 1 in New England iron masters of that name in different parts of the country. The brothers Leonard appear to have added to the manu- facture the operations of the bloomery and the forge ham- mer. A year or two after the setting up of their forge, a Dutch writer in the New Netherlands remarked of the New Englanders, that they were then " casting their own can- non, plates, pots and cannon balls from native iron." In 1691 iron ore, called rockmine, was obtained from the ledges of Nahant for the forge at Braintree. At about the same time iron ore, much better than bog iron, was found in the bot- toms of ponds, and profitably used. It was pulled up from the beds with tongs, lifted into boats, taken ashore and carted to the furnaces. The first rolling and slitting mill was erected in Middleboro, Mass. Here were produced nail-rods out of which hammered nails were made. At a foundry in neighboring Bridgewater, later established, tradition says were made the first cannon in the country, cast solid and taken elsewhere to be bored. At this foundry cannon balls and cannon were turned out during the French and Indian wars, and the Revolution; and Weston tells how the owners of this foundry undertook to cast four cannon six or seven feet long to be used in the Revolution, and how when tested they exploded and the owners lost all their property in the venture. As early as 1639 glass manufacture had begun, with the making of bottles and other coarse wares. Window- glass making was undertaken at a later date. Before that window glass was an imported luxury and only the opulent, or the fairly well-to-do, had it in their windows. From these crude beginnings glass manufacture became in time an im- portant New England industry, and so continued till into the second half of the nineteenth century. During the closing eighteenth century Rhode Island's domestic manufacturing was underway, receiving a great impetus through the ingenuity and enterprise of Samuel Slater; and Connecticut was beginning the development of her marvelous variety of industries in the product of small- wares, which came to their rich bloom with the advancing nineteenth century, and hold to this day. Connecticut-made [ 53 1 0*2 il- ls Manufacturing in New England goods early after the Revolution became important American staples, and Connecticut "Yankee notions" won fame the world over. Before the middle of the eighteenth century New England was making beaver hats for the world, and the feltmakers in London were appealing to the government to protect them against this competition of the colonists by prohibiting the importation of American-made hats, which was done. To properly treat of the manufacturing in New England would require several volumes the size of this. Nothing but a rapid and impressionistic sketch can be attempted indica- tive of what there is now in New England in the way of great and special manufacturing interests, and of what there is ground to hope there will be in the near future. That there is to be improvement, substantial and natural growth, for the industries of New England requires faith to believe and proof to demonstrate. In other sections of the country the fact of future growth is accepted as a part of the creed of good citizenship. No man of the West has to be con- verted to the postulate that his state or city is bound for a golden future. No man has to be convinced that it is his duty to cherish an unclouded faith in the booming future of that region, and to promote that future with all his strength and all his soul and often with all his money. And the men of the West and the Northwest, and the Southwest, and the South, do that. They believe in their sections, and they are willing to back that belief with personal service and with cash. They do even better than to pool their cash for the betterment of their cities and states they get the cash from people in other sections of the country; from New England and the East generally. It is the fault of New England investors, not that they have invested more in the West, but that they have invested less in New England. This is an economic fault, not a defect in patriotism or love of the home section. The economic fault is that while the money from New England has gone to the West and the newer sections, to build factories there, it might have been invested for the same purpose here at home, and earned larger dividends. If this is not strictly true of all [ 55 ] New England the time since New England began to send money to develop the West, as I suspect it is not, it is very true now, and has for some years been true. There may have been, with respect to the past, a broader philosophy than we are now inclined to consider that controlled the diffusion of the money of New England. It is conceivable that the industries of New England had better chance to grow without the stimulus of new money put into them, and that the manufacturing growth of the West needed the nurture of more ready money to enable it to get a foothold in the alien and unfriendly and untilled soil. But now the necessity for that fertilization has passed, with the firm es- tablishment of manufacturing in the West and the other sec- tions of the country which were first farming or mining regions, and New England capital is free to consider the opportunities offered in its home fields. Such appears to be the case. It is now observed that capital is more kindly inclined toward great manufacturing opportunities in New England; and it is sig- nificant that the more notable evidences of this consist in enter- prises that have for their objects the opening of the field for the general benefit of all kinds of manufacturing, as well as in the establishment of specific industries. The development of the unused waterpowers of New England is attracting a great amount of capital, which has to have a large amount of faith to insure even the hope of dividends away off in the future. The money that is going into transportation enterprises, gov- ernment and state money as well as private funds, shows that there is an abiding faith in the future of New England manu- facturing ; which is, after all, the very best warrant that there is a bright future for it. There was a time when New England was the workshop of the nation. Then everything was made in this territory, be- cause there was not another section prepared to undertake the work. During this period we were prone to indulge the belief that New England was divinely ordained to make all the goods the country needed, of whatever kind or nature. We clung to this belief, and to the factories which were responsible for it, far too long. We have different ideas now, which have been banged into us by the people who discovered that there is a \ 56 1 Manufacturing in New England certain fitness of locality for the manufacture of certain goods. We have discovered or it has been discovered to us that machinery consisting more of iron than workmanship should be made nearer to the supply of iron and coal than we are located; and that machinery and utensils wholly used outside of New England must be made nearer to their base of sale and use. These truths we have learned, but it took us a long time and the knowledge came hard and high. On the other hand, the newer sections of the country, when they began to make their own special necessities, were carried off their feet somewhat, and began to experiment in lines that had been de- veloped here and that were anchored to our section with bonds formed of skilled help and trade advantages. These attempts were failures, many of them, and have been abandoned. Both of these causes of deterioration in some of our lines of manu- facture have done their work, and now we see the balance struggling toward equipoise. New England has learned what it can do profitably, and what the other sections of the coun- try cannot profitably do, in the way of manufacturing. Recently developed industrial conditions have helped to widen the industrial horizon of New England. The growth and enrichment of the newer sections of the country have immensely augmented the demand for our staples, and tremendously stimulated our facility to conceive and inaugurate new indus- tries. We have begun to understand that the great manufac- turing asset of New England is brains the brains of the men who have the money and the courage to install new industries, and particularly the brains of the skilled artisans who have been bred to expertness through several generations. This brain asset will operate to maintain our manufacturing pres- tige as long as it is itself maintained. This suggests one of the more important and interesting questions connected with in- dustrial development everywhere the training of specialized workmen through successive generations. This development is not in harmony with the strict republicanism of America, and yet it is becoming one of our industrial assets. The special- izing of industrial knowledge and skill, by handing craftsman- ship down from one generation to another, and another, is one [ 57 ] New England of the chief elements of strength in German and English indus- trial life, as well as, in some sense, one of the elements of social weakness in those countries. In America its influence is at present amalgamated with social and socialistic interests in such fashion as to obscure judgment "of it as an industrial asset. Its visible and obvious manifestation, just now, gives New England a decided advantage in such manufacturing as involves man-skill in mechanics as one of its essential elements. This basic element has built up some of the most important and significant establishments in the world, here in New Eng- land, and it operates to make it forever impossible that they shall desert New England. It has also operated to build up great specialties in the West. Take shoes : There are now sev- eral great factories in some of the middle western cities made possible by drafting New England managers and operators. The great automobile factories in Michigan, Ohio, and Indi- ana, drew many of their managers and skilled iron workers from New England to such an extent, indeed, that New Eng- land felt the embarrassment of a shortage in those lines and has taken to educating the immigrants in the use of auto- matic machinery and in many of the processes going to the making of tools, firearms, etc. Engine building was once almost exclusively a New England industry, but has gone nearer to the iron and coal supply, and taken the skilled mechanics along with it. Heavy machinery, such as engine lathes, is made in the Middle West to a greater extent than in New England. But New England is honeycombed with establishments mak- ing tools of precision, mechanics tools, machine tools, and machinery that is either consumed in this or near territory or that requires more skill than pig iron in its construction. This sort of manufacturing is growing. The manufacture of textiles that require skilled labor is still New England's specialty, and is growing at such a phenomenal rate as to justify the suppo- sition that it is destined to remain here indefinitely. Whenever it is noted that there has been a new cotton mill projected in the South (usually financed from New England) it is easy to turn to records of expansion in New England that dwarf the new mill almost to insignificance. We are told that the South F 58 1 Manufacturing in New England is making great progress in manufacturing, and such is the fact. We all rejoice in it, and would not make comparisons that seem invidious. Yet to show how far New England is in the advance it is only necessary to state that there was in 1905 in the six New England states $1,870,895,405 engaged in manufacturing, as capital; while in the six southern states that are competing in the making of cotton goods there was $657,416,455 capital engaged in manufacturing. There is as much capital invested in the textile mills of New England as there is invested in all kinds of manufacturing in these six southern states. On the other hand, there is almost exactly as much manu- facturing capital in New York as in all New England, nearly as much in Pennsylvania, nearly half as much in Illinois, nearly half as much in Ohio, more than a third as much in the little state of New Jersey. More than half of the manufactur- ing capital in New England is in Massachusetts, and about one-third in Connecticut and Rhode Island. New Hampshire, Maine, and Vermont have together but about one-sixth of the manufacturing capital of New England. These three northern New England states have been essentially grazing and farm- ing states. Vermont remains such. New Hampshire has big mills on the Merrimac river, is developing an enterprising policy with respect to waterpower, is showing definite gains in number of establishments and capital employed, and is get- ting industries that esteem freedom from trade-union condi- tions and a policy of settling help in homes and drawing from the farming population. Maine has great paper mills, and a considerable textile industry. It has also a lumber and wood manufacturing industry of considerable, but scarcely growing, extent. The waterpower in Maine is destined to make of it one of the greatest manufacturing states in the Union. The manufacturing story of these three northern states, reserving a section of the southern portion of New Hampshire, is soon told, and is not very distinctive or inspiring. In Ver- mont there are great quantities of marble and granite quar- ried, but only a small proportion of it subjected to such working as would justify reckoning the capital employed as f 59 1 New England being manufacturing capital; and there are large scale- making plants in two towns. In New Hampshire, aside from the immense textile and shoe factories at Manchester, there are some notable industries, and there is evidence in many cities and towns of systematic endeavor to increase manufacturing in them. During the past few years there has been a rather notable drift of shoe manufacturers to New Hampshire towns. Perhaps the most consequential of these came from Chicago, and is therefore an addition to the shoe industry of New Eng- land which in some measure compensates for the factories that have been established at St. Louis and Chicago, with New England brains. In machinery New England has surrendered the lead, so far as bulk and value of output is concerned, to the middle wes- tern states, for the very good reason, as stated, that large machinery and cars must be made near to the sources of iron and coal. But in all the lines of the manipulation of iron and steel in which skilled labor counts for more than raw material New England is yet either in the lead or well up in front. Worcester is, for example, the recognized center of the manu- facture of metal-working machines and tools. At Athol, Mass., there is the great Starrett factory, an establishment unique in the world, making about 1200 varieties of mechanics fine tools, the great majority of which were invented or devised by the proprietor of the works, and much of the machinery used in the factories is also of his design and conception. This man has discovered a great need in American craftsmanship, and has supplied that need. His products are sold in every city in the world, and are the synonym for accuracy. They have lifted New England workmanship to a higher plane, and they have put exact workmanship the world over on a higher plane. There are many such establishments in New England, where tools for the workers of the world are devised and made. The Morse Twist Drill works at New Bedford is another il- lustration. Twist drills were originated there, and from that shop have sprung all the other concerns in the country now en- gaged in the business of making twist drills. The making of boots and shoes by machinery, and the machines to make [ 60 ] Manufacturing in New England them, originated in New England, and the greatest of the fac- tories in existence twenty years ago started in the kitchen of the owner's father. The development of the textile industry, and of the machinery to make all kinds of fabrics, was in New England, and we now hold unchallenged the lead in these lines. These four great staple lines machinery and tools, boots, shoes and leather, paper, and textiles, dominate New England industries now, sharing their supremacy only with agriculture and waterpower, both in their infantile stage of development. We make over one-half the textiles, textile ma- chinery, boots and shoes, fine paper, wire goods, cutlery, fire- arms, ammunition, rolled brass, rubber goods, clocks, plated- ware, rolled copper, silverware, and a long list of other goods ; and we lead in so many things that the list of them would read like a business directory. The vital thing for New England, just now that it has de- cided to take full advantage of its destiny, is what it is to be rather than what it is, or what it has been. Circumstances un- related to personal or sectional enterprise have had much to do with establishing many of the great industries of New England. There was, at the time they came into being, no other place for them to take root. They located here because this was the only section available for any kind of manufac- turing, because here were the only possible operatives, be- cause here were the only known and available waterpowers, and because here were the only markets. They have stayed here partly because they were here, and partly because New England enterprise has kept them here. It is only a few years since there was no capital outside of New England, and it is only within two generations that New England capital has become vagrant and gone to other sections to establish manu- facturing. It went along with the pioneers who opened up the farms of the West, and it was with the prospectors who dis- covered and developed the great mines of the Northwest and California. While it was thus engaged, some of it was sedu- lously building up the factories of New England. In the wake of capital went the skilled workmen and the managerial tal- ent. This was the second hegira from New England westward, [ 61 ] Manufacturing in New England and it sapped New England as the first flight across the con- tinent of the land-hungry Pilgrims sapped it, though not as severely. All through the big factories of the West there is the New England trail. In many instances the whole industry will be found to be New England's, from the capital to the opera- tive, including the patents and designs at the bottom of the enterprise. Hopes of greater manufacturing development in New Eng- land rest upon several quite recently discovered or developed conditions. Chief among these is the new realization of the po- tential resources of New England. This supplies the personal factor which is to create the enthusiasm and the constructive promotive energy. There would never such a sentiment develop in New England if there were not a very solid basis, a per- fectly good reason, for it. There must be dividends in sight in order that New England enterprise shall deal with home prob- lems. Promises of dividends are accepted from the West, but not from New England. The guaranty of dividends to New England money and enterprise expended in New England has been furnished by. New England land and by New England trade prospects. Enterprise has had its eyes dazzled by the Pacific ocean, and its imagination daunted by the necessity of leaping that vast ocean or turning back to whence it origi- nated in New England. It has divided its forces : One portion is lingering on the Pacific slope dallying with the fascinating work of making the land there yield dividends, one portion has shut its eyes and vaulted into China, Japan, Corea, the Philippines, and the Hawaiian islands ; and yet another por- tion, the smaller, has turned its eyes to the old home here in New England. This homing moiety is being joined by some homie-keeping money and enterprise, and the promotion of New England is under way. Much of this promotive spirit is going to the work of developing the New England land, but a fair share of it is engaging in manufacturing and in collateral en- terprises, such as the utilization of waterpowers. This latter is assuming great proportions, though it has not yet come out into the open in great volume. There is a great amount of money being put into projects for the harnessing of water- [ 63] New England powers in New England, and there are vastly greater amounts being prepared for by the securing of power sites along the rivers. These enterprises are not solely for the benefit of man- ufacturing, but primarily for the furnishing of power for street railways and electric light plants. They all contemplate the selling of electricity for power for manufacturing, as their secondary purpose, and expect that factories will group them- selves within economical reach of their feed wires. This is hap- pening wherever these power schemes have developed to the point of selling electricity. It is interesting to note, in con- nection with the multiplication of waterpower-made electricity, that the builders of steam engines have bestirred themselves, and are now able to compete with this electric power, if steam- ing coal can be supplied at reasonably low rates ; all of which is for the advantage of the manufacturers of New England, who have sorely needed cheaper power. The vital consequence of this move to utilize waterpower can only be conceived when the tremendous potential energy of the unused waterpowers in New England is taken into account. It has not yet been es- timated with any degree of accuracy, but there is enough of it available to cut the power cost of all the mills in New Eng- land to the lowest electrical figure, and allow for their expan- sion to ten times their present capacity, or a hundred times. The potential power of the water that runs to waste in New England would be expressed in figures that would stagger the imagination, if it could be expressed- at all. It is not the fact that there is unlimited potential water- power available in New England that furnishes the chief rea- son for expecting a great increase of manufacturing in New England. There is no one principal reason that can be stated. It is happening. That is the best reason of all. Market condi- tions have changed. It is now profitable to make many things in New England that have heretofore been unprofitable. We are getting to consider things in terms of costs, instead of in terms of despondency and fear. We do not now quail when we are told that goods must be produced near the raw material and their greatest markets. We ask ourselves if that is the whole problem. And we discover that it is not ! We discover [ 64 ] Manufacturing 1 in New England that there is the problem of skilled labor, and that that is in many instances the greatest of all the problems ; and we dis- cover that the problem of transportation is after all but one of the minor manufacturing problems. When a Chicago house finds it economical to establish great shoe factories in New Hampshire, ship all of its leather from the West and ship all of its shoes to Chicago, we are inclined to disregard the trans- portation argument; so far, as least, as shoes are concerned. Nor are we very completely possessed by the argument that raw material for iron manufactured articles must be near at hand when we learn of the successful return to smelting in cer- tain industries, and that a New England concern can receive steel ingots from England in less time than they can be re- ceived from Pittsburg, and often at less cost. There is, and always has been, a large amount of unsup- ported assertion in the arguments against certain lines of manufacture for New England, and we have listened to them too credulously. This credulity has disappeared, and with it has gone much of the difficulty of New England manufactur- ing. We have found out that we can make freight cars in Massa- chusetts to compete with Pittsburg or St. Louis, and we have gone about making them. We have found that the West cannot make shoes to compete with us, if we adopt the selling schemes of the hustling westerners, and we are doing it. We are begin- ning to believe that we may as well again begin to make our furniture, which we quit doing when the West began to make a systematic business of what we had been doing in a hap- hazard manner. We are even beginning to find out that we can make many articles that use more iron than brains, de- spite the shibboleth of the necessary propinquity of iron ore and coal. We can pay the freight on cotton from Egypt or India, and wool from Australia, make it into fabrics and ship it back to those very countries, at a profit. We are discovering in all lines of manufacturing that all of the physical problems are adaptable, may be shaped to our conditions, but that the element of brains and skill is that which demands our atten- tion and must be allowed to shape our manufacturing policy. The great increase in the demands of our own markets is a [ 65 ] stimulus that has operated to enlarge our manufactured out- put, and will continue thus to operate. We have been buying too many goods that we might as well make, and we are see- ing it. It is a little ridiculous for the workshop of the nation to buy manufactured goods away from home, as we are now realizing how ridiculous it is for us to buy garden truck grown in the South, when we can raise it much cheaper and market it in much better condition. We are getting our eyes open, and that is the chief reason for our expectation that we are to have a great revival in manufacturing that and the fact that that revival has already begun. The textile industries are almost the greatest in the entire United States, standing in the rank of manufactures next after iron and steel. The textile industries are far and away the greatest and the most important in New England. Wool, cot- ton, silk the preparation of the raw materials, the spin- ning of the yarns, the weaving of the cloth, the dyeing and finishing of the fabrics these occupations absorb more capi- tal and employ more labor in New England than any other calling, and the prosperity of these vast and complex interests is most vital to the prosperity of every form of New England trade and commerce. Broadly speaking, one-half of the entire textile activities of the United States, exclusive of flax, hemp and jute, are conducted in the region lying east of the Hud- son river and north of Long island and Vineyard sound. This preeminence of New England is not only historic but it is un- shaken, almost unchallenged. The past thirty years have wit- nessed a wonderful development of cotton manufacturing in the southern states, and of wool manufacturing in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Ohio. Yet New England has not only maintained its ancient leadership but in some points has actually strengthened it. Out of the huge sum of more than a billion dollars to be exact, $1,288,901,074 invested as capital in textile manufacturing in the United States, no less than $624,096,904 is contained in New England mills and factories. Out of a total annual disbursement of $240,776,492 in wages to textile operatives no less than $116,847,135 is f 66 1 Manufacturing in New England paid to New England people and deposited in the savings banks or disbursed for purchases in the shops and stores or for other expenditures in the six New England states. Out of a total annual value of product for the textile industries of $1,152,097,433 New England's contribution is $522,821,440. New England comes rightfully enough by her preeminence in textile manufacturing, for the very first American efforts to produce in this country the clothing of the people of this country were made here, nearly three centuries ago. There were skilled English " clothiers " among the earliest colonists, and these men were naturally ambitious to practice their craft in the new land. The first fulling mill in New England was built in Rowley, Mass., by artisans who came over in 1638, only eight years after the founding of Boston. Cotton, wool and linen were spun and woven in the households of these New England pioneers. As Governor Winthrop wrote in his Journal of June, 1643: " Our supplies from England failing very much, men began to look about them, and fell to the manufacture of cotton, whereof we had a store from Bar- badoes, and of hemp and flax, wherein Rowley, to their great commendation, exceeded all other towns." In 1645 the General Court of Massachusetts, moved by the urgent need of good, warm clothes in this inhospitable climate, passed an order to encourage the establishment of flocks of sheep. As early as 1640 the Massachusetts lawmakers had offered a bounty of three pence on every shilling's worth of linen, woolen and cotton cloth, as a stimulus to native manufacturing. Later, it was ordained that all persons not otherwise employed mean- ing particularly women, boys and girls should spin for thirty weeks every year at least three pounds a week of linen, cotton or wool. The General Assembly of Rhode Island, in 1751, granted a bounty of one-third of the appraised value on cloths manufactured in the colony from wool or flax, but at the next session the act was repealed on the ground that " it may draw the displeasure of Great Britain upon us, as it will interfere with their most favorite manufactory." Textile manufacturing as we now know it, in separate es- tablishments as a regular business undertaking, had gained [ 67 ] New England no real, distinct foothold in America up to the Revolutionary war, but the primitive form of household manufacture was practiced throughout the country. Homespun woolen, cotton and linen fabrics were the every day apparel of the people. All other cloths were imported principally from England. No such thing as a textile factory was known, in 1783, in the United States. The textile industry as we now understand it is entirely the outgrowth of the national period of American history. Just as every effort of the colonists to make them- selves self-sustaining was vigorously discouraged by the Brit- ish government, so after political independence was established, every possible obstacle was placed in the path of industrial enterprise in the new republic. Arkwright had introduced his labor-saving textile machinery in Gr^at Britain in 1769, and a factory system was being steadily developed. This sys- tem however was rigidly kept a British monopoly. Skilled artisans were forbidden to take out of the country to the New World any machinery, or even models or drawings, and the baggage of all departing travelers was searched for such con- traband material. In 1790 however there came over from Old England to New England a man named Samuel Slater, who brought these models in the form of ideas in his head. He had worked long in an English factory, and was familiar with machinery and methods, and he reproduced these machines in the United States. From his achievement dates the successful factory production of cotton fabrics in the United States, and the plants established in Rhode Island by Samuel Slater have been in operation ever since. The first of American wool factories was that of the Hart- ford Manufacturing company in Connecticut, which was started in 1788 through subscriptions raised in the Connecti- cut towns. It found its products undersold by English goods which could easily pay the duty of five percent. In eight years the company went out of business. Other woolen mills were started at about the same time in Stockbridge and in Water- town, Mass., and in 1794 there was established at Byfield, Mass., the first woolen factory operated by power. The Fed- eral Census of 1800 mentions only three woolen factories and [ 68 ] Manufacturing" in New England credits them with a capacity of about 15,000 yards a year, and a valuation of about $75,000. By 1820 the value of woolen fabrics produced in the United States had risen to $4,413,068, and of cotton fabrics to $4,800,000. Each Federal Census since 1820 has marked an increase, until the latest full official figures available those for 1905 show that the product of American woolen mills has reached the impressive value of $380,934,003, and of cotton mills, $442,451,218. Four hundred and eighty-three million pounds of wool were consumed in the American wool manufacture in 1905, and of this huge amount New England utilized 263,000,000 pounds. Out of the total value of wool manufactures amounting, as stated, to $380,934,003, New England's share was no less than $218,108,733. American woolen factories gave employment in all to 179,967 operatives, more than one-half of whom, or 98,- 263, were employed in the New England states. Out of a total capital of $370,861,691 invested in the wool manufacture in^ America, no less than $215,695,277 was represented in the woolen mills of New England. Massachusetts is preeminently the leader in both wool and cotton manufacture of all the states of the nation. Of a total of $442,451,218 given by the Federal Census for the products of all of the cotton mills of the country, our New England mills were responsible for more than one-half, or $224,072,562. Out of a total number of operatives of 310,458 in the cotton mills of the country, no fewer than 155,981 are in the New England factories a larger percentage of the total than was so employed in 1880. The total capital invested in the cotton manufacture was set by the Federal Census at $605,- 100,164, of which $304,259,792, or more than one-half, was attributed to New England. Massachusetts alone is credited with an investment of more than $173,000,000. Of the total number of cotton spindles reported in 1905 of 23,000,000, the New England states had 14,000,000, and of these Massachu- setts had more than 8,000,000. The Bay State has a larger number of cotton spindles than the entire South, though the increase has been prodigious in South Carolina, North Caro- lina and Georgia. [ 69 J Manufacturing 1 in New England But these impressive statistics fail to convey an adequate idea of the preeminence of New England in the great branches of textile manufacturing. Here the industry was first devel- oped, and here it has attained its most thoroughly modern or- ganization. The Amoskeag Manufacturing company, with its mills in New Hampshire and its offices in Boston, is the largest cotton manufacturing concern in the world. The American Woolen company, with its offices in Boston and all but one of its thirty-six mills in New England, is the largest wool manu- facturing concern in the world. Besides these two giants there are many other large, strong concerns equipped with the most complete machinery and managed with a fine blending of New England sagacity and enterprise. Manchester, Lowell, Lawrence, Fall River, New Bedford, Providence these are textile centers of world-wide reputation. A great deal of silk is used in the fine cotton-spinning mills of New England, and this section of the country contains a distinctive silk manufacturing industry worthy of separate rec- ognition as a textile art. There was little else than household manufacture of silk in the United States until 1810, aside from the production of silk laces at Ipswich, Mass., and the mak- ing of fringes, coach laces and tassels at Philadelphia. The first silk mill on this continent was a New England enter- prise established at Mansfield, Conn., in 1810, for the manu- facture of sewing silk by waterpower. In 1834 silk dress trimmings were being made in Boston, and a sewing-silk fac- tory had been started in Florence, Mass. A sewing-silk fac- tory was in operation in Dedham in 1835, and in 1838 there were laid at South Manchester, Conn., the foundations of the great silk business of the Cheney Brothers. That Con- necticut enterprise antedated by two years the starting of the general silk manufacture at Paterson, N. J. In 1848 the man- ufacture of sewing silk was established at Holyoke, Mass., and in 1866 at Willimantic, Conn. According to the Federal Census of 1905, the total value of silk manufactures produced in the United States was $133,288,072. There are 69 silk manufacturing establishments in New England, with a capi- tal of more than $24,000,000, employing about 12,000 wage- [ 71 ] New England earners. New England leads all other sections of the country in the output of sewing silk and machine twist. To sum up the textile interests of the United States in 1905 represented a total capital invested of $1,343,324,605. The average number of employees was 739,239, and the wages paid amounted to $249,357,277. The total value of the prod- ucts of the textile industries was $1,215,036,792. Of the total capital invested in the textile industry about one-half, or $629,- 696,994, is invested in New England, nearly one-half, or 305,- 474, of the wage-earners are employed here, and $116,847,135, or almost one-half of the wages paid, come to the working people of New England. Second in rank as a New England industry, and holding first place in Massachusetts, is the manufacturing of leather and the innumerable other products that are fashioned from this indispensable product. New England makes more than half the shoes that are produced in the United States, and Boston is the leading shoe and leather center not only of America but of the world. It is a Massachusetts industry whose history goes back nearly three centuries. In Boston may be found the offices, factories or headquarters of more than one thou- sand concerns engaged in the manufacture or sale of leather, hides, footwear, shoe goods, machinery, and the accessories of this great American business, whose total product is nearly $1,000,000,000 annually. Twice a year hundreds of buyers of boots and shoes and leather come to Boston from nearly every state of the Union, to examine styles and purchase their stocks for the ensuing season. There are streets in the shoe and leather district of Boston that are wholly devoted to this industry, and hotels whose patronage at certain seasons is almost entirely of shoe buyers and dealers. Millions of dollars worth of products of tannery, shoe factory, last works and machine shops change hands here every year, and are shipped to all parts of America and to every civilized country. Mil- lions of capital are represented by the concerns in the shoe and leather district of Boston. Their leading men are on the directorates of banks and railroads and active in the affairs [ 72 ] Manufacturing in 'New England of clubs, commercial organizations and civic and welfare movements. The trade is represented by one of the oldest and most progressive organizations in the country the New England Shoe and Leather association and in a social way by the equally energetic Boston Boot and Shoe club. Alto- gether, the shoe and leather section of Boston is one of the most important and most American commercial-industrial nerve-centers in the United States. While the New England leather and boot and shoe indus- try originated in and was for a long time confined to Massa- chusetts, it has now become firmly established in several of the other states, notably Maine and New Hampshire. Roughly speaking, there are something like 1000 tanneries, shoe factories and plants devoted to the production of shoe machinery, lasts and collateral products, in this section, em- ploying about 100,000 workers and producing some $400,- 000,000 worth of goods annually. There are more than 100 New England communities in which some part of this indus- try is carried on. Boston, although it has the largest single factory in the world producing women's shoes, is outranked as a footwear producing city by several New England com- munities, the chief of which are Brockton, Lynn, Haverhill and Marlboro, in Massachusetts, and Manchester and Nashua in New Hampshire. Brockton is the leading center of the man- ufacturer of men's shoes and possesses several great concerns whose advertising campaigns have made their product known throughout the world. It has more than 30 shoe factories, turning out 20,000,000 pairs of shoes valued at above $50,- 000,000 every year, and in addition has 135 establishments producing leather, shoe manufacturers goods, machinery, lasts, etc. The industry of making lasts is in itself a most important one in New England. Brockton has 13,000 wage- earners in the shoe and leather industry, receiving $9,000,- 000 in wages annually, and its output of footwear has in- creased about 60 percent in the last decade. Lynn, the second shoe city of New England, makes a specialty of women's foot- wear, and in this line leads the world. It has more than 100 boot and shoe manufacturing concerns, and many engaged in [ 73 ] New' England the manufacture of collateral products, its annual output be- ing about $55,000,000. It has 13,000 of the most skillful and best paid shoe workers in the world. The city is virtually the arbiter of style in women's footgear. Haverhill is the world's greatest slipper and low-cut footwear city. It produces 20,- 000,000 pairs of men's and women's shoes and slippers, valued at $30,000,000, annually, and a large part of this product finds its way into the foreign markets. It is a noteworthy fact that Essex county, in which Haverhill is, manufactures about one-seventh of the footwear produced in the United States, and employs in its numerous shoe factories, tanneries and allied plants, 25,000 workers who receive a total yearly wage of $20,000,000. Marlboro, another thriving Massachu- setts shoe center, ranks as the fourth city in shoe manufactur- ing in that State and the eighth in the United States. It has a number of prosperous concerns whose aggregate annual prod- uct has a value of $10,000,000. In the last decade its shoe business has increased about 150 percent. New England " shoe cities " like Rockland, Whitman and Newburyport, Mass., Auburn and Gardiner, Me., and Manchester, Nashua and Dover, N. H., are making gratifying strides along this line of industrial development. One big shoe manufacturing concern having its principal factories in Manchester and its offices in Boston, is credited with a total production today of 28,000 pairs of shoes daily, the largest output of any shoe concern in the world. From the fact that between 5,000,000 and 6,000,000 cases of shoes are manufactured in New England annually some idea of the magnitude of this business may be gained. The figures of shoe production are only half of the story however, for New England still holds a prominent place as a tanning center, and in Boston alone are the financial or agency head- quarters of more than 400 leather and hide concerns of various kinds. Peabody, Mass., may be instanced as a type of the growing and thriving New England tannery town, with its annual product of about $20,000,000. This is the world's greatest sheepskin tanning center. Woburn and Winchester are also important leather centers. A large proportion of [ 74 1 Manufacturing in New England Massachusetts-made leather is sold through the Boston mar- ket. Sole leather of all grades and the various kinds of upper leathers, including glazed, are made in New England tanneries. This branch of the industry has an exceedingly promising future. The most advanced methods of scientific tanning and modern merchandizing are in vogue, and the establishment of a school or institute of tanning is among the possibilities of the near future, which has its general as well as its special significance. While New England has been steadily advancing as a shoe and leather manufacturing section, it has also taken front rank as a producer of the machinery by means of which the modern boot and shoe is fashioned. The work of nearly 100 of these wonderful machines is necessary to the production of the twentieth century shoe, and New England, through the United Shoe Machinery company, has a practical monopoly of the manufacture-of these. In the great factories at Beverly, Mass., more than 80,000 leased shoe machines, valued at $40,- 000,000, have been turned out during the past ten years. The company employs between 4000 and 5000 workmen, and earns more than $5,000,000 net annually. It has branch establish- ments for the manufacture of its machinery in several for- eign countries. New England has long been noted as the home of paper making. It is now in the enjoyment of that distinction, but like some other industries the making of paper is becoming a national rather than a New England industry. The tremen- dous increase in the demand for paper for newspapers, maga- zines and the cheaper grade of books, due to the invention of typesetting maclu'nes and the perfected printing and bind- ing machinery, made it necessary to produce these grades in quantities beyond the capacity of New England forests. These papers are made of wood pulp, and the forests of New England were not sufficient to supply the demand. While the greatest of these mills are yet to be found in Maine, there have been many established in the West, and in some southern states. Book paper of the cheaper grades is also now made of wood, and it naturally followed that its manufacture would [ 75 } New England follow the big wood-pulp mills. Much of this grade is now manufactured in Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin and West Vir- ginia. Coated paper for illustrated books and commercial catalogues and booklets is made in the West and South in increasing quantities ; and there are some mills outside of New England making considerable quantities of fine papers for writing and blank books, etc. The figures of paper produc- tion since 1905 are not available, but it is surmised that the reports of the Twelfth Census may show that the position of New England in the matter of paper has changed, though it is not expected that our supremacy in the production of fine papers will be disputed. The years from 1900 to 1905 showed remarkable results in the paper industry of New England. The number of mills decreased from 233 in 1900 to 227 in 1905, yet the capital invested increased from $6,151,121 in 1900 to $107,910,058 in 1905, about 76 percent. The improvement of methods of manufacture was indicated by an increase in production from 648,894 tons in 1900 to 980,677 tons in 1905, 51 percent and from fewer mills. The cost of raw materials used in 1905 totaled to $42,420,- 803. The value of paper produced amounted to $63,840,217. In 1905 Massachusetts was second and Maine third in produc- tion of paper in the United States. Maine showed the greatest gain in product, increasing in five years 73 percent. Maine was second and Massachusetts third in amount of capital invested, New York being a little ahead of both. The increase of capi- tal invested in Maine from 1900 to 1905 was $23,800,755, or 136.2 percent, the greatest ever shown by any state of the Union. This phenomenal progress was due to the waterpowers and forests that state was able to produce. The tons of paper produced in 1905 by the New England states is shown by this table : New. <- Book WgP- ^ Sped,!- Maine ..... 215,300 44,000 67,390 89,900 13,400 2,500 Massachusetts . 19,500 80,700 123,500 16,000 27,000 29,000 New Hampshire . 80,500 411 12,000 27,100 8,200 26 Vermont .... 34,400 948 4,400 ____ 4,590 13,000 Connecticut ....... 6,400 6,000 7,000 64,000 5,500 f 76 1 Manufacturing in New England The total product in the United States is shown in the fol- lowing table, the figures being compiled in May, 1910, from the most authoritative source. Tons are the units : News Writing Book Tissue Wrapping Board Specialties Building and Sheath Total paper . . . . Yearly 1,335,321 210,017 786,163 102,539 1,020,914 1,190,214 181,697 368,903 6,196,368 Daily 4266.2 672.9 2511.7 327.6 3261.7 3802.6 580.5 1178.6 16,601.8 The amount of all kinds of paper produced in the five New England paper-making states is shown by the following table, expressed in tons. Rhode Island has but one paper mill, with a small production, the figures of which could not be easily obtained. In addition to the varieties named in the table, there is annually made in New England 1,209,646 tons of " coating," the stock used as the base for coated papers of all kinds. There was produced in the United States 3,630,961 tons of this stock. Massachusetts made 51,676 tons of build- ing and sheathing paper: News Writ- Book Tissue Wrap- Board Special- ing ping ties Maine 346,178 14,685 107,985 117,062 38,280 Mass. 15,932 103,634 128,737 4^664 9,171 86,983 22,129 N. H. 124,480 14,586 8,764 52,928 10,830 4,695 Vermont 17,059 16,620 14,523 4,006 14,711 Conn. 7,825 5,008 908 4,632 10,110 94,057 11,205 The city of Holyoke has a world-wide reputation for pro- ducing fine and book papers. It is the greatest paper center in the world. Its mills turn out 200 tons of fine paper daily, one- half of which is " tub-sized, loft-dried " writing paper about one-rhalf of this variety of paper made in the United States. Dalton, Mass., is famous for its production of fine paper, and it is here that the paper for government bank notes is manu- [ 77 1 Manufacturing' in New England facturcd. New Hampshire is next to Maine in manufacture of news paper, and has some very good forests and water- powers. Connecticut and Vermont produce straw and leather board in great quantities, but are barely holding their posi- tion as paper-producing states. While the industry in New England has shown most wonderful progress and activity in the years 1900 to 1905, since 1906 it has been virtually at a standstill. Low water in rivers, strikes, tariff changes and business depression have all played a part. The great com- panies manufacturing news and book paper in Maine and Massachusetts have experienced strikes which greatly curtail their production. The bulk of the jewelry industry of this country is confined, as to its manufacture, into two very narrow areas. If a man stood in Jersey City and could draw a circle with a radius of ten miles, and another man could stand in Pawtucket, R. I., and draw a similar circle with a radius of ten miles, there would be inclosed within those circles more than 90 percent of the jewelry and silverware manufactured in the United States. The New England circle contains factories producing goods of considerably greater value than the New Jersey and New York circle. By the census of 1900 the value of the pro- ductions of jewelry in Providence totaled about $13,000,- 000. The Attleboros contributed more than $8,000,000 more ; the two groups together producing more than $21,000,000 worth of jewelry at the time the census of 1900 was taken. New York and Newark together manufactured a little more than $16,000,000 worth of goods. By the Rhode Island state census of 1905, Providence was shown to have increased its output of jewelry to $14,500,000, while its output of silver- ware was $5,500,000. The Attleboros in the same year pro- duced $8,250,000 of jewelry and more than $2,000,000 of silverware, this latter output having increased nearly 400 percent in five years. There are something more than two hun- dred jewelry factories in Providence, and ten silversmith establishments ; while in the Attleboros there are about one hundred jewelry factories and ten silversmith establishments. f 79 1 New England These concerns employ in Providence an average of nine thou- sand people, and in the Attleboros an average of five thousand. The manufacture of machinery in New England ought to be made the subject of a chapter, and might well be made to fill a large book. The facts regarding it are not available. Few of the large concerns know about aspects of the business that do not directly apply to their own business, and the Fed- eral Census reports are either too diffuse or too concrete to make them available for the purposes of this book. The trade associations have not specific data on file and have no systems of keeping in touch with the development of the business of their members. In some lines New England manifestly leads the world in the manufacture of machinery. Nine-tenths of the textile ma- chinery made in the United States is made in New England, where it was invented. The great establishments at Lowell, Whitinsville, Hopedale, Worcester and Hyde Park, dominate the field so far as looms and other textile machinery are con- cerned, and there are many other cities and towns that are interested in various lines of machinery used in textile mills. The Draper concern at Hopedale and the Whitin corporation at Whitinsville have made themselves notable for inaugura- ting advanced living conditions for their employes, and have built up model villages. The New England peculiarity of the great textile manufacturies in New England is that each of them originated or greatly improved the machines they build. The inventive brains in the Draper family and among their employes have revolutionized the weaving of certain branches of textiles. The Knowles and Crompton inventors have evolved looms that have in their sphere worked another revolution, and resulted in the building up of a great group of factories at Worcester, with branches at Philadelphia, and elsewhere, unequaled in the world. At Hyde Park the more modest Staf- ford works are in the same position, of having some special- ties that are necessary for the successful operating of certain textile mills. There are everywhere in New England specialties in manu- I 80 ] Manufacturing in New England facturing that have risen from an idea in the mind of an in- ventor to concerns that dominate in the world. The great B. F. Sturtevant concern at Hyde Park, Mass., is an example. Conceived in the brain of a Maine shoemaker less than two generations ago it has come to be the largest concern in its line in the world, and is making a line of apparatus that is essential to the economic operation of power plants every- where. Westfield, Mass., makes 90 percent of the whips made in the United States ; Leominster, Mass., makes a very large proportion of the shell goods manufactured in the United States ; Athol, Mass., makes three-quarters or more of the fine mechanics tools made in the world; Worcester makes a great proportion of the wire and wire goods produced in the country; Holyoke, Mass., makes half or more of the fine papers made in the United States ; Dalton, Mass., makes all of the paper the government uses for its currency, and a big proportion of the high-class ledger paper; Pittsfield, Mass., leads in the production of correspondence papers and the mak- ing of boxed writing paper; Mittineague, Mass., has earned distinction for making paper for high-class commercial and correspondence purposes; Brockton and Lynn mean shoes the world over; Manchester, Fall River and New Bedford mean cotton goods ; Plymouth has the biggest cordage concern ; Quincy is noted for the big Fore River shipbuilding concern ; Attleboro, Mass., and Providence lead the world in jewelry, and Providence has the most notable silversmith establishment in the country; South Framingham, Mass., has the unique Dennison concern, making a bewildering variety of fancy and useful articles from paper; Rutland and St. Johnsbury, Vt., have each great scale works, while Rutland and its vicinity produce much of the marble quarried in the country ; and this meager symptomatic list might be prolonged to ten times its length. Printing and publishing merits special reference. In value of products New England is fourth among the seven groups of states, having turned out in 1905 $46,764,193. This is but about one-fifth of the gross product of the four North Atlan- tic states, and we have therefore no warrant to claim leader- f 81 1 New England ship in bulk of output. Considered as a bulk product printing and publishing follows the population. If we figure this product per unit of population it is found that New England is well at the front. And if we consider the character and importance of the product we find that New England is far in advance. This satisfies us here in New England, where are located several of the most notable printing establishments in the world. Canned and preserved fish may be mentioned as one of the New England specialties that have done something material for the advance of civilization, in the way of providing good food at low cost. The industry began in Maine, in 1843, when lobsters and mackerel began to be canned by Treat, Noble & Halliday. Maine is now second to Alaska in amount of canned fish, its product amounting to about five millions annually. Massachusetts produces two-thirds of the salted fish of the United States, and is second in canned and preserved fish. That State produces three times the amount of salted cod produced in all the other states. In this particular line of business, Nature has favored New England by giving her the Atlantic ocean for a fish preserve. To focus the matter of the relative standing and progress of the New England states in manufacturing as clearly as possible, we quote briefly from the reports of the Federal Cen- sus for 1905, the latest available figures for all the states. None of the New England states, save Massachusetts, publish adequate manufacturing statistics annually. Between the census of 1900 and that of 1905 the number of manufacturing establishments in Massachusetts decreased 206, or 1.9 percent. The capital however increased $184,081,- 172, or 23.5 percent; the average number of wage-earners, 50,165, or 11.4 percent; the wages $37,110,670, or 19 per- cent; and the value of products, $216,465,612, or 23.8 per- cent. The reports of the Twelfth Census show 29,180 estab- lishments in Massachusetts, with 497,448 wage-earners, and products valued at $1,035,198,989. Of these establishments, 10,929 employing 438,234 wage-earners and manufactur- ing products valued at $907,626,439 are comparable with [ 82 ] Manufacturing in New England the class of establishments included in the census of 1905, when the number of establishments reported was 10,723, the number of wage-earners, 488,399, and the value of the prod- ucts, $1,124,092,051. The 56 places of 8,000 or more inhabi- tants in 1900, classed as the urban districts, contained 76 per- cent of the total population in the State at the United States census of 1900 and 76.6 percent at the State census of 1905, and this proportion of the population is fully sustained by the comparative importance of these places in manufactures. The urban districts contained 77.8 percent of the establish- ments in both 1900 and 1905. The capital invested in the ur- ban establishments formed 83.5 percent of the total for the State in 1905 and 83.4 percent in 1900. The number of wage- earners formed 81.4 percent and 81.1 percent for the two censuses, respectively, while the value of products for these districts was 82.9 percent in 1905 and 82.1 percent in 1900. The urban districts showed the larger rates of increase in all items except for the number of women employed, and their wages, and miscellaneous expenses. The increase in the number of establishments in Connecti- cut shown by the 1905 census figures was 95, or 2.8 percent. The total capital increased $74,076,655, or 24.8 percent, and the value of products, $53,975,941, or 17.1 percent; while the average number of wage-earners increased 21,872, or 13.7 per- cent, and the total wages, $14,548,566, or 19.8 percent. The continued prosperity of the State is also shown by the fact that whereas in 1900 the average number of wage-earners em- ployed in all the manufacturing and mechanical establishments of the State, including neighborhood industries and hand trades, was 176,694 in 1905, the number employed in the estab- lishments conducted under thefactorysystemalonewas!81,605, the increase being 4,911, or 2.8 percent. In 1900 the number of wage-earners in factories was 159,733, an increase of 21,- 872, or 13.7 percent. The value of products for all manufac- turing and mechanical establishments in 1900 was $352,824,- 106, while in 1905 for factories alone it was $369,082,091, the increase being $16,257,985, or 4.6 percent. The value for the factories in 1900 was $315,106,150, and the increase, $53,- [ 83 ] Manufacturing in New England 975,941, or 17.1 percent. Of the factories reported in 1905, 57.5 percent were in the urban districts, while in 1900 the percentage of urban establishments was 54.3. The value of the products manufactured in the urban districts was 66.7 per- cent of the total for the State in 1905, and 66.6 percent in 1900. The 1905 census figures show a decrease of 61 in the num- ber of Rhode Island manufacturing establishments. The total capital however increased $38,999,769, or 22 percent, and the value of products, $36,559,201, or 22.1 percent; while the average number of wage-earners increased 9,121, or 10.3 per- cent, and the total wages, $7,117,536, or 19.8 percent. The reports of the Twelfth Census show 4,189 establishments in Rhode Island, with 98,813 wage-earners, and products valued at $184,074,378. Of these establishments, 1,678 employing 88,197 wage-earners and manufacturing products valued at $165,550,382 are comparable with the class of establish- ments included in the census of 1905, when the number of es- tablishments reported was 1,617, the number of wage-earners, 97,318, and the value of the products, $202,109,583. Of the factories in the State, 16.5 percent were in rural districts in 1905, as compared with 17.5 percent in 1900. The value of products in rural districts was 18.2 percent of the total for the State in 1905 and 17.1 percent in 1900. The percentages of increase in capital, total average number of wage-earners, total wages and value of products were greater for the rural than for the urban localities. Between the census of 1900 and that of 1905 the number of manufacturing establishments in Maine increased 267. The capital increased $29,700,035, or 26.1 percent, and the value of products, $31,061,099, or 27.5 percent; while the average number of wage-earners increased 5,044, or 7.2 percent, and the amount paid for wages, $6,961,024, or 27.1 percent. The reports of the Twelfth Census show 6,702 establishments in Maine, with 74,816 wage-earners, and products valued at $127,361,485. Of these establishments, 2,878 employing 69,914 wage-earners and manufacturing products valued at $112,959,098 are comparable with the class of establish- f 85 1 New England ments included in the census of 1905, when the number of es- tablishments reported was 3,145, the number of wage-earners 74,958, and the value of the products $144,020,197. Rural districts contained 77.9 percent of the establishments reported in 1905 and 75.4 percent in 1900. The value of the products of rural establishments was 67.5 percent of the total for the State in 1905 and 64.2 percent in 1900. The actual, as well as proportionate, increases in capital, number of wage-earners, wages and value of products were greater for the establish- ments in the rural districts than for those in the urban. Between the census of 1900 and that of 1905 the number of manufacturing establishments in New Hampshire decreased 153. The capital, however, increased $17,349,047, or 18.8 percent, and the value of products, $16,020,101, or 14.9 per- cent. The average number of wage-earners decreased 2,280, or 3.4 percent, but the amount paid for wages increased $1,- 843,572, or 7.1 percent. Urban districts contained 33.6 per- cent of the establishments reported in 1905, and 32.3 percent in 1900. The value of the products of urban establishments was 59.5 percent of the total for the State in 1905, and 58.1 percent in 1900. The number of manufacturing establishments in Vermont decreased from 1,938 in 1900 to 1,699 in 1905. The total capital increased $20,159,101, or 47.4 percent, and the value of products, $11,568,383, or 22.5 percent. The average num- ber of wage-earners increased 4,927, or 17.5 percent, and the total wages, $3,794,511, or 33.2 percent. The percentages of increase were greater for the rural than for the urban dis- tricts. Of the establishments reported, 86.9 percent were in rural districts in 1905 and 85.3 percent in 1900. Of the total number of wage-earners, 81 percent were credited to rural districts in 1905 and 80.1 percent in 1900. 86 New England Waterpowers THE splendid rivers and streams of New England are today yielding only about 48 percent of their total available waterpower. It was the statement of Charles P. Steinmetz, consulting engineer of the General Electric company, made in 1909, that in Massachusetts alone " more waterpower goes to waste annually than is found in Niagara itself." In the six New England states there are approximately 120 rivers and streams available for power, and according to the esti- mate of engineers these have, in addition to the power they were generating in 1909, a total of 509,500 horsepower im- mediately available; and with the construction of storage basins a grand total of 676,000. As the United States census shows, in waterpower devel- oped and potential, New England ranks close to the highest of the various sections of the country. A special census of the developed waterpowers in the Union, made in 1908, places Maine third in the list of numbers developed in each state. New York heads the line, with a development of 885,862 horsepower, the Niagara powers on the New York side con- tributing largely to this figure. California is the second, with a total of 466,777, over 1070 wheels a development in com- paratively recent years. Maine secures her place as third, with 343,096 horsepower, over 2797 wheels. Of other New England states Massachusetts ranks second to Maine, with 230,182 horsepower, over 2749 wheels ; New Hampshire comes next, with 183,167 horsepower, over 1793 wheels ; Connecti- cut next, 118,145 horsepower, 1546 wheels; Vermont next, 90,672 horsepower, 1047 wheels; Rhode Island last, 37,165 horsepower, 387 wheels. These census returns showed a total of 31,537 developed waterpowers in the whole country, 602 of which are of a capacity of one thousand horsepower or more. The whole I 87] New England number were generating a total horsepower of 5,356,680, over 52,827 wheels ; or an average development per wheel of about one hundred horsepower. The six New England states had 5700, generating a total of 1,032,427 horsepower, over 10,325 wheels. These 5700 powers were thus distributed: States Connecticut Maine Massachusetts New Hampshire Rhode Island Vermont Waterpowers 893 1222 1370 876 191 1148 5700 10,325 Horsepower 118,145 343,096 260,182 183,167 37,165 90,672 1,032,427 The installations by districts and drainage area are shown in this table: State Connecticut Maine Massachusetts New Hampshire Rhode Island Vermont Rivers Connecticut River Thames River Housatonic River Minor Streams St. John River St. Croix River Penobscot River Kennebec River Androscoggin River Presumpscot River Saco River Minor Streams Merrimac River Connecticut River Blackstone River Thames River Housatonic River Hudson River Minor Streams Saco River Merrimac River Connecticut River Minor Streams Blackstone River Thames River Minor Streams Connecticut River Hudson River Lake Champlain (Richelieu 88 Wheels Horsepower 490 33,101 478 45,214 364 31,685 214 8,145 147 13,681 89 20,500 518 70,454 659 63,936 590 101,355 179 20,569 169 22,302 446 30,299 589 71,250 1117 123,309 182 14,111 88 8,499 138 14,206 54 5,245 581 23,561 68 3,030 877 90,082 574 50,977 187 16,978 156 17,324 1 25 230 19,816 927 85,512 118 5,160 River) 971 79,604 1,089,930 New England Waterpowers These figures are drawn from the water-supply papers of the United States Geological Survey : No. 234, " Papers on Conservation of Water Resources." Prof. M. O. Leighton treats the undeveloped waterpowers in the same number, and presents schedules giving the amount of waterpower accord- ing to three classifications: (1) that which may be produced by the minimum flow, (2) the assumed maximum development, (3) the additional power that may be recovered by develop- ing the available storage capacity in the upland basis and using stored water to compensate the low-water periods. These schedules, as he states, disclose "what will be the maximum possibilities in the day when our fuel shall have become so exhausted that the price thereof for production of power is prohibitive, and the people of the country shall be driven to the use of all the waterpower that can reasonably be produced by streams,"- a time not long far-distant, in the estimation of some economists. The total power available in the surveyed parts of the country, including storage, is given as 53,000,000 horsepower. Taking this as one-fourth of the whole, since the topographical surveys cover only one- fourth of the total area of the country, Professor Leighton places the total power, with practical maximum storage, at 212,000,000 horsepower. Otherwise computed, by taking the ratio of increase of power available for storage in the several parts surveyed and applying this to the ratio of increase in unsurveyed and similar country in those regions, he reaches a grand total of 230,800,000 horsepower. Calculated either way, it is safe to assume that, as he says, "were all practi- cable storage sites utilized and the water properly applied there might be established eventually in the country a total power installation of at least 200,000,000 horsepower, and probably much more." Professor Leighton gives the data of this dazzling total of potential waterpowers over the vari- ous drainage areas of the country by districts or divisions. New England is included in the Northern Atlantic division from St. Johns to Cape Henry, Virginia, which comprises the New England states, New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl- vania, Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia and Virginia. This [ 89 ] New England division (exclusive of Pennsylvania, the figures for which had not been received at the publication of the report) shows a minimum horsepower of 1,712,050, and an assumed maximum development of 3,186,600. The estimated proportion con- tributed by the New England rivers appears in these figures : River St. John St. Croix Penobscot Kennebec Androscoggin Saco Merrimac Connecticut Blacks tone Thames Housatonic States drained Maine Maine, New Hampshire New Hampshire, Massachusetts Vermont, N. H., Mass., Conn. Massachusetts, Rhode Island Massachusetts, Connecticut, R. I. New York, Massachusetts, Conn. Horsepower Assumed Minimum maximum development 36,500 73,800 28,700 49,000 157,000 298,000 144,000 284,000 168,000 218,000 20,900 69,000 111,000 190,000 230,000 491,000 5,280 12,700 14,400 28,600 43,100 66,200 952,880 1,780,300 The natural advantages of the New England waterpowers, and their exceptional richness, are readiest seen through a survey of the rivers of the six states from source to mouth. Such a study in part has been made in recent years by engi- neers of the United States Geological Survey, and the latest results are embodied in the reports of Henry A. Pressey on " Water Powers in the State of Maine," and of H. K. Bar- rows, district hydrographer, on " Surface Water Supply of New England" (Atlantic coast of New England drainage), issued respectively in 1902 and 1906 in the valuable series of water-supply papers ; and in these illuminating documents we have accurate data. Beginning with Maine, as the richest of all in waterpowers, we find this unqualified statement at the outset of Mr. Pressey's report that "no other tract of country of the same extent on the continent is so well watered ; supplied with lakes and streams well distributed." Here are five princi- pal lake chains or systems, large lakes connected by rivers and discharging into main channels which convey their accumu- lated waters to the sea. The elevation of these lake systems [ 90 1 New England Waterpowers high for lakes so near tidewater their location largely near the headwaters of the streams, the short courses of the outflowing rivers, and the lakes acting as regulators of their flow, combine to make the rivers of Maine " the finest in the United States for waterpower development." The five lake systems, beginning on the western boundary of the State, are: (1) the Umbagog-Rangeley series; (2) the Moosehead series; (3) the Penobscot series, consisting of Chesuncook and its surrounding lakes on the west branch of the Penobscot river, Alleguash, Chamberlain and others on the east branch, and the Seboeis and others connected with it still further east but flowing into the east branch of the Penobscot; (4) the Shoodic lakes in the southeastern part of the State; (5) the numerous lakes forming the headwaters of the St. John river and its tributaries. The Umbagog-Range- ley series, with an area of ninety or more square miles, are drained by the Androscoggin river. The Moosehead series, the main lake of which is one hundred and twenty square miles in area and is the largest inland body of water in New Eng- land, form the headwaters of the Kennebec. The Penobscot series are the fountains of the Penobscot. The Shoodic series are drained by the St. Croix. Numerous other lakes, in every county of the State, though small in area, in the aggregate hold, as the engineers estimate, an immense amount of storage water. The grand total number of lakes, not including small ponds tributary to the streams, is placed at 1620, and their aggregate area 2300 square miles. So equable is the flow of the streams of Maine that the present users of her water- power, Mr. Pressey observes, " seldom realize the difficulties under which developments are made in other parts of the country where there are no lakes, ponds or marshes upon which to draw during the period of low flow, necessitating the shutting down of the works during that season, or the construction of auxiliary steam plants which require fuel and for which interest and repairs must be provided throughout the year." The variation in the flow being naturally compara- tively small, when controlled by dams at the outlets of the lake, the uniformity of the discharge is " almost unparalleled." F 91 1 New England Let us review these rivers and their waterpowers, with Mr. Pressey, in the order named in the second table above. First, the Androscoggin. We find this busy stream formed by the junction of the Magalloway river and the outlet of the Umba- gog-Rangeley lakes near the Maine-New Hampshire boun- dary line, and extending about two hundred miles in length from the sources of the Magalloway river to the coast. It flows first southward into New Hampshire; then turning abruptly to the east it takes its course into Maine; then again turning southward it ultimately joins the Kennebec in Merrymeeting bay. Its last fall is at Brunswick which is at the head of tidewater some six miles above the mouth. The elevation of the river's basin is stated to be, in general, greater than that of any other watershed on the Atlantic coast. The outlet of Umbagog lake is 1256 feet above the sea ; Rangeley lakes are about 1500; and the sources of the Magalloway river from 2600 to 2900 feet. Its entire fall from the level of the Umbagog to tidewater is about 1250 feet, while in vari- ous stretches it ranges generally between four and a half and seven and a half feet to the mile. At three important points, however Berlin falls in New Hampshire, Rumford falls and Lewiston there are large concentrated falls by which the natural falls have been considerably increased by dams. The river's flow is regulated by means of a dam below the mouth of Magalloway, by which the waters of that stream can be turned back into Umbagog; and dams at the outlets of the four large lakes of the Umbagog-Rangeley system convert the lakes into a series of immense reservoirs, and controlling the storage of some 760 square miles which can be discharged as desired for use during the dry seasons. Except above Berlin falls the river is nowhere more than ten miles from a railroad, and for a good part of its course it is skirted by railroads. Tidewater navigation extends to the falls at Brunswick. Above Berlin falls, remote from transportation facilities, little or no power is yet used, except for logging; and the region, like others in northern Maine, is a paradise of hunters. The total amount of power used in the Androscoggin river is said to be greater than that employed in any other [ 92 1 New England IVaterpowers New England stream. Yet there is much still unused, as the foregoing tables show. Great as are the establishments now fixed on its banks controlling and utilizing it, there are oppor- tunities for as great at various points. The largest present employers of the waterpower here are cotton and wood pulp and paper manufacturers ; together with electric light and power generators. The development in the last decade, or more, for manufactures has been almost exclusively by wood pulp and paper makers. At the period of the latest engineers' reports, 19021907, it was estimated that this class was then utilizing more than two-thirds of the total waterpower in use. This growth in a single line of manufacture is natural, in view of the fact that the upper Androscoggin basin .con- tained, till the cutters had made great inroads into it, the finest spruce forest in New England; and the forest is yet extensive. Second, the Kennebec river. This is rightly presented by the engineers as one of the best streams in the United States for the development of waterpower. Its drainage basin embraces a total area of 6330 square miles. Between Moosehead lake, where the river rises approximately 1050 feet above sea- level, and the head of tidewater, the fall is 1026 feet, an average descent of $$$$ feet for 120 miles. The upper parts of the basin are still heavily timbered despite the extensive cuttings of years. From these forests are yet cut, it is estimated, about a third of all the lumber used in the State for pulp and paper manufacture, the remainder being almost wholly taken from the timber lands of the Androscoggin and Penobscot basins. The river pursues a general southerly course to Merrymeeting bay, whence it reaches the ocean. Its fall for the first fifty miles is rapid, amounting to more than 700 feet in this dis- tance. From Indian pond, an enlargement of the river four miles below Moosehead, to the Forks, where Dead river, a tributary which rises at an elevation of 2000 feet, enters, a distance of twenty-three miles, the fall is 500 feet. For a considerable part of this distance the river is described as running a little torrent between steep rocky walls from twenty to fifty feet high. Through this first fifty miles no [ 93 1 New England waterpower is utilized. The uppermost developed power is at Carritunk falls, near the town of Solon. Between the Forks and this point the river's fall is about 200 feet, and here is a natural cascade with a pitch of twenty-eight feet through a narrow gorge, above and below which the river widens out. The dam affords an average head of about twenty-nine feet. We have seen that the utilization of this river's superb waterpower embraces a comparatively small proportion of its course. The seven developed powers between Carritunk falls and tidewater, which Pressey describes (1902) and Porter (1898-99) before him, were utilizing an aggregate of 24,000 effective horsepower covering 142 feet only of the 314 feet total fall of the river between these points. Barrows (1906) remarks, of the 1026 feet fall on the river between Moosehead lake and tidewater, only about 153 feet developed. Over the opportunities for further development along this river the engineers are eloquent. Barrows dwells upon the immense amount of unutilized power, especially in the more northerly parts of the Kennebec basin. He points out the opportunities for development in the run below Indian pond to the mouth of Dead river. Pressey observes the large powers available for future development in the stretch of river from below the mouth of Dead river to Carritunk falls. Excellent opportun- ities are also found on the principal tributaries of the Kenne- bec. The Carrabassett, which enters from the west at North Anson, presents several good sites for further development. The several powers now utilized on this stream are employed in pulp and paper manufacture, saw and planing mills, and electric light generating. The Sandy river, rising near Rangeley lake, and entering the Kennebec two miles below Madison, with a rapid fall through the greater part of its course, has promising opportunities. The few developed powers here, at Phillips, Fairbanks, Farmington, New Sharon and Stark, are variously used in lumber mills, small factories, and for generating electricity. Sebasticook river, entering from the east opposite Waterville, is remarked as one of the most fully developed for power of all the Kennebec's tributaries, yet there are on this stream a number of good [ 94 ] New England Waterpowers unoccupied powers available. The powers utilized at various points are used mainly by woolen mills, and by an electric light and power plant. Messalouskee river, entering from the west at Waterville, offers similar opportunities. The powers here developed are also used by woolen mills, shoddy mills, scythe, axe and tool factories, and machine shops ; and for producing electric light and power. Cobbosseecontee river, entering six miles below Augusta, at Gardiner, has eight dams, and sites for more. The municipal water supply for the city of Gardiner is here drawn and pumped by waterpower. The fall of this stream is given as 206 feet. The Penobscot, next in order, is distinguished as having the largest drainage basin of all the rivers of Maine: a total area of 8500 square miles, or as Porter, the second engineer- historian of the Maine rivers, puts it impressively, more than a quarter of the entire State. A large part of this basin is yet " wild land," heavily timbered and much of it known only to lumbermen and the sportsmen. Within the Penobscot basin there are counted a total of 467 lakes. The west branch of the Penobscot is the main one. It flows from its headwaters first southeast and easterly, and passes within two or three miles of the head of Moosehead lake ; then turning and flowing northward it enters Chesuncook lake, which lies near the center of the basin, fifty miles from the head of this branch, at an elevation of 930 feet. Thence it flows east and southeast to the Pamedecook and the Twin lakes. In the next thirty miles be- low Twin lakes to the mouth of the Mettawamkeag river, which enters not far south of the union of the two branches, the stream descends 288 feet ; and because of this rapid fall, the enlarged drainage area, and the extensive storage facil- ities afforded by the lakes, this stretch, as Porter shows, pos- sesses great intrinsic value. From Chesuncook lake to tide- water, at Bangor, the distance along the west branch and the main river is about 121 miles, an average slope of seven feet to the mile; and this is concentrated at intervals by ledges where waterpower has been and may further be developed. At the Twin lakes, or the outlet of North Twin lake, is Twin dam, built by the Penobscot Log Driving company, by which is con- [ 95 ] New England trolled for logging purposes a splendid storage afforded by the several connecting lakes of this region. Other dams, far- ther upstream at the foot of other lakes, are also maintained by this company for service in log-driving; and downstream, at the outlet of Millinoket lake a few miles below North Twin dam. The lumber industry is the most important in the Penob- scot valley. The largest users of the power are the pulp and paper mills ; the second largest users are the saw mills. At Millinoket, where the Millinoket river coming from the lake of the same name enters the west branch, is the uppermost utilization of waterpower. Here are the Millinoket mills, claim- ing to be the largest pulp and paper plant in the world, oper- ating some 20,000 horsepower. The power here developed util- izes the total fall between the North Twin dam and the outlet of Millinoket river. Between the latter place and Medway, where the east branch enters, there is a large fall. Below the mouth of the Mettawamkeag the river turns southerly, and from this point to tidewater, a run of sixty miles, it falls 177 feet. The St. Croix river, next on the list, marks, with its tribu- tary lakes, nearly half of the eastern Maine-New Brunswick boundary. It is formed by two branches. The upper, known as the Upper St. Croix or Chiputneticook river, is the outlet of Schoodic lake ; the other, west branch, or Kennebasis river, is the outlet of the western lakes of the basin known as Ken- nebasis lakes. More than half of the drainage area, which is about 1630 square miles, is tributary to great reservoir sys- tems controlled by dams at Vanceboro, on the Upper St. Croix, and Princeton, on west branch. Above Vanceboro and Princeton each branch is a succession of lakes to almost the extreme headwaters. The length of the river from headwaters to mouth is one hundred miles. The basin is lower than those of the other great rivers flowing to the Atlantic, the eleva- tion of its headwaters being only about 540 feet; yet the fall from the lower of the Schoodic lakes the Chiputneticook to tidewater, a distance of fifty-four miles, is 382 feet, or seven feet to the mile. At a number of points, falls and rapids occur, affording excellent opportunities for waterpower devel- [ 96 1 New England Waterpowers opment. This river has been for a long period largely employed in the logging business, the cuttings being made in the exten- sive timber lands of the region above Vanceboro and Prince- ton ; and the principal industries along its course have been lumber manufactures. The greater part of the timber of the upper region was brought into the control of the saw-mill owners of Calais at the head of tidewater, and of St. Stephens opposite Calais on the Canadian side; while the storage in the principal reservoirs is controlled by the St. Croix Log Driving company comprising the various mill owners on the river. In later years the number of saw mills was consider- ably reduced, and in their stead rose pulp and paper mills. Today pulp and paper making is becoming the leading indus- try of the St. Croix valley. Of the amount of the river's natural fall from below the Vanceboro dam to mean tide at Calais, two-fifths in the aggregate is concentrated at Spednic falls, about two miles above the mouth of the west branch, which form an important water privilege at Grand Rapids, Sprague's falls, where the waterpower is an excellent one, and Calais. The St. John river flows through Maine a length, including the more important meanderings, of some 210 miles ; while the total length from its remotest sources to the sea is figured at approximating 450 miles. That part of its basin that lies in Maine occupies the whole northern part of the State. The greater part of its basin is forested. Its extreme headwaters lie in the mountainous region between Maine and Canada at an elevation of from fifteen hundred to two thousand feet. From its junction with the St. Francis river, at the northwest part of the Maine line, it forms the northern boundary of the State. On the east side of the State it receives the waters of the Aroostook and the Meduxnekeag rivers, the basins of which are almost wholly in Maine, besides several smaller tributaries rising in the State. The elevation of the river at the upper Maine boundary is 419 feet above tide, and at the mouth of the St. Francis 606 feet. Next to the Androscoggin it has the most elevated drainage in Maine. For the reason that the whole drainage basin is at a considerable altitude [ 97 ] New England and not parts of it at an extreme elevation, the engineers remark, the fall of the stream and the possibilities of the de- velopment of waterpower are far less than upon any of the other large rivers of Maine. Yet that it has possibilities of no small proportion is made apparent. With the extension of proper transportation facilities these possibilities will surely be developed, and, as the engineers say, they will be trust- worthy throughout the year because of the river's numerous tributary lakes. It is Pressey's reasonable forecast that with the development lumbering and pulp and paper manufacture will become the leading industries. The river is navigable throughout a large part of its course. Of its tributaries, the Aroostook is the largest. This river rises in highlands in the north central part of the State at an elevation of some 1050 feet, and where it unites with the St. John its height is 345 feet. Its total length is 117 miles, giving an average fall of six feet per mile ; and by reason of the many lakes at its head- waters and on its tributaries, the flow is comparatively uni- form throughout the year. Developments of waterpower have been made in a few cases only, while at a number of points along its course, as the engineers point out, rapids occur which might be profitably utilized. The Alleguash is the second largest tributary in Maine. It rises in an upper lake, and also has a number of undeveloped powers in rapids and small falls here and there. The St. Francis, joining on the northern border of the State, forms the upper boundary line for about forty miles. Its considerable undeveloped power is found particularly at its mouth. The Presumpscot river is set forth by the engineers as one of the best waterpower streams of its size in the United States. It is the outlet of Sebago lake, which lies only about seventeen miles northwest of Portland, and discharges into Casco bay. Sebago lake is fed by Crooked river, which heads thirty-five miles farther north within three miles of the An- droscoggin. The Presumpscot's fall from the dam at the foot of the lake to mean low tide at the foot of its lower falls is an average of ^Hv feet a mile in a distance of 21.65 miles. Its chief interest is found in the regularity of its flow due to the [ 98] New England Waterpowers dams erected at the outlet of the lake. Nowhere in the United States, the engineers say, is there a better example of the suc- cess of storage of water and regulation of the flow of a stream than here. The largest users of power on this river are the Samuel D. Warren & Company, paper manufacturers, whose extensive plant constitutes the Cumberland mills. Some 3000 horsepower are employed in these mills from all sources, half this amount from water direct, and half from steam and electricity, the latter being transmitted from lower falls six miles below. At Saccarappa the waterpower is used by cotton, and several smaller mills, and for electric light generation. At other falls are woolen and board mills. Crooked river has several good falls, some of which are utilized. Saco river, the last in the list, receives its headwaters from the valleys and slopes of the White mountains at elevations from 4000 to 5000 feet, and drains an area of 1720 square miles, of which 900 are in Maine. The slopes of the head- waters are very steep. For the first twelve miles it falls more than 1100 feet. Then in a distance of rising eighteen miles the fall is 330 feet. Next follows a stretch of "dead" water with a drop of only sixty-nine feet in twenty-eight miles. This ends at Great falls in Maine, in the town of Hiram, where the river descends seventy-two feet in successive pitches in about 900 feet. Thence it flows forty miles to tide- water at Biddeford and Saco with a total fall of 271 feet. The important part of the river therefore is this stretch from Great falls to tidewater. In his summary concluding his report Pressey notes the remarkable increase in the development of the Maine water- powers in comparatively recent years, with the significant fact that this development has been going on principally in the direction of larger wheels and more extensive plants. Yet the opportunities here are as inviting for small as well as for large industries. As Mr. Lyons, the state commissioner of in- dustrial and labor statistics, truly says : " For those wishing to embark in manufacturing be it the man who needs only a small waterpower for a part of the year, or the corporation that wishes to erect an immense cotton mill, the State has the [ 99 1 8 * S3 2 AJ -i tO' N 10 ^ (VI vO ^ fr\ (VI (VI (vi z< o, . <* 2 sh (vj t-- 1 S S5 ^. R S to f M 00' IO' F= & fc in o o ^ to tvi ^L- OS to' Q b2 a II to vO ?^ jr Q 0~J . . : oj _j __: s S fi m vt? fU "O (Vi S cr (VI IO R ^ ^. S O S "O O iX , RJ 00 p-^ -r to' u> ffS R C: (VI O fO' __ (Vi : to' (v! : ro QO ^ 5 VO KS tvi tvi .' M (Vj \t- ' 00 (vi C> SS 50 Q to to ro ^ R U^ N^ _ S S? * y 8 (vi t>O cp Cr S /* o to' P (VI (VI ^ o^ (V) (VI P- u-) t^ (T> IVJ tvj KJ : tO ?o 8 >O' "^ ^3" hO I O (vl vO to in to' O N~> Mj ' Tt ^ (vi to' to' }O o o >n S3 n v>. (VJ ^f ' (VI S5 C> tO' t KJ to \O (VI hH Cvj to' tri in _ u-i ' ' tri S sy !< A -14 (O O Z Q ra s a 8 K -S | 1 i * S ill S ! O J---9 "^ CJ "S s- * s K >, j> + 22 -a S s II s g -9-1 2 a }H ^ a vJ Q> M to O "g 2 e M c a S .d 3 ^ 2 1 | M !5 o Q i i o w ?; ll! New England Waterpowers available waterpowers, and to a large extent the means of transportation." And not only, he shows, has Maine the waterpower to drive a vast amount of machinery, either di- rectly or by the generation of electric power, and the facilities by land and water for the transportation of the products, but the raw material is here in large quantities. " It is estimated that the growth of spruce in our forests is furnishing a continuous annual crop .of more than 600,000,000 board feet of lumber. . . . The distribution of our granite, ready to be wrought into building material, our clay and sand for the manufacture of brick and tile, is as broad as the boun- daries of the State ; and although our limestone and slate de- posits are less extensive, there is sufficient of these materials within our borders to make them practically inexhaustible." Respecting the potential powers of the rivers of the other New England states, the official data are not so definite. Suf- ficient however is furnished by the engineers, and by various prospectors, to show their extent and value in possibilities for profitable and large development. The Merrimac and the Connecticut, and their tributaries, are of first importance. The Merrimac, the most noted water- power stream in the world, as Prof. George F. Swain of Harvard University, the first expert historian of the " Wa- terpower of the Streams of Eastern New England," char- acterizes it, though most effectively harnessed at its chief points, has yet powers not fully utilized. Formed by the junction of the Pemigewasset and the Winnepesaukee rivers, in the town of Franklin, the fonner taking its rise in the heart of the White mountains, the latter having its source in Lake Winnepesaukee, the largest sheet of water in New Hampshire, the Merrimac courses 110 miles to the sea, turn- ing on its way a variety of machinery and " more spindles than any other river on the face of the globe." Yet there is room for more. The river drains a total area of about 4916 square miles, of which about 3780 lie in New Hampshire and the remainder in Massachusetts.. Its average fall is 2.49 feet per mile, and the greater part of this fall occurring in short distances, at six places, the remarkable powers are [ 101 ] New England produced for which the Merrimac is renowned. The flow is rendered comparatively constant by the control exercised over natural reservoirs on the upper waters by the great manufacturing and waterpower corporations established downstream at Manchester and below. In its progress through New Hampshire southerly, fifty-six miles, it receives the Contoocook, its largest tributary, the Suncook and the Nashua rivers ; while in its run through Massachusetts, after entering which it deflects to the east and continues forty miles to the sea at Newburyport, it takes in the waters of the Concord, the Spicket, the Shawsheen and the Powwow rivers. The fully developed powers lie in the short distance between Manchester, Lowell and Lawrence. The upper powers of most value are in easy reach of Concord. The uppermost utilized is Sewell's falls, below the mouth of the Contoocook, three miles above Concord. Next of importance is Garvin's falls, an excellent power, below Concord and just above the Sun- cook's mouth. At this place there has been a dam since 1815, first erected in connection with a canal the "Bow canal" ih was called built around these falls for purposes of navi- gation. In modern times it was furnishing power for a pulp mill. Next below Garvin's the Hooksett falls, also early partially developed, afford considerable power. The great powers developed to a high state of perfection come next in order a few miles below Hooksett. At Manchester the im- pressive works erected and controlled by the Amoskeag company are turning the machinery of the massive plant of the Amoskeag Manufacturing company, the Stark mills, paper and other factories, assembled along the canals on both sides of the river. The power at Lowell, next below, the pioneer of the large powers of the country to be systemati- cally brought into use, continues in the front rank with those of first importance. The organization owning and main- taining it, too, is one of the oldest in the country, dating back to the eighteenth century. The " Proprietors of the Locks and Canals on the Merrimac river," chartered in 1792, pri- marily for purposes of improving the river to render it navigable for boats from tidewater at Lawrence to the New [ 102 ] New England Waterpowers Hampshire line, before railroads were dreamed of and the expansion of waterways was engaging the wide-visioned cap- tains of industry of that day, as similar projects on a mag- nificent scale are attracting the captains of this day, was the pioneer corporation taking the first bold step toward the construction of great hydraulic works on New England rivers. Here the pioneer cotton manufacturing corporations instituted by the Appletons, the Jacksons, the Bootts, the Lawrences and other progressive New England merchants, with the rapid and substantial upbuilding of this manufac- turing center from its foundation in 1826, have developed in the succeeding years, through prosperity and occasional re- verse, modern plants of large capacity and extensive output ; while several of them have established or acquired branches, also with great plants, in the South. It is a notable assem- blage, this of these pioneers, still holding firm ground in the foremost line. The power at Lawrence is quite as impor- tant as those above, and Professor Swain approved it as one of the most carefully managed in the United States. From the top of the Pawtucket dam at Lowell to the top of the Lawrence dam, a distance of twelve miles, the river's fall is about forty-eight feet. The power is controlled by the Essex company, incorporated in 1845, three years before the be- ginning of this busy manufacturing center, in 1847, which constructed the dam and canals. The great cotton and woolen corporations here, developing with the upgrowing city, also constitute a notable list. Of no small importance as power producers are the Merrimac's tributaries. The Pemigewasset, though with a rapid fall, particularly in its upper parts, from headwaters at elevations of approxima- ting 2000 feet, has a far less amount of waterpower than the Winnepesaukee. The fall of the latter from Winnepesaukee lake to the junction with the Pemigewasset is 225 feet in a distance of fourteen miles. The fall near the mouth, at Franklin's falls, affords a power that compares well with the larger powers of the Merrimac. Other excellent powers which are variously utilized by cotton, woolen, hosiery, yarn, lace and other industries, are at Tilton, Laconia and f 103 1 Lake Village. The Contoocook, which joins the Merrimac at Fisherville, a few miles north of Concord, having a num- ber of abrupt falls breaking its declivity, presents a consid- erable amount of available power, which is utilized in part in various towns along the stream, notably by paper mills and cotton and other factories. The Nashua, entering at Nashua, comes down from Massachusetts, from two branches, the north and the south branch, having their fountains in Worcester county, turning on its way considerable ma- chinery in various mills. Both branches are excellent streams for waterpower, and are fairly utilized. Fitchburg is the larger user on the north branch, and Clinton on the south branch. The greatest power is at the mouth of the river at Nashua close to the Merrimac. A few miles above are good privileges. At Pepperell the power is utilized by the mills of a paper- company. The Concord river, entering at Lowell, has its most important power within about two miles of its mouth. The Spicket, emptying at Lawrence, is called a good stream for power. The Shawsheen's principal powers are at Ballardvale and Andover; the Powwow's, at Amesbury and Salisbury. The Connecticut, the largest and noblest of the rivers of New England, coursing between New Hampshire and Ver- mont and across Massachusetts and Connecticut, 350 miles from its sources in the high land on the Northern United States-Canada line to the sea at Long Island sound, with many a fall and succession of rapids, is rich in waterpower, yet only partially utilized, although at a few points the river is superbly harnessed. With its source in a succession of moun- tain lakes, its total drainage area is 11,085 square miles, of which 155 lie in the province of Quebec. For the greater part of the river's luxurious progress from the north between New Hampshire and Vermont, midst scenic charms surpass- ing those of all other New England rivers, it contains numer- ous rapids and abrupt pitches ; then after passing Bellows falls its general descent becomes slower, broken by falls or rapids at only a few places about and below the upper Mas- sachusetts line. The principal powers now utilized are at [ 104 1 New England Waterpowers Olcott's falls, or Wilders, a Vermont village about three miles above White River Junction ; at Sumner's or Quechee falls, seven miles below White River Junction ; Bellows Falls, thirty miles farther down; at a great dam newly erected for electric works between South Vernon and Hinsdale; at Turner's Falls and Holyoke, and at Windsor Locks. Others, and rich ones in possibilities, remain yet undeveloped. The river is first harnessed in a small way far up by its sources. At the outlet of both the First and Second lakes in the high- lands are dams, utilized mainly for purposes of log-driving. Lumbering is yet one of the most important interests on the river, the timber being cut about the extensive upper waters. The Connecticut lakes and the three west-side waterways are the chief reservoirs for the masses of logs harvested west of the lakes which go down in the annual " drives " to the various lumber and paper mills along the river's length. A considerable part of the annual drive is sawed at Mclndoe's falls, a pitch at Barnet, Vermont, finishing the long stretch of rapids knoAvn as the Fifteen-Miles falls ; the remainder is distributed among different mills as far south as Hartford. Below the lakes the next power is at Beecher's falls in Canaan, on the Vermont-Canada bound, and West Stew- artstown, New Hampshire, opposite. Below West Stewarts- town in the long, graceful and placid fall to Lancaster, New Hampshire, and Lunenburg, Vermont, are dams here and there utilized by electric plants supplying the country towns and villages with light and power. At Lancaster waterpowers are utilized on Israel's river which here empties into the Connecticut. Below Lancaster, at a great eddy in a bend of the river at Dalton, the Fifteen-Miles falls begin. About a mile below Mclndoe's falls the Passumpsic, coming down from the Vermont hills, enters the stream. From this point the river's flow down to the Massachusetts line, a direct dis- tance of 137 miles is an average descent of two feet to the mile. At Brunswick, Vermont side, the Nulhegan river enters ; at Northumberland, New Hampshire side, the Upper Am- monoosuc ; at Barnet, Vermont, the Passumpsic; at Woods- ville, New Hampshire, the Lower Ammonoosuc; from the [ 105 1 ' New England Vermont side, Wells river, nearly opposite the lower Am- monoosuc ; at Bradford, Vermont, Waits river ; above Nor- wich, Vermont, the Ompomponoosuc ; at White River Junc- tion, the White, the largest stream in Vermont on the east side of the Green mountains ; at Lebanon, New Hampshire, the Mascomy, and the Quechee at North Hartland, Vermont, both contributing to the Quechee or Sumner's falls ; at Claremont, New Hampshire, the Sugar river, an especially important mill stream ; at Springfield, Vermont, the Black, another important one ; at Rockingham, Vermont, next above Bellows Falls, the Williams river ; from Westminster, Ver- mont, next below Bellows Falls, Saxton's river; immediately above Brattleboro, Vermont, West river ; at Hinsdale, New Hampshire, the Ashuelot, entering with a royal sweep all important tributaries, and all with good waterpower utilized and potential. The Fifteen-Miles falls constitute one of the greatest of the potential sources of power on the upper river. Thus far they have been utilized only at the Mclndoe's and to a comparatively slight extent at a single point toward their upper part. A great project however was developed in 1910 to harness them at the now decadent but once quite prosperous little Vermont town of Lower Waterford, and lift the river's level back to their head for the establishment of a great electric plant to distribute power for manufacturing and other purposes to a wide extent of country. The power at Wilder's is utilized by pulp and paper mills. That at Sum- ner's falls is partially developed. Claremont, at the mouth of Sugar river and Springfield at the mouth of the Black, are notable manufacturing centers, utilizing considerable amounts of power in the manufacture of machinery and paper. Bellows Falls is largely utilized. Here the valley is enclosed by steep hills and the river descends abruptly over a series of ledges and rushes through a narrow gorge hemmed in by high walls of rock. At the foot of the gorge, finishing in a great eddy, it spreads out again in smooth water and re- sumes its tranquil aspect. The dam here extends across the head of the rapids, and thence a canal carries the water down to the foot of the falls where the mills are located. These f 106 1 New England Waterpowers are for the greater part paper mills. Other products include agricultural implements. Below Brattleboro and just above the Massachusetts line, the river is most effectively harnessed with the newly erected electrical works of grand proportions completed in 1910, for furnishing light and power within a ra- dius of sixty miles. The great concrete dam thrown across the river between Vernon and Hinsdale, 650 feet long and thirty-four feet high above average low water, ponds back a length of twenty-two miles and a width varying from 600 to 4000, making available some 25,000 horsepower. Ten large flood gates, ten feet by seven feet, capable of discharging 25,000 cubic feet of water, penetrate the great dam for use in regulating the level of the pond it creates, and in time of floods to prevent damage upstream. The work has raised the original river level back at Brattleboro about fifteen feet, and rapids two miles above Brattleboro have been trans- formed into still water. On the upper four feet of the twenty- two-mile pond, or reservoir, as stated by Lauriston Ballard in " The World's Work " the storage has been computed to be 250,000,000 cubic feet. The powers of the Massachusetts reach at Turner's Falls and at Holyoke are utilized to their full capacity. From the crest of the Turner's Falls dam to the crest of the Holyoke dam the river's fall is 75.25 feet. Of the Holyoke power Dwight Porter's estimate of a quarter of a century ago (in the United States Census water- power reports, 1885) holds good today "a splendid water- power admirably developed and enjoying a thoroughness and scientific method of management that are probably no- where surpassed." Now as then the great bulk of the water is used by paper mills, and Holyoke retains as then unchal- lenged the sobriquet of the " Paper City," the chief center for the manufacture of paper in the United States. Yet although the fine paper-making concerns outnumber any other single class of manufacture here, cotton manufacture with which Holyoke began its prosperous career as a separate town, in 1850, continues to hold its own. The enterprises of the Per- kinses, the Lymans, the Dwights, names so conspicuously associated with New England manufacturing in the nineteen [ 107 1 New England forties and fifties, with the organization of the Hadley Falls company, and the development of the waterpower of Hadley falls, continue perfected in the hands of their suc- cessors : the Holyoke Water Power company, and the great Lyman and Hadley mills. The present dam is a most modern twentieth century affair erected in 1904. On most of the tributaries entering the river in the Massachusetts reach various and diversified industries are now also actively carried on, with the development of many waterpowers ; yet, as else- where, all are not fully utilized. These tributaries enter from the upper Massachusetts bound in this order: Miller's river, emptying at the town of Gill; Fall's river, at Greenfield; the Deerfield, at Deerfield, along with the Green from Greenfield which it receives at its mouth ; Mill river, at Northampton ; the Chicopee with its branches, the Swift, the Ware and the Quaboag, just above Chicopee; another Mill river, at Spring- field ; the Westfield, or Agawam, at West Springfield. On the Deerfield another enterprise of bold proportions for the utilization of the splendid power of its upper waters is under- way this present year (1910) with promise of immediate de- velopment in accordance with the engineers' plans. This large project, the conception of the same engineers, Messrs. Chase and Harriman, who have created the great electric power producing and distributing works at Vernon-Hins- dale, involves the erection of similar works at the railroad village of Zoar, the second station east of the Hoosac tunnel, ultimately to be handled in connection with the Vernon- Hinsdale plant and the proposed other Connecticut river es- tablishment on the Fifteen-Miles falls. The broadly planned scheme embraces the erection of a dam at Davis bridge, a high point in the Vermont part of the Deerfield, which will impound water lying 1400 feet above sea-level, and the building of a contour flume thence to the works at Zoar, which lie some 600 feet above the sea. There will be developed some 25,000 horsepower for. distribution to rail- roads, factories and other patrons. Of the waterpowers of the other Massachusetts tributaries the Chicopee and its branches are the most fully developed. At Windsor locks, the one point [ 108 ] New -England Waterpowers in the river's passage through Connecticut to its finish at the the sound where power is systematically utilized, the develop- ment is as complete in its way as at larger points above ; and the power here is busily employed by substantial paper mills, silk mills and other factories. The powers of the larger tribu- taries entering in the reach, too, are well utilized: those on the Farmington, or Tunix, the principal tributary in this state, joining at old Windsor, to the largest extent. The others of note are the Scantic, entering at East Windsor ; the Podunk at South Windsor ; the Sabethe at Middletown ; the Salmon at East Haddam. Of all the large power-producing rivers of New England the Blackstone is the one stream loaded closest to its full capacity. It has been called the " best harnessed river in the United States " ; and it is the busiest, with its more than a hundred mills lining its short course of less than fifty miles and its tributaries. Yet, as Winthrop Packard has pointed out, it is today so poorly harnessed that a vast bulk of its energy goes to waste. Wrote Professor Swain at the conclusion of his survey of the waterpowers of the United States, considering all the condi- tions : " It must be allowed that on the Atlantic slope the streams of New England are in all respects the most favor- able for waterpower " ; and the array of favorable circum- stances " may well entitle New England to tjie first rank as a waterpower district." Says another authority : " In respect to its richness in waterpowers developed and potential and its adaptability to long-distance transmission of electricity as a motive power for communities and transportation lines far removed from the initial sources of energy, New Eng- land ranks high among the various sections of the country." These are conservative statements of our six New England states. In fact, they are unsurpassed. 109 New England Agriculture OPPORTUNITY awaits the man who engages in agriculture in New England. This is true of the farmer already here, who should henceforth widen his horizon and enlarge his occupa- tion of the field. It is also true of the man west or south of New England with inquiring eyes turned in this direction. The first named, thus far, with some notable exceptions, has nbt wholly lived up to his opportunities. The second, very properly asks to be " shown." New England agriculture for various reasons is worth while in every sense of the term ; it still has an abundance of relatively cheap and fertile lands, making it possible to suc- cessfully undertake farming without heavy outlay of capital ; it has nearjiess to the best cash markets in the world; its farm products bring high prices ; it shows a practically un- limited outlet right at home for more than New England can produce; rates of freight to markets are especially low com- pared with the long hauls further west, though not yet as low as they should be, in some instances. As a side-light on this general summary, here is an incident which actually took place, in the autumn of 1910, on the oc- casion of a field meeting of the Connecticut fruit growers. Extensive orchards in profitable bearing were in the fore- ground, fruit being harvested ; quick, nearby markets assured short haul and high prices. Among the visitors was a repre- sentative of the famous Hood River, Oregon, fruit section. He acknowledged the impressiveness of the attractive money- making proposition spread out before him on that Connecti- cut hillside. Turning to J. H. Hale, the peach king of Connecticut and Georgia, the Oregon man asked where could be found similar splendid opportunities to buy orchard sites. ' There, directly across the road," came the quick positive response of Mr. Hale; " and over yonder is another just as r no i New England Agriculture good. And more and more of these splendid orchard sites all the way up through Connecticut and western Massachusetts; and, in fact, through most of the distance still further north to the Canadian line." AREA OF THE SIX NEW ENGLAND STATES IN SQUAIIE MILES Total Land Water Maine 33,040 29,895 3,145 New Hampshire 9,341 9,031 310 Vermont 9,564 9,124 440 Massachusetts 8,266 8,039 227 Connecticut 4,965 4,820 145 Rhode Island 1,248 1,067 181 Total 66,424 61,976 4,448 For so many decades of years has agriculture been promi- nent in New England that it may seem unnecessary to give much attention here to its topography, its physical charac- teristics, its rainfall and its climate. Yet it is not amiss to remind the reader that in these things New England has much which is really advantageous for the pursuit of farming. As latitudes go, New England is fairly well to the north. Yet, a glance at the map will show it, in this respect, fully as favorably located as many other portions of the country which are given over to crop production. In fact, the matter of a northerly latitude has long since proved its real worth in the turning out of fruits, vegetables, cereals, and grass crops of the highest order. Within a comparatively short time, scientists, making a special study of cereal culture, have presented strong argu- ments to show that such small grains as wheat, rye, and oats make a heavier rate of yield to the acre in northerly latitudes than further south. The heavy rate of yield of wheat in Eng- land is somewhere around thirty-three bushels to an acre, and nearly as much in northern France and in the Netherlands, against our own average in the United States of only fourteen to sixteen bushels. For that matter, it is not necessary to cross the Atlantic ocean to find positive evidences of what may [ HI 1 New England be accomplished in northern latitudes. In western Canada, four hundred miles north of the international boundary line, magnificent crops of wheat and oats are now grown. The Canadian wheat crop of 1910 alone was something like one hun- dred million bushels. Going still further north in the western hemisphere wheat is produced each season in the Peace River valley at a latitude of 58 degrees, whereas the northernmost point of Maine is only 48 degrees. AREA IN NEW ENGLAND UNDER FARMS Number of Average no. Percent farms Total acres acres to farm improved Maine 59,299 6,299,946 106.2 37.9 New Hampshire 29,324 3,609,864 123.1 29.8 Vermont 33,104 4,724,440 142.7 45.0 Massachusetts 37,715 3,147,064 83.4 41.1 Connecticut 26,948 2,312,083 85.8 46.0 Rhode Island 5,498 455,602 82.9 41.1 United States 146.2 49.4 Keeping away from technicalities in a plain statement of agricultural conditions in New England, it will suffice to re- mind the reader that in this moderately high latitude, as well as those still further north, the sun gets in its work very early in the day, during practically all of the growing season, and continues until a late hour in the afternoon. Thus a field of grain, or cultivated crop, or small fruit, receives during the growing season in each day of clear sky a maximum of sun- shine, forcing nature in its work of development, maturity, and full fruition. PRESIDENT BUTTERFIELD'S OPINION The condition and prospects of agriculture in New Eng- land are thus conservatively summarized by President Ken- yon L. Butterfield of the Massachusetts Agricultural College : " I came to New England eight years ago. I soon formed a very optimistic belief in regard to the future of agriculture in New England, and that belief has strengthened with the years. " Of course, there are difficulties, drawbacks, problems. New England Agriculture For one thing, we have to admit the spotted character of the land. There is no great area of uniformly rich soil. The soil on a given farm is often of many different types. A single town may have good and poor land. This fact makes it diffi- cult to localize a given crop and bring to the community a great reputation for a specialty. " All over the north at least farm labor is scarce, but per- haps New England farmers suffer more than any others be- cause of the presence of the large number of mill villages which tempt farm boys and girls from the surrounding regions to steady positions, even at small wages, in exchange for what have seemed to be the uncertainties of the farm. " Farmers everywhere have failed to cooperate, but per- haps the failure is more marked in New England than any- where else. The New England farmer likes to ' paddle his own canoe.' Of course, individual farmers of superior intelligence make more profit in this way than they perhaps would by cooperating, but agriculture as a whole is put to a great dis- advantage. The individual method of marketing, for instance, is a very costly one. This might not matter so much to the farmer if the consumer paid all the costs of marketing, but unfortunately he does not. A clumsy system of marketing robs the farmer of some of his profit. " Although New England has a small area, and is inter- laced with a network of steam and trolley roads, nevertheless the facilities for cheap transportation of farm products to the nearby markets are not as good as one might expect. It costs more for the average New England farmer to get his goods to his market than it ought to cost, and this fact makes the competition with the western and southern growers more serious than would otherwise be the case. " But these difficulties simply mean problems to be solved. They are not insuperable difficulties. On the other hand, there are positive and real advantages possessed by the New Eng- land farmers. The first is the market. It is a big market. It consists not only of the great city of Boston but of many minor cities and villages, altogether making a large consum- ing population within restricted area. The market is near the f 113 1 New England Agriculture average farmer. It is a growing market. Nearly all the New England cities have shown a tendency toward growth during the last ten years. It is a high grade market, calling for products of quality. It is a sympathetic market; that is to say, if the proper steps are taken the New England con- sumers will express a preference for New England grown products. " It is sometimes asserted that the soil of New England is a drawback. On the contrary, it is an asset. True, there are many square miles in New England consisting of ledges, others almost plastered with boulders; but wherever there is clear soil it is good soil the very best. There are areas that are worn, because they have been over-cropped and misman- aged, but all the New England soils respond bounteously to proper treatment. " There are some special advantages. The rainfall in New England is abundant, and well distributed, as a rule, through- out the growing season. This is shown in the marvelous tree growths. Forestry therefore can be made a permanent agri- cultural sub-industry. Fruit trees grow vigorously also. " And then there is the fruit flavor. It may be soil, it may be climate, it may be the altitude of some of the hills ; but no matter what it is, there are few spots on earth where apples particularly take on a better flavor than in New England. This is an asset of tremendous importance. " The grass-growing areas in New England are unsur- passed for native power in producing good hay. Even the hill- side pastures are of superior quality. The Lord intended that in New England there should be * cattle on a thousand hills,' and it is only man's fault that there are not. We might add sheep, too, to the same category, if it were not for the curse of curs. " The fact of greatest promise is that we are undergoing a great awakening in New England agriculture. Farmers have a new look of hope. Business men are particularly interested. Leaders in community life are interesting themselves in the country problem. All New England is stirring as perhaps never before in all its history, with things agricultural." [ 115] New England THE GENERAL OUTLOOK This brief summary by President Butterfield expresses the most conservative views. A permanent and gratifying success should, in the years to come even more than ever before, at- tend farming in New England. This is true of the men and women living here and engaged in some phase of agriculture. It is also true of those outside the confines of the six states, who may be impelled through the authenticated records to cast their lot in New England. Farmers now engaged in this pursuit will remain here. Not in many years have they been so well satisfied with agriculture in New England as today in the ledger account, the cash box, the home life, and social opportunities. Farmers not now in New England, but who are considering the advisability of coming here, will have read this book in vain if they do not adequately grasp the facts portrayed. In the briefest sort of way, attention is called to these advantages : Relative cheapness of good farming lands; productivity of soil and ease in working it when properly handled; profits in various staple crops and New England specialties ; good roads ; nearness to the best and highest cash markets in the world ; a network of rural free delivery routes, and passenger, freight, and express trolley lines, and telephones ; the best schools, colleges, and libraries in the world ; freedom from the isolation of the less settled communities ; social life of a high character and atmosphere ; environment conducive to the best things in the home life. As to financial returns, no section of the country can show better results, considering the risk. New England lands are notably moderate to low in price. They will produce the best and biggest crops, and the markets are right at the farmer's door. However poor in purse a man may be, if he has grit, amtition, and real purpose, he cannot fail to succeed in New England. Land values in the agricultural sections have shown a posi- tive hardening tendency during recent years. Not very long ago a personal investigation was made throughout various New England Agriculture New England states, among farmers, real estate men, and bankers, with a view of determining just what had been the trend of values during, say, a five- or ten-year period. This proved the statement of an appreciation in prices of farm lands. Reference is made entirely to lands intended for farm operations, distinct from those having a present or prospec- tive " town lot " value. Land cannot be quoted by any hard or fast rule in the same sense as can No. 1 hard wheat, or pack- ing hogs, or pig iron, or municipal bonds, which have a fluctu- ating value from day to day, but the drift of testimony from farmers and the record of sales show a firmer tone in the sale price of agricultural lands in New England. Farm lands command a wide range of prices. It is safe to say that in some of the hill towns, where there are great stretches of rough land, with here and there a bit of tillable soil, purchases may be made at the remarkably low price of $10 per acre, or less. But in such instances the land is not well suited to cultivated crops, or even to meadows, and may be remote from a railroad. Such areas have attraction in the way of grazing sheep and goats, or fattening cattle. In the plains or uplands are great stretches of gravel loam land that are well suited, under proper handling, to many crops. Such land can be bought at medium prices. The rich valleys and river bottoms found in many parts of New England are especially well adapted to growing onions, early potatoes, celery, aspar- agus, and other truck crops ; also strawberries, roses, vege- tables, etc. Such land, found in the Connecticut valley, from the lower confines of Vermont and New Hampshire down through Massachusetts and Connecticut nearly to Long Island sound, is held at high figures where particularly well located, with soil deep and rich, and well calculated to produce to perfection some of these special crops. This is also true of the market garden sections, five to twenty miles out of Boston, Worcester, Springfield, Hartford, Manchester, Portland, etc. Such soils, while heavy and often very black, are not sticky, even after smart rainfall, and are readily worked. The price for land of this character runs high ; all the way upward from $400 to $500 an acre. Good potato land in northern' Maine is f 117 1 New England worth around $100 an acre, and not infrequently rents by the season at $10 and upward an acre. Near the large cities de- sirable land for truck farming sells as high as $1000 an acre, and gardeners are able to pay that price and coin big money. Two and three crops are raised on the same land each year. These specialties include the general line of vegetables, such as spinach, lettuce, radishes, cabbage, cauliflower, sweet corn, tomatoes, celery, etc. Agricultural education is receiving attention in several ways in New England. There are the agricultural colleges and the experiment stations, the boards of agriculture, the grange, dairying, and horticultural societies, bee keepers and sheep breeders associations, the press, and latterly, commer- cial organizations and corporations such as boards of trade and the railroads. Each of the New England states has a state agricultural college and experiment station; Connecticut has two of the latter, one at Storrs and another at New Haven. Maine's college and experiment station is in connection with the state university at Orono ; Vermont's in connection with the Vermont university at Burlington. The New Hampshire college and experiment station are at Durham ; Massachusetts at Amherst ; Rhode Island at Kingston. Various eastern insti- tutions in later years have awakened to the fact that it is not sufficient to teach the boys and girls at the institution, .and to dig out certain facts connected with agriculture. Important as are these, the institutions must go further and do some- thing for the farmers who have not the time, nor perhaps the finances, to take college courses. They have learned that it is one thing to experiment and quite another to get the results in actual operation on the farms. Therefore the colleges and experiment stations are featuring what they term " extension work." The facts learned at the college are taken direct to the farmers and applied to the everyday problems of the farm. Demonstrations and object lessons are given of approved methods of caring for orchards, live stock, crops, etc. Men in close touch with both the college and the rural end of the proposition devote their entire time to getting the farmer and the institution in this closer relation. The purpose is to dis- [ 118 1 New England Agriculture seminate some of the useful information which in the past has been allowed to lie in pigeon holes until it finally reached the backyard fire dump. In close sympathy with this same spirit of practical results are found the grange, the boards of agricul- ture, and other organizations, aiming to dignify and uplift agriculture. While cooperation has not gained the foothold in the East that it has in portions of the South and West, New England farmers are rapidly adopting the decisive advantages offered through associated effort. Net returns to New England farmers have been reasonably satisfactory, and in consequence they have not been forced into cooperation as in other sec- tions. But they see what fruit and vegetable growers are doing in other localities through associated effort and are going after the same proposition. One proof of this is the work being accomplished by milk producers shipping to the Boston market. Back in 1899 the price of milk was 33 cents per 8^/2 quart can delivered at Boston. In the winter of 190910 the price was 441/2 cents for the same quantity, which is a differ- ence of 11% cents in favor of the farmer's pocketbook. For the amount of milk sold in Boston this approximates about $1,500,000 additional for farmers. While prices have ad- vanced somewhat owing to natural causes, -the saving is largely due to the determined fight of the farmers' milk union. FARMING OPPORTUNITY The business of farming has witnessed many changes in New England since the early days, and the experiences of farm folk have covered a wide range. For several generations, when the country was young, agriculture was the chief industry in New England, and a little later equal with manufactures. Eventually came a lull in the development of agriculture, coincident with the opening of vast prairie stretches from Ohio westward to the Mississippi river, and beyond. The fas- cination of the new country caught the fancy of many a sturdy youth and bronzed farmer; with the result that great numbers turned their faces toward the setting sun. Then came f 119 1 New England Agriculture the two decades of years following the close of the Civil War, when agriculture in New England was at a comparatively low ebb. But this westward trend was not to continue uninter- rupted. With the early '90's the fact was borne into thought- ful minds, as had not been the case for generations, that OCTOBER PRICES WHOLESALE PRICES AT BOSTON STANDARD GRADES COMPARED WITH OTHER DISTRIBUTING CENTERS Boston New York Chicago St. Louis Creamery butter per Ib. 31>6c. 31c. 29c. Sl^ic. Cheese per Ib. 17c. 17c. 16c. 17c. Timothy hay per ton $24 $22 $20 $18 Apples per bbl. $4 $4 $3.50 $4.25 Yellow corn per bu. 68}^c. 66c. 55c. 57c. White oats per bu. 42^c. 38c. 35c. 35c. Eggs per doz. 32c. 28c. 23c. 22c. Live fowls per Ib. 18c. 17c. 14c. 12^c. Onions per bu. 65c. 50c. 45c. 45c. agriculture in New England might be made particularly force- ful and effective, in the production of crops and feed products, with profit to the farmer, in comfort and uplift in the social and home life of the farmer's family. The swing of the pen- dulum which had been outward was now inward. The tide, which some of the friends of New England feared was an ebb- ing one, became a flowing tide. Individuals and farm commu- nities, which at one time had become less courageous, caught their second wind, and came to a realizing sense that oppor- tunities were within their grasp, and, best of all, right at home. Nor was this keener appreciation of environment and oppor- tunities confined wholly to plain everyday farmers. Specialists who had foresight to discern a profitable field in various branches of agriculture, such as peach growing, apple or- charding, and poultry production, bought up farms or in- creased their holdings, enlarged their plans and accentuated their energies. Furthermore, an increasing number of city residents, both in and out of New England, recognized " the growing pains " and gave utterance to their longing to ac- quire a home for all or part of the year in the quiet valleys, on pleasant plains, or glistening hilltops. Not that there was any frenzy or appropriation of agricultural lands perhaps in [ 121 1 New England many instances ill-timed, as that would not have been a healthy development. On the contrary, the movement looking toward appropriations and opportunities in New England agricul- ture have been gradual, yet persistent and readily discernible in recent years. To one who has made a careful study of the situation for a long time, and is therefore well equipped to draw deductions, it may be said without slightest fear of effec- tive contradiction that farming in these six states has in re- cent years undergone a decided change for the better, in hopefulness, in endeavor, in uplift, in real tangible accom- plishments. In agriculture, as in other directions, New Eng- land has taken on a most optimistic spirit, highly gratifying to all, with further widening hopes and plans. In the present work-a-day world, agriculture in New Eng- land naturally divides itself into two classes. One of these in- cludes the standbys of passing years the general crops, such as hay, potatoes, corn, the development of meadow lands, dairying; the other, special crops, such as apples, onions, to- bacco, small fruits, cranberries, lettuce, garden truck, garden- ing under glass, rose culture, etc. The principles of agricul- ture pertain here, as elsewhere, and scientific methods are as keenly followed as in any state in the Union. Every common- wealth has its agricultural college and experiment station. Every state has its agricultural department. These various energies are active in the carrying on of farmers' institutes, of the better farming trains, of encouragement to local and state organizations, relating specifically to dairying, to horti- culture, to breeding and feeding live stock, etc. Under such benign influences, together with the ever-forceful aid of the agricultural press, how could it be otherwise than that the farmers of New England should follow approved methods and bring forth yields sixty and a hundred fold? The question of farm labor very properly comes to the front in contemplating the farm proposition, whether in or out of New England. It is a problem everywhere. All are familiar with the newspaper yarns about the frenzied Kansas farmers at harvest time rounding up with a shotgun all avail- able " timber " for work in the wheat field. Nor is this entirely [ 122 ] New England Agriculture a fairy tale. The problem is one which must be carefully handled everywhere. In this respect New England is possibly better off than some other parts of the country. The cities and large towns are liable to have an excess of labor, and with well-distributed trolley systems it is not wholly difficult to get farm laborers to go into the country. This is especially true where the farmer uses good judgment, tact, and kindness in the treatment of farm hands. What is true of this economic proposition in New England is true of it elsewhere; that the time may be approaching when the farmers will find it neces- sary, practicable, and satisfactory to deal with the farm help as is the case with the industrial world in a spirit of fairness, exact a reasonable day's labor for a day's wage, and thus elevate the farm labor question to the same plane it occu- pies in factory, shop, and mill. The introduction of a generous use of labor-saving farm machinery and farm devices has done much in New England to solve the labor question. Tobacco and cabbage plants are set by machinery, spray pumps are operated by compressed air or gasoline engines, the hydraulic ram and the windmill pump the water for both barn and house; the silage cutter, the blower, the bone cutter, and the feed mill are operated by compact and inexpensive power plants. Horse-propelled machinery spreads the fertilizers and the lime, drills the seed, plants and digs the potatoes. Thus the labor question is not an insurmountable one to the busi- ness farmer ; and, after all, it is the business farmer who gets along, in the same sense that does the business tradesman, the business artisan, or the business manufacturer. The grange in New England is nearly 200,000 strong. In each state there are cooperative stores or associations saving farmers hundreds of dollars. For instance, Houlton, Me., grange for the six months ending June 11, 1909, did a busi- ness of $164,974. Of this amount about $10,000 was for flour, $5000 for sugar, and $11,000 for grass seed. This grange owns its own blacksmith shop, flour and grist mill, livery stable, etc. The Massachusetts state grange has a cooperative association, and from January to August handled 100 cars of grain, 15 cars of flour, 800 tons of chemicals; which figured [ 123 1 New England out about $4000 saved to members on fertilizers, $3000 on flour, and $4000 on grain. The grange has cooperative fire insurance companies ; the New Hampshire organizations hav- ing something like $6,000,000 outstanding insurance, Massa- chusetts, $3,000,000, Maine, $2,000,000, and Rhode Island and Vermont smaller sums. Both cooperative buying and sell- ing are under consideration by the grangers and farmers in general. In many localities a group of neighbors, not mem- bers of the grange, combine and order a car of grain for their stock. Cooperative cow-testing associations and breeders as- sociations are rapidly being formed. Maine has eight of the former and four of the latter. Plans are on foot for a big commercial fruit growers organization in Maine which will do business along the lines featured in Hood River valley and in other famous far western apple territories. No section of the country has better facilities for organ- izing cooperative work than New England. The grange, a farmers' organization, is the natural avenue through which this can be launched, and in no place in the world are there so many granges as in the East. New Hampshire actually has more granges than there are towns in the State. This is ac- counted for by there being five or six lodges in some of the larger towns. It is difficult for a farmer to find a farm in New England which is not reasonably near some grange, so well is the territory organized along grange lines. While some of these local lodges are city granges, so-called, catering more especially to the social and entertainment features, the major- ity are true farmers organizations. THE NEW ENGLAND STATES Maine is well watered with innumerable lakes and ponds, while the rivers and small streams do much to conserve the in- terests of the valleys and fertile fields. The northern counties in the State have a comparatively short season for crop grow- ing, yet the energy of the sun, combined with generous rain- fall, makes that territory, particularly Aroostook county, famous for its crops. Alluvial plains of remarkable fertility [ 124 ] New England Agriculture are found throughout much of the State, which show evidences of having been at one time bottoms of old lakes long since dried up or drained out. While much of Maine is rugged and broken by high hills and ranges of mountains, there still re- main large areas of cultivated land, some of which in recent years has been brought up to a high state of fertility. In this respect Maine is identified with " extensive agriculture " more peculiarly than other eastern states. To the man with a wide horizon who has made a study of agriculture east and west, farming in Maine is easily comparable, even though on some- what smaller scale, to conditions in the Middle West. The Aroostook in the northeastern part of the State comprises probably the largest area given over to fertile farming land in New England. The State, agriculturally speaking, devotes most attention to such crops as grass, potatoes, apples, all of these being very successfully produced on a large scale. Cereal culture has not been accorded very much attention, although within the past ten years some notable successes have been made in wheat, oats, and rye, with the tendency for still fur- ther attainment. In such specialties as potatoes and apples the very best agriculture is followed. Hay and forage crops are given much attention and the yield is very heavy. Maine is each year becoming more of a dairy state, requiring enormous amounts of feed of this character. While stock raising is car- ried on in a somewhat limited manner, interest and the best thought of agriculture in northern New England favor going more and more into breeding and feeding meat animals, in dairying, and in the production of horses. While the Granite State can boast of the highest mountain in the eastern part of United States, it also has many fertile plateaus and delightful valleys. Nor are all of these given over to summer homes. In the growing season precipitation is usually ample for the production of crops. In fact, a note- worthy thing about all of New England is its general freedom from serious drought. To the man born and reared in New England, such things as " hot winds," the " firing of corn," and ruin of crops by reason of continued high temperatures and absence of rainfall is practically unknown. The State is [ 125 1 " MB. J. H HALE AND ONE OF HTS APPLE TREES AT SEYMOUR, CONN. New England Agriculture well drained by numerous streams of water. In passing, it is not amiss to mention the considerable wealth of forests found in the upper half of the State. As to crops, hay is a leader, with the dairy industry prominent, while increasing attention is being given to apples. If New Hampshire is growing less in the way of cereals than years ago it is because its farmers find it more profitable to use the land in some other way, buying needed feed stuffs and grain. In recent years enlarged atten- tion has been given to the growing of silage corn, which is now considered a requisite in the well established dairy. The potato crop is also an important one in New Hampshire, while small fruits and truck farming- are given much attention. Bounded on the east by the Connecticut valley and the stream which gives this its name, and on the west by Lake Champlain, Vermont is a land of hills, mountains, fields, and meadows. A healthful and bracing climate adds to its attrac- tiveness. It has a reasonable amount of heat and cold. In the valleys, especially in the western portion of the State, there is much land which is well adapted to the production of crops, and agriculture has always constituted the leading industry. Under the influence of intelligent farming the rate of yield to the acre is high. While the '80s and early '90s found many Vermont farmers turning their faces toward the cheap lands in the West, a better feeling has prevailed in recent years, with an appreciable uplift in agricultural conditions. As to crops, hay is the leader, while liberal quantities of oats and potatoes are grown, with an important output each season of barley, buckwheat, and maple sugar. Vermont seems particularly adapted to apples and plums, the fruit showing high color, good flavor, and quality. While the river valleys with very heavy soils are usually considered more attractive in point of producing capacity, Massachusetts has many evidences of agricultural prosperity in its higher plateaus and hill towns. West of the Connecticut river, which cuts the State squarely in two from north to south, Massachusetts is much broken, yet agriculture is force- ful, even in such elevated areas and narrow confines as some of the valleys hedged in by the Berkshire hills. Eastward from [ 127 1 New England the Connecticut river the topography of the State is more gently marked by low hills and great stretches of plains, slop- ing gradually to the sea-coast, and elevation entirely disap- pearing in the famous cranberry bogs and sandy beaches of Barnstable and Plymouth counties. As to climate, it is in the middle of the north temperate zone, temperatures showing a fairly wide range. Yet the frost period from December to March is not severe upon orchards and other crops, while the growing season is favored by generally sufficient and well dis- tributed rainfall. This, with the genial sunshine and higher temperature of mid-summer, force to the greatest perfection the crops for which Massachusetts is famous, such as corn, cigar-leaf tobacco, apples, and small fruits, onions, potatoes, etc. Massachusetts has a larger population than any other New England state, and the proportion of the people actually engaged in agriculture is relatively small. Such portions as are not adapted to agriculture are receiving attention on the part of the farmers and others who are interested in forestry. In the development along agricultural lines in the last decade of years Connecticut might properly be called " the land of the rosy peach;" for this great commercial crop has become one of the fascinating features of Connecticut agricul- ture, and the State now takes second place to no other as a producer of this fruit. As in other parts of New England, grass is the leading crop. Hay, ever and always, in this part of the country, commands very high prices. The farm value of hay, according to official figures, is higher in Connecticut than in any other state, being placed at $19.30 per ton. The valley land of the Connecticut is particularly well suited to extensive farming, and some remarkable yields have been made in grasses, in tobacco, and in corn. The rougher portions of the State further east afford great possibilities in grazing at a low cost. Owing to the fact of many large manufacturing centers, the home markets for fruit, truck, dairy products, poultry, and eggs are large. Small in size but big in accomplishment, Rhode Island is more than a great industrial center, or a political ganglion. While part of its area is rather rough land, even that is well [ 128 1 New England Agriculture adapted to pastures and dairying. In the truck sections, close to tidewater, splendid crops of potatoes and other vegetables are produced. There are several notable apple orchards, and many examples of the most advanced farming ideas. In the eastern part of the State the poultry industry has been de- veloped to a high state of perfection. NEW ENGLAND CROPS It is difficult to say just what is the most important of the special crops which succeed abundantly in New England. Sev- eral of them stand out prominently, including cigar-leaf to- bacco, apples, and onions. The potato might very properly be classed as a specialty, certainly in a few counties, although it is grown generally. Cranberries form a highly specialized crop in a few sections; so with sweet corn for canning purposes, asparagus, lettuce, strawberries, etc. Corn is being revived as a profitable crop, and oats are more generally grown for feed- ing whole and for ripening and threshing. Alfalfa may soon be a leading New England crop. Hay is being more carefully grown, the average crop having been in many instances doubled or quadrupled. Maine-grown sweet corn commands a higher price than corn grown anywhere else in the United States. Poultry farming is one of the highly specialized and success- ful industries. The home markets greedily appropriate all that can be produced at the highest prices to be found anywhere, and, like Oliver Twist, plead for more. New England is pre- eminently adapted to apple production. Soils, elevation, cli- mate, etc., are exactly what the apple demands, abundant proof of which are the thousands of apple trees in good health on the many hillsides, some of them being 50 to 100 years old. Fertilization, cultivation, and spraying will give a New Eng- land fruit practically as near to perfection as can be obtained in the world. Markets are, figuratively, in the New England fruit growers' front yards. Within the past two years there is abundant evidence that these possibilities are beginning to make an impression; the New England apple industry has made greater progress within that time than during any [ 129 ] New England decade preceding. Peaches are proving very profitable where conditions are right, though requiring more skill and care than other crops. The ability of the soil to produce the best of yields of highest quality fruit, and the dense population of New England affording a quick market, provide extra induce- ments for growers of small fruits. Raspberries, blackberries, strawberries, grapes, currants, gooseberries, cranberries, dew- berries, and huckleberries are produced at their best in New England. Cherries, plums, and pears always succeed where given a square deal. Adjacent to a few of the large towns where conditions are particularly favorable, roses are being largely grown for market, mostly under glass. In limited areas in Rhode Island and eastern Massachusetts some farmers make a specialty of growing seeds for seedsmen. Among the interesting and profitable crops measuring up to the dignity of a specialty in a dozen states, onions command the attention of many farmers. This crop is one which requires peculiar treatment under particular environment in the way of soil and cultivation. While enormous quantities of onions are grown in the Southwest and on the Pacific coast, the main or commercial crop is found in a few states north of the Ohio river and east of the Mississippi. Leaders in acreage and out- put are Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, Ohio, and In- diana. Besides these states many onions are grown in the Middle West, but they do not cut much figure in the autumn and winter commercial markets. In New England there are devoted to onions about 2500 acres which annually produce 700,000 to 1,000,000 bushels. Intensive methods are used. Production varies from 300 to 1000 bushels, or even more, and the average price of 45 to 50 cents a bushel means that the land is capable of earning $240 to $500 per acre. The 1910 crop in Massachusetts yielded three-quarters of a million bushels. One of the special money crops that bring sure returns is asparagus. This is a crop which can be produced successfully on sandy land. The sub-experiment station farm at Concord, Mass., has proved this. Light, sandy soil grown up to scraggy brush was cleared, buckwheat sown and plowed under. This [ 130] New England Agriculture provided humus, and with thorough cultivation and judicious use of chemical fertilizers astonishing growths of asparagus were forthcoming. Eastern Massachusetts is a great center for asparagus, notably in the vicinity of Concord and Lexington, 20 miles outside of Boston. Cash returns are anywhere from $300 to $500 an acre, and it is not overly expensive to pro- duce. Once a plantation is started it is good for a decade or more. Wilfred Wheeler, Concord, Mass., has 30 acres under asparagus and his returns are $300 to the acre. C. W. Pres- cott of the same town, and president of the Asparagus Growers association, has 25 acres from which, in 1910, he re- ceived $5000. CEREALS IN NEW ENGLAND The belief is very general throughout New England that much more might profitably be done, and that much more will be done, in growing corn. This in fact was a chief reason for the New England Corn Show held at Worcester in November, 1910. To those who attended this show the exhibits were eye openers and highly encouraging. To others, it will be worth while to glance briefly at the facts of corn production, both in and out of New England. Reference is here made to corn grown to full maturity, ripening in the ear and husked from the shock. New England can grow more bushels of field corn to the acre than distinctively corn states of the West ; not only can, but does. So good an authority as Uncle Sam, who keeps tab on crop production, has some interesting records. The United States Department of Agriculture, as noted in the accompany- ing table, shows that the highest rate of yield in the corn crop of 1909 was in New England. The three northern states, for example, averaged 35 to 38 bushels to the acre. Massachusetts made an equally enviable record, while Connecticut showed 41 bushels, exceeding every other state in the Union. Iowa, for example, averaged only 311/2 bushels, Nebraska, scant 25 bushels, Kansas, a shade less than 20 bushels ; while the aver- age for all of the United States was only 25^/2 bushels. The [ 131 ] New England figures covering a 10-year average are equally impressive, showing that for a long period of time the New England states have maintained the supremacy in corn growing. In New England, corn is the leading cereal, although wheat, oats, barley, and rye are actualities. The time was when the East took no back seat in total corn production, but with the opening of the boundless areas in the West and Middle West, and improved transportation, it was possible to raise corn CORN YIELD PER ACRE IN BUSHELS AND FARM PRICE Farm price Dec. 1, 1909 80c. 76c. 73c. 81c. 75c. 97c. 74c. 56c. 61c. 49c. 54c. 50c. 59.6c. there in an extensive way on the virgin soils, and ship to east- ern markets for less than New England farmers could raise the product. Then it was that the East began to produce less corn, and continued so to do for many years. Within the past half-dozen years however prices have advanced so materially that the eastern farmer sees the necessity of again producing more of his own corn, inasmuch as the western product is find- ing other outlets, not the least of which is the feeding of stock in the states where the corn is produced. That there is a great corn-growing revival in New England is well shown by the big New England exposition referred to above. Displays were there which vied with the great states of the West at the national show. Each of the six New England states took interest in this exposition, and better than $5000 was paid out to growers. Daily lectures and demonstrations were provided, and the whole affair conducted on a broad edu- [ 132 ] 10 year average production Crop 1909 1896-1905 Maine 35.1 38.0 New Hampshire 34.0 35.1 Vermont 35.1 37.0 Massachusetts 35.9 38.0 Connecticut 35.8 41.0 Rhode Island 31.2 33.2 New York 30.3 36.0 Ohio 34.8 39.5 Michigan 32.2 35.4 Iowa 32.4 31.5 Kansas 22.0 19.9 Nebraska 28.8 24.8 United States 25.2 25.5 New England Agriculture cational basis which is sure to be felt for years to come by eastern agriculture. As showing what New England can do in the way of corn, it is remembered that it was a Connecticut youth, N. H. Brewer, who won the highest prize at the national corn show in 1908, with a record of ISS 1 /^ bushels to the acre. The next year he raised 40 acres and produced over 100 bushels to the acre. Ex- cellent as is this record, phenomenal as it seems, in the light of past records, it was undoubtedly surpassed by that of Perley P. Davis of Granby, Mass., won at the New England corn show, at Worcester, in November, 1910. As the two yields appear not to have been judged by the same method it is not possible exactly to compare them. The Davis yield was re- duced to the standard of 12 percent moisture, and conse- quently shrunk from 127 bushels containing 43 percent of water and cob to 103.23 bushels of crib-dry corn with 12 per- cent moisture, containing 4934 pounds of actual food that is, protein, fat, sugar, etc. To suggest the importance of this performance in corn-growing we can do no better than quote from a review of the corn show made by a leading expert agriculturist, not, by the way, a New Englander: " Mr. Davis, the young man who won the grand prize for growing over 103 bushels of crib-dry shelled corn on an acre, has done more of real service to Massachusetts than any gov- ernor of that Commonwealth who has held office since the Civil War. Mr. Davis has shown how Massachusetts can provide more of her own bread, how waste land can be made produc- tive, how farms can be doubled in value, and how in conse- quence a revised edition of the old-time farm life can be made possible. Such a man on his farm makes history in a way that no governor can match by his work in the State House. The crop analyzed 11.73 percent protein, which meant 597 pounds of protein to the acre. This is more than you can grow in over four tons of good clover hay, and in addition you have the dry fodder, which is also superior in the flint varieties. All these things increase the confidence generally expressed at this corn show, that New England is to come nearer and nearer to feeding her own people. Clover, alfalfa, soy beans, and vetch [ 133 ] PRIZE APPLES AT THE BOSTON SHOW IN 1909 New England Agriculture can all be grown in New England, and now that corn growing is to be made popular, the amount of home-made bread, meat, and eggs will be largely increased. Let us look at the money side of it. This crib-dry corn will sell for feeding for $1.10 per bushel. That means $113.55 for the grain alone not for seed, but in competition with grain which made only 40 bushels per acre. The fodder will sell for at least $15 more. Now, where is the acre of corn in Iowa, Illinois, or other corn-grow- ing states that will give $130 income? If you say that the acre of western corn docs not need the ton of fertilizer and the hand work of culture, we can say leave out the cost and still the acre of Massachusetts corn will out-profit the western acre by more than 50 percent. That is because these flint varieties are heavier yielders, because the selling price of corn is greater, and because the fodder has a good selling value. There is no disputing the fact that Mr. Davis's record is genuine. Now let any western farmer who has ever won such a prize come forward and show what his acre's product actually sold for! What I am getting at is the fact that this corn exhibi- tion proves what we have claimed for years, that $50 land in the East can be made to earn a greater profit than $150 western land at growing corn." Wheat, both winter and spring, grows luxuriantly through- out all New England. It is simply a question of whether there are not other crops from which the farmer can secure more money. Aroostook county, Me., produces many thousands bushels of wheat annually, also oats. There, a yield of 30 to 40 bushels of wheat to the acre is the average. One year with another, this brings in the vicinity of $1.25 per bushel. A yield of oats below 50 bushels is counted poor in New Eng- land. Fields of 40, 50, and 60 acres in extent in either wheat or oats are common in northern Maine, and occasionally seen in Massachusetts and other eastern states. J. L. Smith of Hawley, Mass., in 1909, had a single field of 65 acres oats, which thrashed 50 bushels to the acre for the entire area. In 1910 he had a field of 30 acres barley. A Lenox, Mass., farmer, George W. Ferguson, harvested, in 1910, 417 bushels winter wheat from 10.7 acres of land, and sold the wheat in [ 135 1 New England the Pittsfield market, a short distance away, for $2.50 a bushel, for seed purposes. His and other successful cereal ex- pert methods in New England are not radically different from those common in the grain belt. Thorough tillage with plenty of humus, provided by cover crops plowed under, is the meat in the cocoanut which brings such fine returns. Mr. Ferguson sold his wheat straw for $150, which brought a gross return of nearly $1200 in a single season from his ten- acre wheat field. Such returns in the grain belt would cause a stampede, but in New England it attracts no particular notice. MARKET GARDENING The twelfth census reported a production of $1,421,976 worth of vegetable products from Middlesex county in the year 1899. There has, without doubt, been a large increase in that production since that time. In addition, Middlesex county showed the greatest per acre production of any county WEATHER BUREAU AVERAGE RAINFALL IN INCHES AND HUNDHEDTHS, 1909 States April May June July August September Annual Maine 3.94 2.73 2.45 2.85 2.45 7.36 45.17 New Hampshire 3.28 2.49 2.88 2.24 2.85 4.07 35.60 Vermont 2.90 4.49 3.16 2.54 3.17 4.20 35.86 Massachusetts 4.83 2.79 2.55 1.92 3.11 4.55 41.43 Rhode Island 6.34 3.41 1.88 0.95 2.23 3.95 41.33 Connecticut 6.56 2.75 2.44 1.89 3.37 4.35 43.37 New York 3.67 3.69 2.86 2.88 3.07 2.96 36.03 Pennsylvania 5.39 2.90 4.48 2.14 2.31 2.27 37.38 Ohio 4.13 4.72 5.86 3.76 3.56 1.78 42.65 I'linois 6.24 4.01 4.15 4.52 2.22 3.69 43.11 Kansas 1.43 3.86 5.45 5.86 1.25 3.23 32.71 North Dakota 0.81 4.29 3.21 2.89 2.25 0.86 17.73 New Mexico 0.29 0.62 0.91 2.14 3.08 1.76 12.83 in the United States, and ranked second in valuation of its vegetable crops to only one, that being Queens county, N. Y., which has an area 1/3 larger than Middlesex and a valuation of vegetable products tjr greater. As a state Massachusetts ranks sixth in the Union, listed according to the valuation of her vegetable products. This [ 136 ] New England Agriculture ranking of Massachusetts, and particularly of Middlesex county, is very largely due to the high state of development to which vegetable growing under glass has been developed. Nowhere in the world is head lettuce produced so system- atically and successfully in the glass house as in Middlesex county. There the business originated and there it has largely developed. The towns of Arlington and Belmont are dotted with the glass houses of winter vegetable growers. The chief products of these houses are lettuce and cucumbers, and these products find their markets throughout New England and New York state. Other products are grown, mainly tomatoes, radishes, parsley, mint, and cress, but these are entirely con- sumed in the home market and are of minor importance. The extremely rapid growth of the glass-house vegetable industry which took place during the years from 1895 to 1905 has ceased. Competition from the southern truck grower has been the cause. The condition at present is one of healthy set- tling down to business, with less encouragement to increase the capital investment than ever before. Whether the truck grower of the South Atlantic states will be able to so success- fully grow and land his products in our markets is an un- solved problem. The uncertainty of nature's distribution of cold and wet will probably enable the New England glass- house gardener to not only successfully compete with the southerner, but to gradually increase his business, as he may improve his products and his method of distribution, and as his products prove their high quality. The outdoor gardening of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut is equally well developed. The three northern states do not excel in this respect, largely because of their lack of large cities and dense centers of population. The climatic conditions of New England are excellent for the production of high quality vegetable products. The soils are so varied that in nearly every locality may be found that sort particularly suited to the production of small fruits and vegetables. The size of market gardens is typically small. Those of New England vary from five to 150 acres. It is not unusual for the product to equal a value of $1000 per acre, [ 137 ] New England and the average product would probably range somewhere between $400 and $800. The business demands men of prac- tical ability, some capital, in cash or credit, a natural liking for the business, willingness to work hard and to stick to it. To a person with these qualifications market gardening is a good business proposition, and New England a splendid place in which to locate. The market for good garden produce is not only poorly and inadequately supplied, but the consumption of vegetable products is much more limited than it would be were people either aware of the full virtue of vegetable products as food or able to purchase them when wanted. Perhaps the greatest immediate need is an improvement in methods of distribution. An educational campaign among those that sell vegetables, which will show the profit in proper handling and protection, as well as one among the general public, to indicate the food value and health-giving qualities of various garden products, would do as much toward developing the industry as any one thing. There are many small cities and large towns in New Eng- land very inadequately supplied with vegetables of local pro- duction. It is necessary for them to depend upon a supply of perishable products shipped from a distance, passed through the hands of two or more middlemen, and handled by the transportation company before the consumer has a chance at the product. The nature of the product is such that its qual- ity is thus damaged, its good appearance lost, and its sale limited. In each of these localities is an opportunity to build up a business which will provide a fair income and a pleasant occupation. There are shipped into Boston each season many carloads of cauliflower, celery, spinach, and tomatoes, much of which might well be grown in the market gardens of New England. There are efficient market-gardeners associations in Boston and Worcester, the former having 200 members. These asso- ciations have been of great benefit to the business and to the individual gardeners. f 138 1 New England Agriculture FRUIT IN NEW ENGLAND Apples have always been a New England staple crop, but it is only within the past few years that apple raising has be- come recognized as a possible source of very great additional wealth. There are now many large commercial orchards grow- ing, and within the next five to eight years New England ap- ples will have recovered the eastern and export markets. Prof. F. C. Sears, of Massachusetts Agricultural College, says, in summing up the advantages of New England as an apple region : " In the first place, land values are very much in favor of New England. Men have been ' going west to grow up with the country ' for so long that prices for land in any of the good fruit sections are abnormally high, while they are correspond- ingly low here in the East. One hears constantly of the won- derful prices which are paid out there for raw lands, or for land just set to orchard, while $1000, $2000 and even $5000 per acre have been refused for bearing orchards. Here in New England, on the contrary, splendid orchard land can be bought for $5, $10 to $50 per acre. No country in the world abounds more in ideal orchard sites than New England. Next to the question of land, and more important in some ways, I should place the matter of the quality of New England-grown fruit. I believe that there is no other section where the flavor and aroma and juiciness and sweetness, and, in fact, all those factors on which we base our estimate of the quality of an apple, are more highly developed than right here. A third factor which certainly ought to stand in favor of the New England orchardist is the matter of markets. If he is compet- ing on anything like equal terms with his western competitors in other respects, it would certainly seem that the fact that he is right in the midst of the best markets in the world, while his competitors are three thousand miles away from them, ought to give him the difference in the cost of freight and express rates as a margin of profit, or a handicap on his competitors." Apple culture is not necessarily a difficult thing. An or- f 139 1 New England chard once located, it is largely a question of giving proper fertilizing, cultivation, and looking out for insect and fungous pests. Principles for these various operations are pretty well agreed upon by all expert growers, and a conscientious man, who is not afraid to work, cannot go far wrong if he backs up his good judgment with any one of the detailed sets of instruc- tion on apple culture available. The hills, of which New Eng- land has so many, are preferred as sites, thus providing good water drainage and, what is equally essential, air drainage. A gravelly loam soil is ideal, although many variations produce satisfactory results. The careful grower will avoid too many varieties, perhaps banking on no more than four or five to cover different seasons. Yellow Transparent, Red Astrachan, William's, Oldenburg, Early Gravenstein, Wealthy, Fall Pippin, Mclntosh, Hubbardston, Westfield, Blue Pearmain, Palmer Greening, Sutton, Baldwin, Spy, Roxbury, and Rhode Island Greening are typical of the summer, fall, early winter, and late winter sorts which are in strong favor in New Eng- land markets. This does not imply that other varieties cannot be produced successfully, and it is perhaps safe to say that with the varying sites and soils in New England there is not a standard variety which cannot be produced in its perfection. Most growers are setting permanent trees 40 feet distant each way, and then interplanting either with early bearing sorts like Wealthy, Bismarck, or Wagener apples, and in other cases using peach or plum trees as fillers. The idea is that the slower growing sorts that do not come into full bearing for 12 to 15 years will not need so much room at the start. Early bearing apples and the other fruits will produce five to eight paying crops before the standard apples need the room. If a man wishes to still further intensify, as some are doing, currants, gooseberries, strawberries, and raspberries are raised between the rows of trees for the first two or three years. Vegetable crops, such as potatoes, corn, and squash, are available. These intercrops actually pay for the early care of the orchard. Those who have cultivated, fertilized, and sprayed fruit trees show some remarkable returns. An early spray of lime- f 140 1 New England Agriculture sulphur solution will kill the various scales like San Jose and have distinct fungicidal effect as well. In peaches it will kill the San Jose scale and leaf curl, the two greatest enemies. Later, two or three sprayings with bordeaux mixture, or one of the newer sulphur compounds, to which some poison like arsenate of lead has been added, will complete the j ob against rot, coddling moths, etc. How these enemies are regarded by fruit growers with initiative is shown by the remark of J. H. Hale at a horticultural meeting when growers were bewailing the ravages of the San Jose scale : " Thunder ! What 's the matter with you folks? The San Jose scale is a blessing to New England and all other fruit growers. It forces growers to spray; just the thing they ought to have done before." As showing the remarkable returns that follow intelligent culture of the apple, we cite: C. T. Holmes of Charlotte, Vt., has an apple orchard of 100 acres. In 1909 he gathered 6000 barrels, mostly Greenings. These brought better than $20,000. Mr. Holmes has refused $50,000 for his farm. T. K. Winsor of Chepachet, R. I., bought his father's farm several years ago, giving a mortgage. The 40-acre apple orchard was renovated, sprayed, fertilized, and the returns soon paid for the farm. Now in a good year 2000 barrels go to Providence cold storage, to come out at opportune times at $6 to $8 a barrel. F. H. Morse of Waterford, Me., bought a semi-aban- doned farm for $650. A few years later he took $2000 worth of apples from the place in a single year. Most of these trees were growing wild in the pastures. Mr. Morse pruned and grafted them, and later sprayed. Three years after grafting a tree he has picked three barrels of fine fruit, and five years after grafting, five barrels. This fruit sold at $5 a barrel. One old wild tree, 20 feet in circumference and probably 100 years old, was redeemed, and in 1910 gave better than ten barrels apples. From a small orchard of 553 trees, C. E. Hardy of Hollis, N. H., sold, in 1907, $2400 worth of apples, in 1908, $2500, in 1909, $3100; a total of $8000 in three years. Mr. Hardy says that before his orchard was pruned and sprayed and fertilized the sales amounted to little. The old notion was that the South, New Jersey and Dela- [ 141 ] New England Agriculture ware, and Michigan had the inside track on peach production. Later developments have proved that New England can equal, if not excel, those localities. In recent years the restricted sec- tions in Connecticut have been gradually added to, and many farmers have learned that large areas are adapted to peaches. The teachings and living example provided by J. H. Hale, the leader in peach raising in America, followed by men of the Lyman, Barnes, and Root type, blazed the way for others to follow. Even the cold bleak hills of Litchfield county are now producing fine crops of peaches. The Wilbraham mountains in Massachusetts are coming to the front as the home of satisfy- ing peaches for both grower and consumer. Both eastern and western sections of the Bay State are producing peaches successfully. Even far-north New Hampshire growers are raising the crop. The successful culture of the peach is not so easily approxi- mated as with the apple. One must be more careful as to site, particularly as to good air and drainage. The principles of cultivation and fertilization must be attended to more strictly than with the hardier fruit. Peaches succeed on much lighter soil than apples, and a soil of a limestone nature appears to be ideal. However rocky and full of limestone ledges a hill may be, it is not impossible to grow peaches on it, provided other conditions are right. Peach growers are learning that the crop can be controlled largely by the kind, time, and amount of fertilization and cultivation. C. E. Lyman of Connecticut matured his Elberta peaches in 1910 fully ten days ahead of the normal season by pushing them with nitrate of potash. He provides or with- holds nitrogen, potash, or phosphoric acid, just as the tree and the season seem to demand. Mr. Lyman, in 1900, mar- keted around 100,000 baskets of peaches. He has 400 acres in the crop, and is setting more every year. Some of the trees set fifteen years ago are still bearing and have paid for them- selves many times over. Peaches come in bearing three years after planting, and the fourth year usually provides a fine crop. Even if a tree lives to be only eight or nine years old, it should pay for itself [ 143 ] New England many times over. D. H. Eaton of Wilbraham, Mass., har- vested in 1909 from one eight-year-old tree twenty-two baskets. These brought seventy-five cents per basket. From his orchard he had 3200 baskets which netted $2500 ; 375 of the trees were only three-year-olds, the remaining 600 being eight years old. J. H. Hale has taken rough land which cost him $100 to $400 an acre to redeem and made money on it. There are thousands of acres of land in Connecticut and Massachusetts suitable for peaches, which would not cost more than $40 an acre to reclaim. GRAPES, SMALL FRUITS AND BERRIES Grapes are a sure crop in New England if proper varieties are selected. It has been thought that the climate in New England is too severe for grape-culture, and the coming of frost in the fall too irregular. These handicaps are not of the same importance they once were, owing to a better under- standing of grape culture and the development of more suit- able varieties. The famed Concord grape originated in New England, in the Massachusetts town of the same name, and the original vine is still in bearing. It is of interest to note here that the Baldwin apple was originated near the birth- place of the Concord grape. There are perhaps no phenome- nal crops of New England grapes to report, though very creditable crops are raised in many localities. In Norwood, Mass,, there is a very interesting and valuable grape experi- ment station, if it may be so called, where Mr. N. B. White is originating varieties of grapes particularly adapted for New England culture. He has cross-bred, and bred from seed, several varieties that have been fruited several years and seem to answer all the requirements imposed by our rigorous climate and our uncertain frost-date, and he is firmly con- vinced that grapes may be raised in New England with the same measure of success as attends the business in other sec- tions, the prime requisite being that the grapes shall have been bred in New England from the seed, and crossed with varieties that will give quality for the rugged stem from New [ 144 1 New England Agriculture England soil. He has one grape that is the result of crossing, or breeding in, sixteen varieties. It is a great bearer, and the grapes are rich and of good flavor. Another of his originat- ing is a very large and prolific grape on a perfectly hardy vine, especially adapted for the making of jelly. The culture of berries and small fruits does not vary mate- rially from that prevailing in other sections, and each state agricultural college and experiment station can provide bulle- tins and directions for a prospective farmer to follow for best results. Close to New Haven, Ct., is one noted section, and another is at Concord, Mass. A farmer living at South Han- cock, Me., E. W. Wooster, has netted as high as $1000 in a single season from a trifle over one acre of strawberries. A. E. Ross, another Maine farmer in Berwick, has set straw- berries in rows five feet apart and grown cabbage between the rows. The two crops harvested inside of 15 months re- turned him over $2000 an acre. A. A. Halladay & Sons of Bellows Falls, Vt., harvested 5000 quarts from one-quarter acre one year, which were sold at 15 cents straight. This meant $750, or at the rate of $3000 to the acre. A. B. Howard & Sons of Belchertown, Mass., have taken as much as $1000 from a single acre of strawberries. Yields of 6000 to- 10,000 quarts berries to the acre are normally reported. Good au- thorities say it is possible to do better with raspberries, and still others say they would rather take their chances with blackberries. Cranberries grow only in restricted sections, where water flowage can be provided to assist in protecting the crop. Currants and gooseberries have distinct possibili- ties, especially where a farmer is starting a young orchard. He can set these crops between the rows and secure a return of $300 to $400 to the acre annually. An example of a farmer who has done this is A. A. Eastman of Dexter, Me. From 2^/2 acres land, which is first set to plums and then interplanted with currants and gooseberries, Mr. Eastman has paid for his home, educated his children, and has money in the bank. Wilfred Wheeler, Concord, Mass., who has made a marked success in raising pears, strawberries, and currants, says he has picked as high as 14 quarts of the latter from a single [ 145 ] New England bush. These sell at 8 to 10 cents a quart in the Boston market, 20 miles distant. Gooseberries are even more profitable with him, returning $400 to the acre. Plums grow abundantly in the six New England states. C. J. Spaulding of North Buck- field, Me., Elmer B. Parker of Wilton, N. H., and A. A. Halla- day of Bellows Falls, Vt., gather annually fine crops from those northern latitudes. The latter has been raising plums for 30 years and has an orchard of 600 trees. His plums sell at $3 per bushel, and he picks as many as two bushels from a single tree. These are set close together, so $400 an acre is not an exorbitant figure as returns from a good plum crop. Cherries sell at $4 a bushel, year after year. Men who are succeeding in producing fine crops of this fruit are J. T. Molumphy, Berlin, Ct., who has about 200 bushels annually, and A. B. Howard, Belchertown, Mass. LIVE STOCK AND HAY In the matter of dairying, New England is at the fore- front. Its gently sloping hills, its well watered valleys, its delightful atmosphere, its environment conducive to the grow- ing of grasses and clover, its plentiful crops of silage corn and rye and roots, and its opening vista of alfalfa culture, all lead to ease of milk production. In the matter of market out- let comes into play the ever-increasing and urgent demand from the populous towns and cities, and at prices which have recently been relatively better and more commensurate with the cost of production affording living profits than ever be- fore. The business in whole milk is enormous. Boston requires nearly 10,000,000 quarts per month. In that city the whole- sale price has advanced from a yearly average of only 3.8 cents a quart a decade ago to better than 5 cents. The de- mand for whole milk in all cities and large towns is so great that there is a very meager supply left for converting into butter and cheese. Splendid cheese is made in Vermont, com- manding good prices, and in recent years Connecticut has been developing an interesting industry in soft cheeses. And as for creamery butter, this is truly in a class by itself, so [ 146 ] New England Agriculture sharp is the demand for every pound made. Prices of good butter run from 28 to 38 cents a pound the year around, and butter fat sells at the creameries around 30 cents per pound. In the event that the latter or cheese factories are patronized, the farmer has skim-milk to feed his growing stock on the farm. In many cases farmers live near small towns, villages, HAY AND POTATOES IN NEW ENGLAND CROPS AND VALUES, FARM PRICE, DECEMBER 1, 1909 Hay Potatoes Farm Farm value value Acres Tons per ton Acres Bushels per bu. Maine 1, 400,000 1,330,000 $14.70 130,000 29,250,000 47c. New Hampshire 040,000 621,000 17.90 21,000 2,730,000 64c. Vermont 879,000 1,099,000 14.70 30,000 4,650,000 44c. Massachusetts 585,000 673,000 18.90 34,000 4,250,000 79c. Connecticut 490,000 564,000 19.30 36,000 4,320,000 83c. Rhode Island 62,000 68,000 18.60 6,000 750,000 80c. New York 14.20 50c. Ohio 10.90 56c. Iowa 7.10 55c. Nebraska 6.00 60c. Michigan 11.40 35c. Missouri 8.30 67c. United States (1909) 10.62 45.3c. and cities, where they peddle their own milk, receiving 7 to 9 cents a quart. Following this line of dairying, W. L. Whipple of Woonsocket, R. L, has taken $20,000 net from the soil within a few years. In 1909 he received 5 cents a quart for his milk delivered at a nearby point. Those who wish to pro- vide an extra fancy product sell it at 12 and 15 cents a quart. Examples of the latter class are Charlotte Wells of Ware- lands, Mass. ; George H. Ellis of Newton, Mass. ; and Wilson H. Lee of Orange, Ct. The latter started in a small way and now has a daily output of 800 to 900 quarts. He sells his cream at $1 a quart. All of the milk sells readily at 15 cents a quart. With the farmer raising more of his crops, especially rye, oats, and peas, sowed corn and millet and barley, and perhaps raising a little extra corn and oats to be ground for mixed feed, handsome profits are in sight. There are many cases where farmers have a special butter [ 147] New England Agriculture trade, selling their product to families at 35 to 40 cents the year around. J. W. Alsop of Avon, Ct., has a registered herd of Guernsey cattle and sells his cream at 50 cents a quart, and butter at 50 cents a pound at the door. G. W. Ferguson, Lenox, Mass., makes sweet cream butter and sells it for $1 a pound. That a young man can go in debt for a farm and pay for it with dairying as a specialty is shown by the success of A. J. Pierpont, Jr., of Waterbury, Ct. Ten years ago he bought a farm, giving a mortgage for $7000. He keeps Hol- stcin cows and sells the milk at 4 cents a quart at the door. He has gradually worked into a pure-bred line of stock. Besides paying off the original mortgage, has a farm worth $10,000, and the stock is worth at least $5000 more. Another such ex- ample is that of F. E. Duffy, West Hartford, Ct., who eight years ago bought a farm, the entire annual product from which brought $33. He put on Jersey cows, followed a careful system of rotation of crops, fertilized the land, and in 1909 his sales totaled $10,000. Beef cattle have distinct possibilities. Less than 5 percent of the beef eaten in New England is New England grown. Farmers have got into the habit of letting the packing houses supply consumers. There are a few choice herds of Herford, Devon, and Shorthorn cattle in the New England states, but in most cases the product is needed for breeding purposes and very few reach the butcher's block. What local beef is turned into the markets always returns gratifying prices. The lack of suitable abattoirs in the small towns is a drawback to the raising of beef, but those farmers who are located at some dis- tance from the railroad and on cheap land might well con- sider the advisability of keeping a beef or dual-purpose breed. H. C. Weymouth, Dexter, Me., sold a pair of cattle at the Brighton, Mass., stock market at 7 cents a pound. They weighed 1900 pounds each, which is a return of $130 per ani- mal. G. E. Taylor, Shelburne Falls, Mass., says he milks shorthorn cows as long as they are profitable, and then sells them for beef, receiving $60 to $75 each. The point is, if it is possible for men to make such records with broken-down oxen and milch cows, what would be the outlook for a man who [ 149 ] New England Agriculture made a specialty with a distinct beef breed, bred for beef purposes? The problem of raising beef for the market is not solved when the farmer finds he can afford to save and raise his calves. Not only are there few slaughtering establishments but there is no adequate system of storage and distribution for home-bred beef. The machinery for slaughtering and handling will be developed, however, if conditions remain favorable for the raiser ; and we may hope that the signs of an impending revival in cattle raising may prove true auguries of the hoped-for fact. When livestock authorities of the West and abroad visit New England they are astonished to see so few sheep. The question is again and again asked, " Where are your sheep? " The sheep industry has greatly declined in the East for years, and now not one sheep is found in New England where for- merly there were a dozen. That this is not due to unprofitable- ness is shown by the remarkable success of those who stick to the industry. Conditions could not be more ideal for successful sheep husbandry than in New England, with the exception of possible loss through damage by dogs. But dog damage does not in the least deter those who have really made up their minds to raise sheep, and in recent years there has teen legis- lative action in the different New England states looking to a better protection of flocks. New England hill pastures pro- vided with abundance of water and good feed are just the place in which sheep revel. The climate imparts vigor, and the sheep shows its appreciation through clip of wool and robust offspring. A good lamb produced in season for hotel trade will never bring less than $8, and as high as $20 is occasionally re- ported. Probably less than 10 percent of the lambs for the New England market are raised in New England. With such a demand unfilled by local production, and with prices so re- munerative, the reader can judge for himself as to the possi- bilities. A few typical examples of men who are raising sheep today are illuminating. M. H. Munson, Littlefield, Mass., gave up his job in a Chicago packing house and bought a cheap Massachusetts farm. He now raises lambs which at 70 days old bring $7 each, and he has the ewe and wool left. W. C. Whit- [ 151 ] New England Agriculture man & Son, South Turner, Me., received, in 1909, a gross re- turn of $9.50 each for sheep, and had a better flock at the close of the year than at the start. Some of their hothouse lambs sold at $10 to $12 each. In 1908, the 98 ewes of E. L. Tracy, Newport, Vt., gave him 132 lambs which later sold at $5.50 each. A. L. Harlow, Brownsville, Vt., has stuck to the sheep business for 20 years. His flock shears an average of 10 pounds to the head, which means $3 each for wool in a normal season. His lambs at five weeks old weigh 40 pounds, and at ten weeks 100 pounds. They are dropped in January and Feb- ruary, and sold to hotels at $10 each, dressed. C. C. Jones, Bennington, Vt., specializes with lambs of the Dorset breed, which at five weeks old weigh 40 pounds, and at 16 weeks 130 pounds. From December to February, in the winter of 1909- 1910, lambs dressing 30 to 40 pounds each brought an average return of $12 a head in the New York market. Mr. Jones says if a man cannot clear on 100 ewes $700 to $900 annually he is not getting what he should. With New England pork selling as high as for two years past, with quantities of available skim-milk and abundant pasturage, not to mention the large quantities of available garbage from towns and cities, swine offer an attractive proposition. A. J. Stapleton, Springfield, Mass., bought a light, sandy farm of 65 acres, gave up a $1400-a-year job, and went to raising hogs and alfalfa. He is meeting with re- markable success, and says : " If I had given up my work five years earlier and devoted entire attention to hogs and alfalfa, I would have been $10,000 ahead of the game now." E. H. Clark, East Morris, Ct., October 17, 1909, bought 35 pigs six weeks old for $78.50. JJecember 21 following he bought two hogs for $30. He grain-fed the lot to February 18, at a cost of $115. On the latter date he sold 3324 pounds of pork at wholesale at 12!/2 cents, or $478, and 632 pounds a few days later at 11 cents, returning $69.50. The total cost was $224, leaving a profit of $323 for four months' interest on his money and the little time it took to feed. A Vermont farmer, J. R. Barry, St. Albans, raised 70 pigs in 1908, and sold them for $1088. Pigs were charged with all the grain and I 153 J New England skim-milk used, also at the rate of $3.50 each for original cost. After paying these expenses the pigs netted $5.82 each. A Maine farmer who is enthusiastic concerning New England resources is George M. Twitchell, Auburn. He says he can raise pork at 3 cents a pound, doing it largely on pasture which includes clover or alfalfa, and perhaps rape. When 1910 pork brought 10 and 11 cents a pound wholesale, and with this difference of 7 cents between cost and selling price, a determined farmer ought to get along. It suggests a profit of $15 to $25 on every hog. New England farmers import millions of dollars worth of western horses every year. It is said that Aroostook county, Me., the land of potatoes, buys about a million dollars worth of horses annually. In the fall of 1909 the writer happened to be in a sales stable at Fort Fairfield, Me., Aroostook county, when a car of 28 horses arrived from the West. It cost $8000 to land the bunch in Maine, and the owner said the cheapest pair would sell at $600, and the most desirable match would bring $1000. Aroostook farmers buy these heavy horses for their potato machinery. The same condition prevails in other New England sections. The farmers are buying their horses instead of raising them, in spite of the fact that a desirable heavy working team cannot be had for much less than $600. New England is the home of the tough and rugged Morgan horse, and the recent assistance of the federal government in a cooperative breeding plant at Middlebury, Vt., it is be- lieved, will renew interest in breeding these horses. That locally grown stock is usually desired is shown by the keen- ness with which they are snapped up at fancy prices. The opportunity for poultry raising in New England is unlimited. With the many large cities and manufacturing towns employing thousands of hands who are absolutely de- pendent upon the farmers for their food, the market is always sure. New England is now producing but a small proportion of the eggs and poultry it consumes, whereas it should be able to put a very large surplus into the general market. It is not difficult to begin the business. Many farmers have started in a small way with a little poultry, carefully felt their way [ 154 ] New England Agriculture along, and finally developed returns of $4000 to $5000 an- nually. Henry D. Smith, Rockland, Mass., for 22 years de- voted his energies to mercantile life, then started to raise poultry. He now hatches around 5000 chicks annually, and keeps about 400 laying hens through the winter. His specialty is roasters. C. C. Peck of South Sekonk, Mass., started, in 1900, in the poultry business, without a cent. A neighbor fur- nished the plant and money, against which Mr. Peck placed his labor. Within four years Mr. Peck bought out the part- ner. He hatches 3500 chickens annually, and sells the cock- erels as roasters at 24 to 25 cents per pound in the Providence market. From 1000 to 1200 laying hens are wintered. For the year ending December 31, 1909, his 1050 hens averaged 174 eggs each. A liberal estimate for cost of feed is ^> cent a day per hen, which leaves around $3 per hen annually, not includ- ing roasters and broilers. Lester Tompkins, Concord, Mass., started in a modest way with a small capital and is now a recognized American authority on Rhode Island Reds. A few months ago he sold 18 birds for $1800. In the spring of 19Q9 he sold $3500 worth of eggs for hatching. The many valley farms in New England, fed with never- failing streams, prove ideal meadow lands. The late George M. Clark of Higganum, Ct., was a typical exponent of in- creased profits through grass farming. He was recognized, country-wide, as an authority on big hay crops, frequently cutting as much as six tons of cured hay from an acre, off fields of ten to twelve acres. He was successful in keeping the land in grass almost indefinitely, through harrowing the land to reseed, and judicious use of chemical fertilizers. Hundreds of cases could be cited where New England farmers are tak- ing annually three to four tons hay to the acre. In central Maine, W. D. Hurd, while at the state university at Orono, placed in the college barn 4>y 2 tons hay to the acre. Rev. G. L. Gleason of Topsfield, Mass., cut, in 1910, 100 tons hay from about 30 acres land. He says he has taken more than $100 worth of hay from a single acre in a single season. It should be remembered that New England not only harvests these fine yields to the acre, but the price per ton received is unusually f 155 1 New England Agriculture gratifying; $15 to $24 a ton is the range, occasionally more. C. E. Lyman, Middlefield, Ct., in 1910 cut 700 tons from 300 acres, and an aftermath of 100 tons more. In addition to har- vesting these 700 tons hay he harvested the same season about 100,000 baskets peaches and better than 1000 barrels apples. For winter knitting work, Mr. Lyman goes to Buffalo or Chi- cago and buys 4000 or 5000 lambs, and brings them to his farm at Middlefield and feeds them on rowen, silage, and a little purchased grain. There are about 1000 acres in the farm, and it is reported that Mr. Lyman was offered $1,000,000 for the farm and its equipment. While this sounds like a fairy story, a little figuring will show that such an offer would not necessarily send one to the insane asylum. Reckoning 100,000 baskets peaches at an average of only 60 cents a basket would be $60,000. An 800-ton hay crop at a low estimate is worth $12,000 more. One thousand barrels apples such as Mr. Lyman has are worth $5000. His profits on feeding lambs are another $5000, making a total of $82,000. In other words, Mr. Lyman's farming operations are paying a gross income above 8 percent on a valuation of $1,000,000. New England farmers are just beginning to learn that they can raise alfalfa with remarkable success. This will revolution- ize eastern agriculture within the next decade. At first suc- cesses were few ; but now each of the six New England states is accomplishing something with the crop. In Connecticut there are no less than a dozen who are succeeding with alfalfa in a large way. One of these is Charles M. Jarvis of Berlin, Ct., who has 50 acres of as fine alfalfa as ever stood outdoors. He cut, in 1910, six tons to the acre. With the possibility of producing this crop, which is worth practically as much, ton for ton, as bran, New England dairying and livestock hus- bandry has a brilliant outlook. POTATOES IN NEW ENGLAND Even the potato states of New York, Minnesota, and Michi- gan have to acknowledge the fame of Aroostook county, Me., when it comes to potatoes. No county in the world has so F 157 1 New England Agriculture specialized on this industry as has A'roostook. Many stories could be told of how young men with little capital in Aroos- took county buy farms and practically pay for them the first season. A man who has less than 50 acres of potatoes annually is a " one-horse potato farmer," and acreages of 100 to 150 for a single farmer are usual. The Aroostook soil seems es- pecially adapted to potato production, ranging from a gravelly loam to a clear loam of a clayish base. Usually the potato crop follows a clover sod. A three-year rotation of potatoes, oats, or wheat, seeded to clover and plowed under for another crop of potatoes is much in vogue. Occasionally, two succeeding crops of potatoes are grown on the same land, and in rare in- stances three crops, but this is generally avoided owing to danger of scab or diseased potatoes. The Aroostook farmer puts on close to a ton of commercial fertilizer to the acre. A few days after the potatoes are planted and before they break ground a wecdcr is run over to dislocate any sprouting weed seed and conserve moisture. When the plants are up a hillcr is used and dirt thrown completely over the young vines. This in turn is worked down with the weeder. Subsequent cultivation is with the two-horse cultivator, and later in the season a hiller is used to ridge the rows. Harvesting is done with the potato digger, followed by pickers, placing the tubers directly into barrels. All trade is on barrel basis, bushels seldom if ever being mentioned. Many are sold from the field and quantities are stored in immense storehouses, many of which the farmers own. A normal yield is 100 barrels to the acre. A fair price is $1 a barrel, although $1.25 is not uncommon. Here is a cash return in a normal season under normal conditions of $100 to $125 an acre. This is frequently exceeded through increased yield, or better prices, or both. The cost of production will run $50 to $60 per acre. This includes fertilizers, seed, spray- ing materials, labor, etc. Modern machinery from start to finish is in service, so that one man and a team can easily handle 25 acres. This leaves the tidy sum of $50 to $75 an acre for rent of land or to apply on the purchase price. This section is fast coming to the front as a seed-producing county. A strong trade has developed in Aroostook-grown seed for southern f 159 1 New England Agriculture and southwestern markets. In a full crop year, 12,000,000 bushels of potatoes are shipped out of Aroostook county over the Bangor & Aroostook railroad. From the crop of 1909 a total of 9,363,000 bushels were shipped out of Aroostook. The table following shows the exact shipments as furnished by an official of the railroad : From crop of 1909 1908 1907 1906 1905 1904 1903 1902 1901 1900 9,362,842 bushels 11,796,500 " 6,006,845 " 12,329,010 " 7,725,372 6,694,071 3,341,735 3,112,466 4,471,183 3,043,879 Farmers in other sections of New England are learning that they, too, can secure equal or better returns per acre for potato culture than Aroostook county. Somerset, Washington, and Oxford counties in Maine are coming forward in this way. Massachusetts and Connecticut have long been in the front rank as regards production per acre. Rev. G. L. Gleason of Topsfield, Mass., has raised 360 bushels to the acre. Charles E. Ellis, a Vermont farmer, succeeded in raising, in 1909, a crop of 465 bushels to the acre, which sold from the field at 54 cents a bushel, $251.10 gross return to the acre. He figured the fertilizer and labor cost $70 to the acre. E. H. Forristall, of Amherst, Mass., raised, in 1908, 350 bushels to the acre on new ground. E. S. Brigham, of St. Albans, Vt., raises 300 bushels to the acre, and through a careful itemized account of expenditures finds he nets $100 to the acre. J. R. Smith of Hawley, Mass., had 40 acres in potatoes, in 1908, and har- vested better than 300 bushels to the acre. TOBACCO IN NEW ENGLAND In Connecticut and Farmington river valleys in Massa- chusetts and Connecticut the cigar-leaf tobacco industry is large, occupying about 20,000 acres. In 1910 Connecticut raised more than 13,400 acres of tobacco, which yielded over [ 161 ] New England 23,000,000 pounds of leaf worth $3,800,000, and the total value of the New England tobacco crop was over $5,000,000. The soil is especially adapted to growing the tobacco of which cigar wrappers and binders are made (which differs from the heavier and coarser types of tobacco grown in the South), being light color, friable, and might be called a sandy loam. The crop is not especially exhaustive to the soil, but liberal amounts of fertilizer are used because each acre supports an enormous plant growth every year. Liberal applications of New York city horse manure, combined with cottonseed meal, phosphoric acid, and potash in various forms, practically guarantees a good crop each year. In 1909 in New England was produced 90,500 cases of cigar-leaf tobacco, each case weighing 350 pounds. According to the government estimate the average price received last year for tobacco grown out-of- doors was 16 cents per pound. With an average yield around 2000 pounds cured leaf, selling even at the average price of 16 cents, it is seen this is a profitable crop. With intelligent, intensive cultivation, combined with up-to-date methods, as high as 2600 pounds is obtained and about 25 cents per pound received. Beside the tobacco which is grown in the open fields in Connecticut there were in 1910 about 470 acres of tobacco grown under tents, known as shade-grown tobacco. About ten years ago the first tobacco was grown under shade in New England. It was considered to be a fair success, but growers lacked experience and the proper variety of tobacco with which to work. They started with Sumatra leaf, which took too long to mature. Acreage in 1902 was about 700, but dropped until in 1908 only 190 acres were grown in the Connecticut valley. In the next year about 240 acres were devoted to shade-grown, and in 1910, 470. The success is largely due to the introduc- tion of the Cuban variety, which cures quickly and is popular with the trade. As high as $2.50 per pound is received for the best shade-grown tobacco, and the poorer leaves bring from 60 cents up, with $1.50 a good average; the average for 1910 being $1.59. It is safe to say that five times as much tobacco could be grown in New England as is grown today, of such quality as to insure sales at paying prices. The land near the [ 162] New England Agriculture sea, however fit for the growth of tobacco, cannot be devoted to that crop because proximity to the sea damages the burn- ing quality of the leaf. It should also be said that not all the lands in the tobacco-growing region are well adapted to grow- ing such leaf as the market requires. The supremacy of New England in the business of producing cigar wrappers has been gained by growing the crop on farms where it was the only product (or the leading product), by carefully conducted ex- periment, and by a willingness on the part of leading growers to accept and practice such methods as had been demonstrated by experiment and experience to be real improvements. A SUGGESTION OR Two Though much progress has been made there remains some- thing for New England farmers. They must use greater care in crop production; they must encourage the cooperative movement in selling, and especially in purchasing supplies ; they must study more carefully the question of fertility and keeping up the soil through proper rotation, the wise use of stable manure and commercial fertilizer. In this first principle of agriculture, the study and care of the soil, there is much still to be accomplished. In many instances farmers fail to reap what they should, and this through conditions which they might control. Untold numbers of meadows may be seen on which the land has not been plowed for ten to twenty years. In such instances it should be given a thorough plowing or reseeding ; or, better yet, used in a rotation for several seasons with a cultivated crop before reseeding to clover or timothy. Humus for the soil is sadly neglected. This should be pro- vided through the spreading upon the land of plenty of stable manure, and plowing under such crops as clover, rye and buckwheat. New England soils are acid, usually through con- tinued neglect. This requires, among other things, a proper application of lime. A factor which constructive agriculture in New England must face is the live-stock proposition. Too few animals are kept on the farm. Nothing is equal to live stock to increase I 163 ] CLYDESDALE STALLION, NATIVE OF MAINE HOLSTEIN BULL, OWNED IN MASSACHUSETTS New England Agriculture the productiveness of the soil. More crops to raise more stock to make more fertilizer to raise more crops, is the familiar old school of farming which still enriches both father and son. The average New England farmer keeps only about half the stock he should, and on top of that buys 50 to 90 percent of the feed for these animals. This policy is both unnecessary and is lacking in profit. The situation is shown by the remark- able successes of many who have gone largely into animal husbandry and are raising the feeds on their own farms. New England should grow more fruit, notably apples ; winter va- rieties largely, but some autumn fruit. Untold numbers of apple trees in pasture today bear only cider apples. These should be brought into subjection, grafted with standard sorts, cultivated, pruned and sprayed. Many a farm has a considerable number of such trees. If the owner would thus care for them, give them a little commercial fertilizer in the spring, and spray even once with bordeaux and arsen.ate of lead, just as the blossoms fall, he would sell $500 to $1000 worth of fruit annually, or perhaps more, where nothing is now received. It is practicable for the farmer with some capi- tal to start a young orchard and take care of it. In the early years of the trees let him raise live stock; the space between the rows will afford opportunity for helpful crops. Peaches prove a profitable crop the third or fourth year after plant- ing, and apples will give a fine return after a somewhat longer period. Every apple tree in an established orchard at least three years old is worth $3, and a ten-year old tree is worth $10. The production of the crop is only half the battle. Raise better stuff, put it up more attractively for the consumer, and then seek the discriminating market which is always glad to pay for such forethought. Cooperative effort among producers is likely to bring a more satisfactory condition. Quite aside from such associated effort, it is possible for the wide-awake farmer to create a reputation for his wares which will place them at a premium in the market. 165 Soils of New England THE soil is an asset which, beside being the greatest possible asset of New England, will yield dividends in direct ratio to our understanding and utilization of it. It is doubtful if there is any known limit to its productiveness, as a proposition that can be defined and depended upon. Despite the fact that the soil has been the chief support of mankind since man existed, we have but recently begun to know definitely about it ; and we do not new know very much that we are able to regard as exact and final. We have looked upon the soil as a nutritive medium for the growth of plants, but this rather crude chemical point of view is extending to a consideration of the soil as the seat of a number of physical processes affecting the supply of heat, air, and water to the plant; and as a complex laboratory in wljich there are many types of lower organisms working to promote or retard the growth of the plants. We are beginning to realize that we must look upon the soil from a chemical, a physical, and a biological point of view, and also study the liquid medium that circulates in the soil and directly forms the food the plants must have. These processes help to explain, and are vitally affected by, the various tillage operations which have been learned and used in the cultivation of the land, and suggest other processes. The hope of future progress and profit lies, in great measure, in the adaptation for practical ends of these three processes that are always at work in the soil. Add to the knowledge and manipulation of these forces a proper and knowlcdgable consideration for the climate, and we have the sum of what may be called the new knowledge of the soils, which may be made of the greatest use and benefit to the farmer, and greatly increase both his output and his profits. Farming has generally been conducted in measurable igno- rance of the soil, and is now so conducted. It would have as- tonished and amused our grandfathers to have been told that f 166 1 Soils of New England it was living organisms in the ground which fitted it to pro- duce crops. It would astonish and amuse the majority of farmers of today. Farmers till the ground for the purpose of raising corn, potatoes, or some other crop. They would regard it as absurd to be told that they must also interest themselves in the cultivation of certain varieties of bacteria, and in the ex- termination of other varieties of bacteria. Yet that is what we are coming to, and in such considerations is to be found the hope of better crops from the land and better profits for the farmers. To know the land, and to know what to do with and to the land these seem to be the problems before the farmers of New England today. It is not difficult to know the land, and there are many sources for information as to what to do with the land, when once it is known what the land is. The farmer has to study his land, and then he has only to consider what he will do with it, and the markets within his reach. The maintenance of soil fertility is a subject far too intri- cate and full of detail to discuss here. It is also so dependent upon variable and local conditions as to preclude profitable general treatment in small space. Fertility and crop pro- duction do not mean the same thing. Fertility is an inherent property of the soil what the soil is capable of doing under the best possible conditions. Crop production depends only partly upon the fertility of the soil, but more exactly upon the treatment of the soil, seed, climate, the human element, etc. The whole business of agriculture rests upon the soil. If the farmer does not know the soil he is wasting his opportuni- ties and jeopardizing his earnings. The soil must be consid- ered in two aspects the quantity it will produce and the quality of that which it produces. To determine these essen- tials in advance of long and costly experimentation it is neces- sary to study the soil with reference to its origin, to range it in its proper class ; determine if it is sedentary soil, or if it has been transported from some region where its geologic origin must have been quite different; ascertain the kind of rock that has been weathered to form it ; its subsoil, etc. When [ 167] Soils of New England this has been ascertained (which is not a difficult matter), the soil should be subjected to mechanical analysis, to determine its chief constituents and classify it, as sand, clay, limestone, etc., and ascertain the proportion and quality of the humus that has been incorporated in it. This mechanical analysis also shows the texture of the soil, which we must know to de- termine its density and pore space and estimate its capacity for holding water, and demonstrates for us those exceed- ingly interesting facts connected with what the scientists call " surface tension " and capillary which vitally interest the farmer, as they have to do with the question of the moisture in the soil and the power of the soil to retain it. And this mechan- ical analysis also suggests particular treatment for particular soils with a view to conserve moisture or to deal with excessive moisture, in the way of draining, cultivating, and other manip- ulation calculated to conserve moisture and aid the soil to overcome the effects of drought or flood. It deals also with the question of the temperature of soils, evaporation, effect of situation and exposure, heat required for growth, early and late soils, and such subjects all vital for the success of farming operations. Chemical analysis of the soil is not es- teemed as able to settle all the questions that arise in the lexi- con of the farmer as once it may have been esteemed; but if it is properly made it does show the amount of the elements necessary for the nutrition of the plant existing in the soil, and what must be done to supply the deficiencies revealed. It is now employed more for research purposes than for the prac- tical information of the man actually raising crops. While the identification of the bacteria in soils is the function of biology, the value or harmfulness of the work of the bacteria, in trans- forming chemical elements for the benefit or damage of the plant, is shown by the chemical analysis ; and it deals with most of the problems bearing upon the successful growth of plants, after mechanical analysis has determined the mechanical com- position of the soil, and biology has found out what kinds of bacteria inhabit it. This is general, and applies to soils everywhere. It is of especial importance in New England because the soils of New f 169 1 New England England are so varied that it is impossible to classify them. There is liable to be several soil types within the area of one farm; and the adjoining farm may have as many types but none of them identical with the types upon the first farm. There is nothing like knowing the material to be worked with, especially if the total income must come from that material. No manufacturer would attempt to start a factory until he had made a thorough study of the raw material to be wrought into a product that was to be offered for sale. No New Eng- land farmer should attempt to raise any kind of crops until he has become familiar with the exact composition and char- acteristics of the soil he is to rely upon for his crops. This is axiomatic. The soils of New England produced, in 1899, a total vol- ume of new wealth amounting to $169,523,435. Since that time both the amount of agricultural production and the unit value of the product has increased. The degree of increase can only be shown when the completed figures from the census of 1910 are available. The soils of New England, as of practically all portions of the United States, constitute the most productive of all of the natural sources of wealth. Because the ownership of the soil is divided into a vast number of small individual holdings the magnitude of the aggregate proceeds from soil sources is rarely appreciated in the business world. There are two essentials connected with the value of soils which are most frequently overlooked in the consideration of agricultural affairs. First, the soil is the chief source of the fundamental necessities of life food, clothing and shelter. Second, the soil under even moderately careful methods of tillage is competent to continue the production of these neces- sities without any diminution from year to year, and, under the best modern methods of agriculture, the production of each individual acre may be profitably increased from genera- tion to generation. It should be stated at once, as a result of an examination of the soils of the New England states, that they are in no way " worn-out " or exhausted. In fact, only 12 percent of [ 170 ] Soils of New England the total land area, 25 percent of the area in farms, and 63 percent of their improved-land area, is annually cropped. The remainder of the land heritage of New England is marsh- land, pasture, wood-lot, forest, and mountain slope, never yet subjected to the devastating hand of man, nor called upon, through the wiser methods of progressive farmers, to produce its quota of human sustenance. In all of the New England states there still exist large tracts of land subject to occupa- tion and improvement, and in the more northern states of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont there are large areas which are as much virgin soil as when the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. Even the tilled soils of New England, which have been occupied for nearly two and a half centuries, are not exhausted. In too many instances they are merely neg- lected. Farms whose annual yield is barely sufficient for the support of the farm family are closely contiguous to others whose annual product amounts to hundreds of dollars per acre. In the aggregate statistics of crop production for the United States, the figures for the New England states show that the production per acre of corn in New England exceeds the average for the states of the " corn belt " ; that the aver- age yields of potatoes exceed all others except in restricted areas under irrigation ; and that wherever New England soils compete their product excels, or at least makes favorable com- parison with, that of any other section of the United States. There need be no fear that the soils of New England will fail to respond to proper treatment and to careful tillage. The soil problems of New England are: To find the proper uses for each different soil, to till each acre according to its indi- vidual needs, and to produce those crops whose high value per acre will justify the intensive culture which should be be- stowed upon land of high value and in close proximity to ex- ceedingly favorable markets. In order to make a complete and definite statement of the existing and potential soil resources of New England it would be necessary to complete a detailed soil survey of the entire territory. This has never been done. It would require years of continued effort to make such an inventory. Thus, to a f 171 1 New England degree, the soil resources of the six New England states still remain unknown. Detailed soil surveys have been made in each of the New England states, covering important agricultural areas and representing conditions over adjoining sections of considerable magnitude. This work has been carried on by the Bureau of Soils of the United States Department of Agricul- ture since 1899, when the first soil survey of a portion of the Connecticut valley was undertaken. Since that time the origi- nal area in this valley has been extended to include all of the land in the Connecticut and Farmington valleys north of Wethersfield, Conn., to the Vermont and New Hampshire lines. In Vermont, an area has been surveyed in the Lake Champlain region; in New Hampshire, surveys have been made of Merrimac county and of the Nashua area, compris- ing southern Hillsboro county. In Maine, the Caribou area, which covers the important potato-producing section of Aroos- took county, and an additional area of about 450 square miles around Bangor and Orono, has been investigated. A soil survey of the entire state of Rhode Island has been completed. Soil surveys of Windham county, Conn., and of Plymouth county, Mass., were made in 1910. * In order to supplement these detailed investigations for the purpose of presenting a general statement of the existing soil resources of the New England states, a rapid reconnais- sance of intervening territory was made during the summer of 1910. Only generalized statements of the character, worth and availability of New England soils can be made until the detailed soil surveys have been extended to comprise, at least, representative areas of each of the greater natural sub- divisions of New England territory. The individuality of soils, and consequently the character- 1 Copies of the following soil survey reports may be secured without charge upon application to the United States Department of Agriculture, Washington, D. C. : Soil Survey of Windham County, Maine. Soil Survey of the Caribou A rea, Maine. Soil Survey of the Orono Area, Maine. Soil Survey of Merrimac County, New Hampshire. Soil survey of the Nashua Area, New Hampshire. Soil Survey of the Vergennes Area, Vermont. Soil Survey of the Connecticut Valley, Massachusetts. Soil Survey of Plymouth County, Massachusetts. Soil Survey of Rhode Island. Soil Survey of the Connecticut Valley, Connecticut. f 172 1 Soils of New England istics and the properties of each, depends upon the source from which each is derived, the processes through which each has passed in its slow formation, and the relationship of each soil to both surface and internal drainage. In other words, the soils are the product of certain geological processes which, when they operate in the same way upon the same classes of rocks, produce the same results. Such identical or closely similar soils, when existing under the same climatic conditions, may be made to produce the same kinds of crops with equal success and in equal profusion. When the properties of a soil are once ascertained, the lessons learned in one locality may be applied in others more or less remote, if there be assurance that the soils, the climate, and the industry of the farming community are similar. All of the soils of New England owe their present character either directly or indirectly to some phase of the great ice invasion which in recent geological times covered the entire territory with a thick continental glacier. This glacier then melted back and still farther modified the soil conditions by the deposition of considerable areas of modi- fied and stratified glacial drift in the lower-lying valley posi- tions. The sea also invaded portions of the present land area and added certain important deposits which now form soils. All of these soils have the common characteristics of having been derived from a variety of different rocks over which the glacier passed and of possessing a complex mineralogical com- position. They contain portions of practically all of the com- mon rock-forming minerals, and as a consequence are all well provided with a variety and abundance of mineral plant food. The chief problem in connection with their occupation and til- lage is not one of lack of mineral plant food, but rather it lies in securing an abundance of water within the soil during the crop-growing season that the plant food present may be prop- erly prepared and transported to the growing crop. The eastern and southeastern coast lines of New England rise to low elevations above the sea. It is only along portions of the Maine coast that mountain elevations approach to tide- water. The southern coast of Connecticut and Rhode Island and the eastern coast lines of Massachusetts and New Hamp- [ 173 ] New England shire are all low and relieved only by headlands of one or two hundred feet elevation. Between these higher elevations are level plains and low valleys, consisting of sandy and loamy terraces upon which the intensive agriculture of Rhode Island and southern Connecticut is carried on. This low coastal re- gion occupies a narrow belt some twenty to thirty miles broad from the New York state line to the vicinity of Portland, Maine. It rises gently inland to the higher elevations of the eastern highland of Massachusetts and Connecticut. Within this re- gion New England agriculture had its inception and has been maintained for over two and a half centuries. A line drawn irregularly from the Blue Hills, south of Bos- ton, to the northeastern corner of Rhode Island will mark the western limits of the southern extension of this division. From Boston harbor it is continued as a broad crescent past the mouth of the Merrimac river to the vicinity of Portland. In extreme southeastern Maine it again appears in the vicinity of Eastport. The eastern highland consists of a series of nearly parallel rock ridges extending from near the Connecticut coast north- eastward into southern New Hampshire and southeastern Maine. Near the sea, these ridges are low and are interrupted so that they form a chain of hills rather than a mountain range. Farther to the westward the ridges are more nearly continuous, and they rise to greater elevations in succession as the western border of the section is approached. The Connecticut valley is not primarily a river valley, but a broad basin occupied in part by the present course of the Connecticut river. The stream however leaves the valley near Middletown, Conn., and has cut a steep-sided gorge through the eastern highlands. The rocks of the Connecticut basin differ from those of a majority of the other sections of New Eng- land in that they consist of bedded sandstones and shales, with intrusions and sheets of the basaltic rocks which form the mountain ranges within the valley proper. The sandstones and shales are generally red and give a distinct color to the later deposits into which they have been re-worked. The Connecti- cut river is itself bordered by long, narrow stretches of meadow [ 174 ] Soils of New England land throughout the greater part of its course. The meadows are overflowed from time to time, but are tilled and used for the production of farm crops. To the west of the valley, the highlands are covered with soils of direct glacial origin, and only in the narrow stream valleys are there any large deposits of stratified glacial drift. The limestone valleys are, on the other hand, floored with the limestone and marble rock, and have considerable accumula- tions of glacial drift and extensive plains consisting of the same drift re-worked by water and laid down as sand-plains. In both of the highland areas, there is a considerable pro- portion of the land surface which is unfitted by reason of its roughness and steep slopes for agricultural occupation. Such land now bears a thin covering of forest or is grown up to brushy soft-woods which have replaced the earlier timber growths. In general, the soils of the lower elevations along the coast of New England consist of the sorted and stratified outwash materials from the glacial streams. Such deposits rise to alti- tudes of over one hundred feet along the southern coast of Connecticut, but are interrupted both by rock ledges and by low till-covered hills. In southern Maine the outwash ma- terials give place to distinctly stratified marine deposits, which are heavy clays and silty loams, thus contrasting strongly with the more gravelly and sandy materials of the southern locations. The higher levels of the coastal region are occupied by low rounded hills of till or of rock, covered by the glacial till. There are also, in the vicinity of Plymouth, Mass., long, rough, stony ridges, made up of sand, gravel and stone, and inter- spersed with deep depressions and kettle-like hollows. Throughout the eastern highland the ridges consist of rock either thinly or thickly veneered with glacial deposits. This material, in general, has a close relationship in mineralogical composition to the rock over which it lies, but is also affected by contributions from other rock formations adjoining. The depth of soil covering may vary from a foot or two to a thick- ness of fifty feet or more. In fact, in single upland fields there [ 175] New England will be outcrops of rock ledges and soil areas where the com- bined depth of soil and subsoil exceeds fifty feet. There are also in this region small local areas where the glacial waters have deposited local areas of outwash material. Both the lower coastal region and the eastern highlands contain many small lakes and ponds, and nearly all of the larger rivers are bor- dered by fresh- water swamps and low meadow lands. There are WELLESLEY FARMS STATION, ON THE BOSTON & ALBANY RAILROAD also considerable areas of tide-marsh awaiting reclamation near the mouths of the principal rivers and elsewhere along the coast. The soils of the northern portion of the Connecticut basin consist of low, moist, silty terraces along the immediate stream banks ; of brown sandy loams upon the lower terraces ; of yel- low sandy and gravelly loams upon the higher terraces and in positions where tributary streams have debouched into the main valley. Above these outwash materials there rise low, rounded domes of glacial till whose soils are prevailingly red and are interspersed with large and small fragments of sandstone r 176 1 Soils of New England and shale. All of the highest elevations consist of the rocky ridges of trap and basalt such as are found in Mount Tom and West Rock. South of the general region of Wethersfield the soils of the Connecticut basin are strongly influenced by the underlying red sandstones and shales and vary in color from Indian red to a light salmon. They consist at the lower eleva- tions of distinctly stratified sandy and gravelly loams, and at the higher elevations of glacial till like that of the low hills of the more northern portion of the valley. The southern portion of the western highland is less rough and more plateau-like than the more northern region, and a larger proportion of its surface is given over to tillage. The great limestone valley, extending from New Canaan, Conn., to Pittsfield, Mass., and thence past North Adams and Bennington to the Champlain region, is both a notable topo- graphic feature and a distinct soil and agricultural region. Though all of the section has been glaciated, there is a distinct influence exerted upon the soils by the underlying limestones, and a resultant effect is produced in the increased natural fertility of the soils. Even the outwash materials of the south- ern part of this valley contain a considerable proportion of limestone pebbles and are thus favorably influenced. All of the major streams of New England have built up their own systems of terraces, on a smaller scale than those of the Connecticut valley, but still comprising in the aggregate thousands of acres of comparatively level and stone-free ter- race soils. The Merrimac river, the Concord and its tributaries, the Kennebec and the Penobscot, have all formed greater or less terrace areas. In general, the soils of these terrace areas are a brown sand or sandy loam underlaid by yellow sand and interstratified gravels. Where these terraces are not too porous and leachy they are carefully and profitably farmed. One of the latest stages of soil formation in New England was a partial submergence of the immediate coast country which gave rise to stiff clays, silt loams, and heavy loams such as are found in the vicinity of Portland, Bangor, Machias, and Eastport, Maine. The surface soils of this group are univer- sally gray to drab, and the subsoils are brown to gray. They [ 177 ] New England are compact and even too retentive of moisture. Somewhat similar soils extend down the St. Lawrence drainage basin to the Champlain valley and form extensive areas in northwestern Vermont. The soils of northeastern Maine differ from any which have yet been examined in other portions of the New England states. They have been formed from the glaciation of calcare- ous rocks and of sandstones and shales. The result has been the formation of fine-grained loams and fine sandy loams which are essentially calcareous. The surface soils are brown and well charged with organic matter, and under the existing cli- matic conditions these soils have come to possess a national reputation for the production of potatoes. Such a brief resume of the soils of New England is inade- quate to give any detailed information as to the individual types of soil in any particular section, but it will be seen at a glance that practically all classes and varieties of soil are to be found within the borders of the New England states, and that as a consequence the opportunities for agricultural ac- tivity and development are varied and abundant. On account of the variety of soil within its limits it is essential that the further development of New England agriculture be away from the field of general farming toward the more accurate practices of specialized crops, which shall take into account the variety of soils with which each farm of any size is blessed, and which shall utilize to its fullest account the special properties of each particular soil. The segregation of special agricultural industries has just begun in New England. The region had to learn the lesson that upon varied and uneven soils it is not possible to compete with level and uniform prairie areas in the production of the cereal grains and the forage crops. Not even when the average yields per acre exceed those of the prairie states can the New England farmer afford to compete, since his fields are small, not well adapted to the use of power ma- chinery, nor sufficiently uniform in soil to produce the same crop with equal success over even a small field. [ 178 ] Forestry in New England No question is of greater economic importance in its re- lation to the future development of New England than for- estry. There is no enterprise in which we can embark which offers greater possibilities of establishing permanent prosper- ity than the clothing of our non-agricultural lands with com- mercial trees, and the proper conservation of the forests now left to us. From every section of the land come indications of the ever-widening interest taken by people in this important matter. The economic importance of forestry to New England may be discussed from three standpoints : First, its attractiveness as an investment sure to yield good returns to the investor and also to furnish the timber supply for the future ; second, its influence upon the flow of rivers that furnish power to our great manufacturing industries ; third, its importance from an esthetic standpoint. For several years many thinking persons all over the land have viewed with alarm the rapid disappearance of our forests that have, to satisfy the desires of man for immediate gain, been cut and marketed without apparently a thought for the timber supply of the future. As a result of this there are in Massa- chusetts today approximately one million acres of barren, desolate land now absolutely idle. These acres may again be made to produce timber to the value of millions of dollars. Not only is this true of Massachusetts but similar conditions exist in the other New England states. New England is today one of the great industrial arenas of the world. From the earliest days of our settlement down to the present time the water- powers supplied by the rivers and streams have been utilized, and have been made an important factor in the development of the strength and prosperity of not only the New England states but of the entire country. Any agency which threatens I 179 ] 'New England to destroy or injure them should be looked upon with alarm and speedily eliminated. It has been demonstrated by the greatest engineers in the world that forests play an impor- tant role in the regulation of rivers. They retain for some time the rainfall and lessen the violence of flood flow. Wherever forests have been destroyed stream-flow has become more ir- regular and floods have increased in number and violence. So important is it considered to preserve and perpetuate the forests upon the watersheds of the rivers of New England that when the so-called White Mountain Reserve bill was under consid- eration by the Congressional Committee on Agriculture, scores of men representing our great manufacturing interests ap- peared before the committee and urged the necessity of prompt and favorable action. Their testimony relative to the conse- quential damage sure to follow the clearing of the forest growth from these mountain slopes was decidedly startling. It had the support of not only the manufacturers who recog- nize how essential are the forests to the preservation of the waterpowers that operate the great manufacturing plants of New England, but also of other people from other sections of the country who protested against despoiling the mountains of their grand scenic beauty. That there is a vast economic reason for jealously guarding our scenic heritages in New England is shown by the fact that the state of New Hamp- shire alone derives a yearly revenue of nearly $10,000,000 from the thousands of visitors who annually throng there to enjoy the natural beauty of its scenery and its invigorating climate. A state thus favored can ill afford to countenance any policy which endangers what may be termed one of its most valuable assets. With the opportunity before us of add- ing immeasurably to our wealth, it behooves every citizen who has the welfare of New England at heart, and who desires to see it continue to enjoy all the elements of power that have distinguished it in the past, to lend his best endeavors to the promotion and perpetuation of forestry. The supply or constancy of the flow of water in the rivers is not the only element of importance in the forestry question, and in view of the difference of opinion about that matter, and [ 180] Forestry in New England the present impossibility of verifying the views of either party, it is perhaps not the most important. The question of the in- dustrial importance of lumber is one about which there can be no two opinions, though in this Professor Moore perceives a cer- tain element of doubt and uncertainty, as he observes that the progress in building indicates that the use of wood will steadily decrease until it will be chiefly employed for ornamentation purposes ; and of course when that time comes there will be less demand for lumber and consequently the forests will shrink as an industrial asset. This is a pretty far cry how- ever, and even if we grant that less wood will be used in build- ing operations it is evident that the volume of wood used in the industries and the arts will not on that account be greatly diminished. It is likely to be increased, as when one avenue of consumption is closed several others will surely open. There is nothing in present industrial conditions to justify any fear that the gross consumption of wood will diminish, but there are many considerations which point to the steady increase of its use. The forests are therefore of the greatest industrial importance, and it is evident that for the man who desires to make wise provision for his children no better proposition exists than the utilization of his non-agricultural lands in the planting of commercial trees. Let us suppose, for example, that a farmer, who has a ten-acre lot of absolutely nonpro- ductive land which the assessors value at $4 per acre, plants it with white pine, at a cost of $10 per acre. At the end of forty years he or his children will have 325,000 feet of lumber, valued on the stump at present prices at $2600. These figures of yield are taken from tables prepared under the direction of the state forester of Massachusetts, Prof. F. W. Rane, after an investigation of growing stands made all over the State. Under good forestry management through thinnings and other cuttings this yield could be increased. In the meantime however he will have paid out for taxes, supposing the rate to be $20 per $1000 of the valuation on both land and timber, about $175. His total investment is therefore $285. If he had put this in the savings bank and obtained four percent compound interest on it, at the end of forty years he would have $1368 [ 181 ] WHITE PINES FORTY YfARS OLD, IN CARVER, MASS. Forestry in New England to his credit, or about one-half what his woodlot will net him. One must remember also that the farmers' returns are based on the present rate of stumpage. What they will be in forty years no one can accurately forecast, but it is safe to predict that they will be at least double the present price. Stumpage prices in Europe are now two to four times the rate paid in New England. The New England grower of lumber may find a sufficient guaranty against injurious competition in the fact that the freight rate of $20 per thousand feet on pine from the northwestern country renders it impossible for it to be sold at a profit in eastern markets for anything less than $30 per thousand. The freight rates on hard woods used by our manufacturing industries, that are much heavier than pine, are correspondingly high. There is a steadily increasing de- mand for all forest products, both hard and soft, and the man who has a supply of either will find a ready market at profit- able prices. Of course, it is quite obvious that in order to ob- tain the most satisfactory results every principle of modern forestry must be applied to the management of the land, the growth must be protected from the ravages of insect pests, and every reasonable measure of precaution adopted to prevent fires. It is difficult to realize what this means as a potential asset for New England. If there are a million acres available for for- estry in Massachusetts it is surely conservative to assume that there are two and a half millions in New England. The other states do not give us figures, and we are compelled to estimate. But two and a half million acres is doubtless far under the fact. Let us also assume that the selling price of pine will have doubled in the next forty years, and compute the value of this unused and now worthless land forty years hence, if it could all be planted to pines at once. The timber on it would be worth no less than $1,228,750,000. This is a pretty tidy sum. It is not likely that more than a small proportion of this land will be planted to pine, but it is a gratifying fact that many thou- sand acres are annually planted. Let us suppose a more sup- posable case, for example: Suppose that a farmer had 100 acres suitable for pine planting, and planted it in 1910. In F 183 1 New England 1950 his heirs, or the owners of his farm, will be able to mar- ket 3,250,000 feet of pine lumber, which will doubtless be worth $52,000, and the cost to him will have been about $1750, in taxes and labor. In other words, for the expenditure of $44 a year for forty years the man with 100 acres in pine adds $1300 a year to the value of his farm. This is at the rate of about 300 percent. It seems to be quite a profitable business, this business of reclaiming the land that has been cut over for the timber. Even if we concede that there will be no increase in the selling price of pine lumber during the next forty years, it is shown that a man who goes intelligently into reforestation may earn 150 percent on all the money he is obliged to ex- pend. How small the Wall Street profits seem when compared with what the land will yield if properly worked and treated ! The work of reforestation as conducted by State Forester Rane in Massachusetts presents an object lesson of great value and serves to educate landowners to a realization of their op- portunities. The state forester stands ready at all times to furnish scientific foresters to examine the forest lands of the State, both public and private, and to give expert advice as to the.ir management. The ultimate aim must be to cut -no more from forests than they produce each year, and to make their yearly growth equal to the needs of the people. When this condition has been reached, forestry in New England will have attained the fullest measure of success. During the tree- planting season of. 1910 the Massachusetts Forestry depart- ment planted nearly 1000 acres of unused land, of which it has become the owner in the name of the Commonwealth, with vari- ous kinds of seedlings of the coniferous family. It required nearly 1,000,000 plants to cover the area. Some of these plants were raised at the department's own nurseries and others were imported from France. The expense to the Commonwealth, which is limited by statute, has been about $10,000. This was the second year of the State's real reforestation policy. The work has been reduced to more economical business principles. The average cost, counting the cost of the plants and the cost of labor and supervision, was less than $10 per acre, while the previous year it was a little more. Summing up what has been [ 184 ] Forestry in New England accomplished in two years in reforestation work, the State owns about 2000 acres of pine, spruce and ash plantations, which have cost it about $20,000 above the nominal price it has paid for some of the land. By authority if the legislature, the state forester may accept land, or buy at the rate of not more than $5 per acre, on conditions which favor both the original owner and the State. To the owner is reserved the right to buy the property back within ten years for the amount that the State has spent on it, but if there is no reconveyance inside of the ten-year period it becomes the absolute property of the Commonwealth. Data about what has been done in the other New England states is not available, as they do not make their work public through annual reports of the proper officials. Much work is being done in New Hampshire by pri- vate owners, and in both New Hampshire and Maine the great paper companies and the railroads are doing a great amount of work, both in the way of actual planting of forests and en- couraging private owners to do so. The work is likely to de- velop rapidly in Massachusetts, as the people of that State are more hospitable to public work paid for out of taxation, as is evidenced by the work of the park, water, sewerage and other commissions. Commercial forestry is too young in America to have de- veloped actual results that can be used as concrete arguments in favor of the work. We are obliged to reply upon theory or the experience of foreign countries that have been in this re- spect wiser than we. Germany furnishes the best example now available, and we extract some of the facts about that country from a recent document issued from the Massachusetts For- estry department. The German empire has nearly 35,000,000 acres of forest, of which 31.9 percent belongs to the state, 1.8 percent to the crown, 16.1 percent to communities, 46.5 per- cent to private persons, 1.6 percent to corporations, and the remainder to institutions and associations. There is a little over three-fifths of an acre of forest for each citizen, and, though 53 cubic feet of wood to the acre are produced in a year, wood imports have increasingly exceeded wood exports for over forty years. German forestry is remarkable in three [ 185 1 Forestry in New England ways : It has always led in scientific thoroughness, and now it is working out results with an exactness almost equal to that of the laboratory ; it has applied this scientific knowledge with the greatest technical success; and it has solved the problem of securing through a long series of years an increasing forest output and increasing profits at the same time. Like other ad- vanced European countries, Germany felt the pinch of wood shortage a hundred and fifty years ago, and, though this shortage was relieved by the coming of the railroads, which opened new forests, and by the use of coal, which substituted a new fuel for wood, the warning was heeded, and systematic state forestry was begun. Each state of the German Federation administers its own forests. All of the states practice forestry with success. The results obtained by Prussia and Saxony are particularly in- teresting, for they show how forests may be kept constantly improving under a system of management which yields a handsome profit. The Prussian forests, covering nearly 7,000,- 000 acres, are made up much as if we should combine the pineries of the southern states with the forests of some of our middle and central states. When forestry was begun, a great part of them had been injured by mismanagement, much as our forests have been, and the Prussian foresters had to solve the problem of improving the run-down forests out of the re- turns from those which were still in good condition. The method of management adopted calls for a sustained yield that is, no more wood is cut than the forest produces. Under this man- agement the growth of the forest, and consequently the amount cut, has risen sharply. In 1830 the yield was 20 cubic feet per acre; in 1865, 24 cubic feet; in 1890, 52 cubic feet; and in 1904, 65 cubic feet. In other words, Prussian forest manage- ment has multiplied the rate of production threefold in seventy- five years. And the quality of the product has improved with the quantity. Between 1830 and 1904 the percentage of saw timber rose from 19 percent to 54 percent. The financial re- turns in Prussia make an even better showing. Net returns per acre in 1850 were 28 cents. In 1865 they were 72 cents; in 1900, $1.58; and in 1904, $2.50. They are now nearly ten f 187 1 New England times what they were sixty years ago, and they are increasing more rapidly than ever. In Saxony, which has about 430,000 acres of state forests, the increase of cut under forest manage- ment, which always means also a corresponding increase in wood produced, has been nearly as marked as in Prussia. The yield rose 55 percent between 1820 and 1904, and is now 93 cubic feet per acre greater than that of the Prussian forests. Since the chief wood is spruce, which yields more saw timber than the average of trees making up the Prussian forests, the increase in the percentage of saw timber in Saxony naturally exceeds the increase in Prussia. It increased from 26 percent in 1830 to 66 percent in 1904. The net yearly revenue is $5.30 per acre. The yearly expense is $3 per acre. Other German states, smaller, and with better kinds of timber and better market facilities, secure even higher returns. The forests of Wiirttemberg yield a net annual revenue of nearly $6 per acre, and those of several smaller administrations do even better. A number of the private forests of Germany are managed with great success. As a result of a canvas of 15,600,000 acres of state, municipal, and private forests, it was found that the av- erage net revenue per acre, from good, bad, and indifferent land, was $2.40 a year. 188 New England Workmen NEW ENGLAND is a reservoir of skilled workmen in several of those branches of manufacture in which the skill amounts to the largest proportion of the cost of production. Not only is this true, and constituting one of the most important of the assets of the section, but there are several attributes of New England men which greatly enhance its importance, as compared with the workmen of some other sections. In New England in a greater degree than elsewhere there persists that characteristic of thoroughness plus knowledge, because it is here that the manufacturing of the country was given its start, and under the now almost extinct apprentice system. This system trained men in all the branches of a craft or a business, as opposed to the present habit of specializing. The old New England machinist could do all the work done in the shop. The new variety of machinist is able to operate a lathe, it may be, or a planer; or he is able to erect the machine after all the parts have been turned out by specialists and assembled in his room. But none of these men are able to go into any department of the shop and make any part of the machine. The old-time New England machinist could do this, and there are many of his breed still extant, and in many parts of New England, and in some of the trades, this com- prehensive training still is in force. It is the same in all other trades and crafts. The old-time New England dentist, for example, performed all the work necessary to keep the mouths of his patients in good condition. He extracted, filled, and made the sets of artificial teeth. Now practically none do this. The specialist extracts, the specialist fills, and the specialist makes the artificial sets. Scarcely any, even in the country towns, performs all of these operations. The local dentist examines the patient, sends him to a specialist to have the old teeth extracted, makes the impression for the new set, but [ 189 1 New England sends the mold to the city specialist to have the teeth made. The printer of today is generally not a printer at all, but a typesetter, a stoneman, a pressman, etc. In the old time, and not so very many years ago, the shoemaker was a man who measured the foot and made the boots or shoes entirely in his own shop, with his own hands, and from stock he had on hand. Now there are no shoemakers, in this sense. The shoe is made by automatic machinery, and the men and women and children who operate the machines know nothing about shoemaking, in the thorough sense their fathers knew about it. They know how to feed the material to the particular machine they have been trained to feed. They cannot cut or fit the stock, nor can they perform any of the subsequent operations after the pieces have left their bench or stand. This is a necessary condition. It prevails in New England as elsewhere. But in New England the condition is amelio- rated by the fact that here there is a greater percentage of workmen who were educated in the old thorough manner and who do know the trade at which they work. They are obliged to stand and feed the automatic machines, even as do the younger and less well-trained operatives, but it is certain that there is that in their work which gives it a definite value. The man who knows how to make the whole shoe can run the pegging machine or the sewing machine or the treeing machine better than can the man who only knows how to run the one machine. The man who is a printer, and can do any and all of the various kinds of work that go into the finished piece, is a better compositor than the man or girl who only knows the monotype or the linotype keyboard. In all the trades there is still existing in New England a certain generous modicum of this superior skill and efficiency in the trades, and the predisposition to continue to train the young to the broader craftsmanship is more evident here than elsewhere. This is one of the items of value that we are pos- sessed of which means much to the manufacturers in the way of dividends as well as in the way of quality of goods. It is not likely that this disposition to qualify in a broad and fundamental way will diminish. It is likely to increase. The [ 190] New England Workmen tendency in the industrial world is toward better training. This tendency is as much in evidence in other sections as in New England, as a proposition. It is as a matter of fact much more vital in New England than elsewhere because it so per- fectly harmonizes with our historical and hereditary instincts and habits. It is deeply seated here because it was here that most of the industries had their birth and achieved their adolescence. Another very important racial advantage that the work- men of New England offer to the shrewd manufacturer is their inveterate love for their own homes. It is a very manifest article of the social creed of the New Englander that he must try to own his home. The roof that is secured by a quit-claim cr warranty deed is far superior to the roof secured merely by the payment of the monthly rent. No one who has not been brought up a New Englander knows how strong is this instinct. It is ingrained in our very nature. It does not matter that the owned house costs more to maintain than the rent of one as good in all particulars, as is very frequently the fact. It does not matter that the owning of the home involves years of the most rigid economy, the denial of all kinds of relaxa- tion and luxury, the stunting of life in all directions, the dwarfing of the children's education and life, the narrowing of all the amenities and the squeezing of the spirit. The home must be had, and had it is. It is not always that the desire for a home becomes such a moloch ; but that it may. and often docs, does not operate to check the passion for possession that is such a marked New England trait. Whatever may be the sociological, the ethical, the religious, significance of this passion to own homes, there can be no question about its being a great industrial asset to New England. The man who owns a home, or who hopes to own a home, is a stable prop- osition as an operative. This is one of those manufacturing advantages that is not quite susceptible of definite valuation, but it is being carefully considered by men who are operating to take full advantage of whatever elements in industrial communities promise sure if slowly maturing profit-bringing. And the manufacturer who is skilled in the refinements of his business knows that when he promotes this home-getting New England Workmen instinct in his workmen, and makes it easy for them to anchor themselves to the soil, he is transferring some appreciable por- tion of his cost of manufacture to the land. He may not con- sider this habit of owning homes as an element that can be recognized in the adjustment of his wage schedules, but he is nevertheless a recipient of some of the benefit. The factory operative who is able to own his home, and a patch of garden land in addition, is a different operative from the man who lives in the mill tenements and is obliged to buy all of his supplies, and possibly at the mill stores. The workman who gives such hostages to fortune as are represented by his home and his garden is not the man to trifle with labor conditions. He needs stable conditions, and that need leads him to be careful of his chances of employment, and sometimes to con- sider the rights and difficulties of the manufacturer, who he realizes is taking chances quite similar to those that have now and again caused him sleepless nights, although upon a vastly larger scale. This condition of home-earning is a large ele- ment in the efficiency of workmen, and it tends strongly and directly to increased production per unit of wage. It is not always a negligible element in the fixing of the wage scale, despite the fact that the more enlightened, and we may safely say the more shrewd, manufacturers are content to let the workman have the visible advantage and accept for his share the less tangible but really far more consequential benefit coming from the increased efficiency of the home-owners. There are in various sections of New England areas of in- tensive trades cultivation which has been going on for several generations and which furnish facilities for certain lines of manufacture that are unique. In fine textiles there is nowhere facilities for skilled operatives equal to those offered at Man- chester, Lowell, Providence and the Blackstone Valley, and in other towns and cities. The valley of the Blackstone and the valley of the Merrimac teem with these skilled workmen, and they are found at Clinton and North Adams, and in many localities in Connecticut, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, while Rhode Island is full of them in all directions. In several lines of metal working and machinery and tool making there [ 193 1 New England may be found at several points a supply of trained workmen who do not owe their skill wholly to their own training, but partially to inheritance and the influence of their fathers and grandfathers all through their adolescence. They were born into the trades they have always followed, and have a certain skill and ability that is often thus acquired but not always resulting from personal training. The same may be said of other industries, notably of the shoe and leather business. The shoe business has spread to the Middle West, as it natu- rally must be expected to. The raw material is largely pro- duced in that section and beyond, and a large proportion of the shoes produced in New England are yet shipped west- ward. There is therefore the best of economic reasons for a certain portion of the shoemaking business to find its way out of New England. The flaw in the argument is found in the lack of skilled workmen in other sections. This has, in a degree, been overcome by the migration of some New England shoemakers to the cities where the industry has been trans- planted. While there are several large establishments in the large cities of the West, from which merchandise is largely distributed, there is no general tendency in the trade to shift the center of commercial production. On the other hand, there is a significant drift back to New England of the shoe trade of the West. At least one of the largest distributors of shoes in the country, whose headquarters are in Chicago, has brought all its manufacturing back to New England, for the identical reasons set forth in this chapter to secure stable labor conditions, and to avail itself of the stored shoemaking facility of the New England shoemakers. It would be easy to cite like conditions to those mentioned as applying in sev- eral other trades. In some of them it appears that there is what amounts to an unemployed workman power which might well be put to very profitable use. In the woodworking trades there has been an unwarranted drift away from New Eng- land, due, it is to be presumed, to the exhaustion of the supply of lumber in New England, and to the failure to reckon the worth of the workman asset. This drift has been going on for so long a time that there has now been created a skilled labor [ 194 ] New England Workmen supply at or near the raw material supply ; and the skilled labor supply in New England has deteriorated, through death and the gradual assimilation of the workmen by other occu- pations. But there is a large body of these operatives that might be profitably employed at the trade they know best. And conditions have been so changing that it is again within the sphere of good business to consider whether woodwork- ing may not be resuscitated in New England. The like may be said of certain iron industries. There are iron mines in New England that have paid for working. The men who were trained in the initial iron trades have pretty well disappeared, but there would some of them probably be found in the re- gions of the old mines. Mingled with the influence of ancestry, tradition, educa- tion, religion, and the other elements that go to give the New England workman his distinction, there is the powerful influ- ence of climate, the maligned New England climate, which is contemned and slandered, and which draws millions of cash out of the pockets of the men who have learned to justly ap- praise it for the privilege of enjoying a few weeks in it dur- ing each year. The effect of climate on character may not have become one of the studies of men who are establishing factories and building industries, but it is worth while. Cli- mate radically affects character, and character and physique are at the bottom of good workmen. There has not yet arisen the workman who is, all things fairly considered, the equal of the native New Englander. The climate has made him what he is. There are regions that have better winter climate than New England, and there are sections that boast better sum- mer climate; but there are no regions in America that have year-'round climate equal to that of New England, for pleas- ure or for the building of a race of workmen equal to the economic demands made upon them. This is an assertion easy to make, and perhaps not so easy to prove. If proof is needed it is furnished by history. This section of New England, a small bit of the country set off in its northeast corner, has for all the time since the landing of the Pilgrims given of its hardy sons the men who have built up the whole country, and [ 195 1 New England is at this present time giving an almost undiminished stream of the brawn and brain that is developing the vast resources of the land. Not only this : New England has all the time been absorbing the dwarfed and anaemic flood from Europe and Asia and has vitalized that alien blood until it is almost on a par with the native stream. This is a performance that is unique in history, and it deserves much more attention than it has received at the hands of the men of science who are prone to find a logical and analytic reason for whatever phe- nomenon they observe. What is it in New England that takes the dregs of Europe and makes not only good citizenship of it but makes of it good physical manhood? It is not all cli- mate, but it is the climate that begins the work and furnishes the human caloric for its continuance. The respect for religion which obtains in New England, the veneration for education and culture, the traditional bent for esthetics, for ethics, for sociology, for science, for self- culture, for economy, for thrift, all tend, and strongly tend, to give our workmen value to employers, and what is perhaps more essential in an industrial sense, these things give the workmen a disposition to give of their capacity the fair equiv- alent for the wages they receive. A thorough and scientific study of the New England workman would reveal other grounds for claiming for him that superiority he has always held, and would make it more evident that the causes here indicated are worthy the attention of the large employers of labor when they have before them the great question of the most economical methods and the most advantageous loca- tions for their manufactories. [ 196 ] The Industrial Boston THIS is not a " boom " story. Neither is it to be a tedious, involved, statistical study. Superlatives seldom convince the discriminating reader, and pages of figures, compiled for a purpose, weary him. A loud noise and much kicking up of dust will not command the attention of serious-minded people; neither will the laborious piling up of facts as to its own exceeding excellence profit a city much, because few study the facts. Boston does not need publicity of either sort. Its resources are so extensive, and its possibilities so unmistakable that a plain, unvarnished statement of them is sufficient to insure their recognition. But one thing which is needed, and that im- peratively, is a correct and adequate conception as to what constitutes the real Boston, commercially, industrially, terri- torially. Lack of understanding on this point, failure to appreciate the true extent and magnitude of the city in a busi- ness sense, is largely responsible for the inadequate and fre- quently misleading estimate of its industrial and commercial advantages which unfortunately has begun to prevail in cer- tain quarters. Secure in the sense of conscious strength, justly proud of a century-long record of splendid economic achievement, and a bit too indifferent to the opinion of the rest of the country on the matter, Boston has not asserted its opportunities and proclaimed its progress vigorously enough to command the recognition which is justly its. Until the facts are known, and an accurate basis for estimate laid down, even the most moderate and conservative statement of the city's assets would seem exaggerated and overdrawn. The prime purpose of this chapter, therefore, is to show forth the business Boston in its true proportions. Once these propor- tions are clearly seen, and taken as the groundwork for dis- cussion as to business opportunities hereabouts, there will no [ 197] New England longer be occasion to fear comparison with rival cities. The sober facts as to the economic situation in Greater Boston are sufficient to assure conviction as to the unquestionable open- ings for yet greater industrial and commercial endeavor which that region affords. A prominent local merchant, whose business necessitates his traveling widely in other states and who observes keenly the while, tells the following anecdote, which well illustrates the curiously inadequate and pernicious notion regarding Boston's importance as a trading and producing center that has gained currency in other parts of the country, because little has been done to combat it. While in Chicago this mer- chant fell into conversation with a business acquaintance, a resident of that city, and the talk drifted into comparisons of the advantages of the leading business centers. The Chi- cagoan was soon in the midst of a glowing eulogy on the splendid past achievements and the matchless future possibili- ties of the prairie city, dwelling long on its physical size, the increase of its population, the progress of its industries, and the growth in the volume of its trade. Presently he noticed that his companion did not display any considerable amount of surprise at the astounding recital ; in fact, while apprecia- tive, was by no means overwhelmed by it. Nettled a little be- cause the tale, justly dear to his heart, had failed to produce its wonted impression and evoke the usual succession of envi- ous and admiring comments, he assumed an air of slight con- descension and remarked, " Of course you have a fine little city in Boston historic associations, fine educational op- portunities, delightful place to visit ; but you must admit you are not in the same class with us when it comes to producing and purchasing power, industrial energy, and all that." Then the Chicagoan got the surprise of his life. First in- credulous, then amazed, and finally convinced and chastened, he heard for the first time the story of " Greater Boston," the real Boston for purposes of all the comparisons which he himself had been making. He heard with astonishment that around the shores of Boston harbor and extending miles in- land there had grown up a vast, continuous, homogeneous [ 198 ] The Industrial Boston community, numbering a million and a half souls, and more closely bound together by business interests and an extensive and efficient system of rapid transit than the irregular city distributed over the whole of Cook county, Illinois. The Bos- tonian, like many of his kind, was a student of history as well as a successful man of business, and the tale which enlight- ened his western friend and gave him a new, bigger and better conception of the great city which he had tolerantly termed " Boston town," ran somewhat as follows : Cities in the middle ages were small affairs. Hemmed in by defensive walls, their scope for expansion was limited. Yet even in this unsettled period the regions round about the walled towns were peopled and cultivated, the population without the walls shading off by degrees into the sparsely settled country districts. Then came gun-powder and demol- ished the cramping girdles of stone. Changes in industrial organization; an increase in productive efficiency hastened the growth of population and led to a greater degree of con- centration. Highways were improved ; travel and transporta- tion facilitated. People found it easier to move about, and the towns and cities grew apace. Then came the steam-rail- road, followed by local rapid transit and the trolley lines, and the modern city expanded and extended itself like a mushroom in the night. This amazing urban growth has been one of the marvels of the century just closed. The newer cities and many of the old ones pushed out their boundaries to include within their corporate limits the as- tounding expansion which recked little of political or munici- pal lines but flowed wherever topography and natural ad- vantages of soil and situation favored. Others of the older cities, chief among them Boston, enlarged their area but slowly, and consequently failed to furnish accommodation for the swelling volume of trade and production created by the rapidly growing population, which accordingly burst the restricted confines of the city proper and spread over the sur- rounding districts. The reasons for the city's failure to en- large its physical limits are not far to seek. The whole region, some five hundred square miles in extent, [ 199 1 New England now roughly included in the term Metropolitan Boston, was originally dotted with separate little communities, each a po- litical unit in itself. These grew in population, extended till their boundaries coalesced, and in time came to cover the entire region lying round about the central harbor, the heart of Greater Boston, and the business core of the wide radial zone lying about and tributary to the city proper. Each of these towns as it expanded also gradually devel- oped and built up a separate corporate existence, and a body of social and political tradition which have caused it to per- sist as a distinct political entity, in spite of the fact that this whole section of the state has since been so thickly peopled and so closely knit together by transportation connections and community of commercial and industrial interests as to become practically one great expanded city with a popula- tion of nearly a million and a half, and a purchasing and producing power, in proportion to population, exceeding that of any similar region in the country. This persistence of the smaller cities and towns surrounding Boston, as independent communities, though commercially, industrially and territorially they are virtually constituent parts of one broad and homogeneous city area, has physically circumscribed the municipal Boston, and made impossible fur- ther extension of its limits, to a degree that would enable it to include the field within which the interests and activities of which it is the center exist and are carried on. What has been the result? Unable to provide scope within its own boundaries for the constantly swelling volume of industry and trade, initiated in the first instance by the advantages afforded by its harbor and railroad facilities, the city has been forced to watch the tide spread out over the surrounding districts, and see itself given an artificially low rating in government re- ports, while New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, St. Louis and the other large cities which compete with Boston in size and economic activity, have loomed large in the census returns, because they have technically brought within their corporate limits large areas as yet only partially developed and capable of sustaining a considerable future expansion of population and [ 200 1 The Industrial Boston production. As a consequence of these restricted boundaries, which give it an area of only thirty-eight square miles, Boston has been forced to see her expansion in population, com- merce and industry j ust as homogeneous as that of its sis- ter cities and just as closely linked up with the city proper chopped up into little chunks in official reports and distrib- uted among two score cities and towns immediately sur- rounding it but so merged with the Greater Boston district as to be physically indistinguishable as independent communi- ties. The country at large, basing its estimate of Boston's size and business importance upon census reports concerning the political unit only, and knowing little or nothing of the situation and interrelation of the cities and towns in the metropolitan district, and the substantial unity of that region commercially and industrially, has gained a wholly inade- quate impression of the city's real extent and importance as a population and business center. It is true that some other cities have had the same experience, but not in a like degree. Boston furnishes, far and away, the most striking example, and has accordingly been most inadequately judged and rated. Obviously, this is a condition that must be recognized and understood in any attempt to state fairly and accurately Boston's resources and advantages. Insistence upon the en- larged conception of a Greater Boston as the only just basis upon which to reckon the city's economic assets will more than anything else enlighten business men the country over as to the striking opportunities, industrial and commercial, here presented, and will gain for Boston that acknowledgment and appreciation of its splendid economic achievements which is its just due. Our sister cities do not spare the colors in painting their advantages and prospects. Certainly, we are warranted in claiming that measure of recognition which is rightfully ours but which has been withheld by reason of lack of clear understanding as to the real situation. Like the Chicagoan, when the Boston merchant had finished his tale of the real Boston, we are now prepared to examine and correctly interpret the significant and striking facts as [ 201 1 New England to Greater Boston of concern to the merchant and the manu- facturer, the home-seeker and the traveler in search of pleas- ure and scenes of interest. Boston proper is predominantly commercial, and has al- ways been so. Situated on one of the finest natural harbors in the world, 180 miles nearer the ports of western Europe than New York, she has long been the entrepot of the whole New England region, and the market and outlet for much of the vast production of the West and Northwest. Ever since the days when the China trade crowded her wharves with tea- chests and the rare products of the East, days when the Yankee clipper ship was the acknowledged mistress of the seas and the Yankee sailors the best seamen afloat, the marts of Boston have been famed the world over. Its merchants bought and sold the wares of every clime and continent. Its warehouses supplied the wants of the whole of New England, and ministered to the needs of people of every condition all over the wide West. Later developments but augmented this importance as a great market and distributing point. When steam, driving vessels of larger tonnage and deeper draught, had emanci- pated ocean commerce from the vagaries of wind and weather, the new and greater ocean carriers found in the broad, deep channels of Boston Harbor anchorage and dock accommoda- tions equaled by few ports in the world. With the advent of steam-railways, Boston became the converging point of the entire New England system. And finally, when the trolley net began to grow, its steel meshes were woven thickest about the population and commercial center, the metropolis of the region. A glance at a steam and electric railway map of New England today will show a dense maze of rail lines crowding and crossing one another as they run together in the Greater Boston district and focus on the city, then untangle and spread out in all directions over the State. Nature in the be- ginning made Boston the focal point and future metropolis of New England. Later developments have but established this position more securely. [ 202 ] The Industrial Boston We may now proceed to examine more closely into the con- ditions which spell Opportunity for the merchant in Boston, and which demonstrate the city's importance as the seat of a great mercantile activity. Considerations that would influ- ence the wholesaler or jobber in his choice of a place to locate and do business would be: (1) local market conditions, (2) access to wider markets, (3) relation to sources of produc- tions and supply, and (4) trade traditions. The local market to which the wholesaler situated in Bos- ton has access is of tremendous extent and purchasing power. No more serious miscalculation could be made than to suppose that the 670,000 odd persons who reside in Boston proper constitute the bulk of the buying community. Within what is loosely termed the metropolitan district, a region roughly within a dozen miles of the State House and thickly and con- tinuously populated throughout, live about a million and a half people. In practically none of the cities and towns in this district are there to be found large mercantile establish- ments, either wholesale or retail, or any considerable centers of trading activity, other than the smaller stores and shops which always abound. This virtual absence of mercantile ac- tivity on an extensive scale in cities, some of which boast from twenty-five to one hundred thousand inhabitants, shows conclusively that in a commercial sense these communities are as closely identified with Boston as if they were politically incorporated within its limits. This great metropolitan area, furthermore, is closely knit together by a steam and electric suburban service than which there is none better in the country. Boston and vicinity has long been known as a region whose residents enjoy a much greater degree of material well-being than prevails generally. The standard of living is high, and the population possesses the means to maintain that standard. By the best estimates available, the per capita wealth of Greater Boston is larger than that of any similar region in the world, exceeding that of most of the other large cities of the country by wide margins. Brookline, a contiguous suburb of Boston proper, is often quoted as the wealthiest commu- f 203 1 New England nity of its size in the world. While the aggregate wealth of the Greater Boston district is large, it is also more evenly dis- tributed than is commonly the case. There are few colossal fortunes but many substantial ones, and a great body of people in the middle classes enjoying moderate but comfort- able incomes. The wage-earners are also, as a class, relatively more skilled and better paid than in most other great urban districts. The high per capita wealth and the relatively large earning power of the population, together with the high standard of comfort that prevails, evidence a volume of pur- chasing power of remarkable extent and stability. It has been reckoned by those qualified to pass judgment that the Greater Boston region possesses a buying and consuming power nor- mally wielded by a population of two millions of people in other sections of the country, the actual population of the district being 25 percent under that figure. So much for the local market, a field wide enough to furnish ample opportun- ity and scope for the most ambitious mercantile enterprise. Easy access to wider markets is also afforded the merchant with headquarters in Boston. Within a fifty-mile radius dwell more than three millions of people. In New England as a whole, closely linked with the metropolis by the three great converging railroad systems whose close network of lines reach every village and town of consequence, live more than six millions of people, the bulk of whose wants are supplied through the activities of Boston mercantile houses. The very isolation of New England, the physical barriers which have marked off and set it apart as a distinct geographical section of the country, have only confirmed the decree of nature writ in its harbor, that Boston should be the commercial heart of this territorial unit; and not once has this decree been ques- tioned, because it was founded on advantages indisputable and a development unequaled. But this preeminence in the home field has in no sense hin- dered the Boston merchants from reaching out for control of wider markets. The facilities for water-transportation af- forded by the twenty-odd steamship lines whose vessels dock regularly at Boston, have made it the second port of the [ 204 ] The Industrial Boston country as regards value of imports, which in 1909 reached a total of over $127,000,000. In the total import and export trade, which in 1909 amounted in round numbers to $200,- 000,000, Boston took third rank. Merchants, profiting by the low water rates to coastal points, have been enabled to estab- lish along the seaboard distributing agencies through which they have gained control of trade in neighboring and tribu- tary regions. The advantages to houses doing an importing and exporting business of location in a port like Boston need no comment. However, it may be said that a healthy dissatisfaction, in- dicative of enterprise and business vigor, has been growing of late with regard to the dock and water terminal facilities of the city. As a result of this, plans for far reaching improve- ments along the water front, looking to the modernizing and enlarging of docks and the bettering of methods for handling cargoes, have already been adopted, and substantial appro- priations, extending over a period of years, have been pro- vided for putting these plans into effect. Public sentiment has demanded with unmistakable vigor and directness that the en- gineering feature of the port be made commensurate with the splendid natural advantages of the harbor. Unless unforeseen obstacles arise, another decade should see Boston one of the best equipped ports in the world, with an export trade fed by the great industrial hinterland, reaching every nation on the globe. But the seaboard territory reached by water-carriage is by no means the most important market outside of New Eng- land. To the West, far West, Northwest, and South, railroad rates from Boston are the same as those from New York. Contrary to the popular impression, too, the grades on the railroads which top the Berkshires and connect Boston with the West are lower than on the trunk lines which join Phila- delphia and Baltimore with the trans- Allegh any region and the markets of the vast Mississippi valley. If projects now afoot are realized, and there is good reason for believing they will be, Boston will one day become the gateway to Europe for the large and swelling production of the Northwest, both [ 205 1 New England of the United States and Canada. A destiny so obvious can hardly fail of realization. Close contact with the sources of production and supply in many of the great staple trades is afforded the merchant in Boston by reason of his location in the heart of what is admittedly the most highly developed industrial section of the whole country. As a great primary market and distributing point for leather, boots and shoes, wool, textiles, rubber prod- ucts, chocolate and confectionery, the city's standing is widely recognized. With the State producing nearly one-half the boot and shoe output of the country, nearly one-third the woolen and worsted goods, more than a quarter of the cotton goods, and over a fifth of the rubber and elastic goods, the importance of Boston as a market and distributing center for these great staple products is easily seen. A host of minor industries, many of them with a very large volume of produc- tion, find in Boston an outlet and clearing-house for their output. The extent to which the city is the market for the huge and varied production of the highly developed New England in- dustrial region is indicated by the fact that the volume of trading, wholesale and retail, in Boston is about five times the value of the city's own industrial product, which is in the neighborhood of $200,000,000 annually. This would give a yearly volume of exchanges aggregating roughly one billion dollars. In practically every other large city of the State the value of goods manufactured exceeds the value of goods bought and sold by wide margins, the production of these localities being sent to the commercial center of the region. The significance of this as showing the commanding position which Boston holds as the primary market of middle New England is unmistakable. Trade traditions of the right kind are a real asset to any city so fortunate as to possess them. Merchants carefully reckon the value of such traditions in their calculations as to the relative advantages of cities as headquarters for mercan- tile business. The Boston merchant has been a national figure since colonial times. His activities have everywhere played a [ 206 1 The Industrial Boston leading part in upbuilding the trade of the nation. And throughout it all, with strikingly few exceptions, Boston firms have won and held a reputation for fair-dealing, stability and sound enterprise, that has gone far to give the city its proud place in the mercantile world. Then, too, there is a suggestion of " all wool and a yard wide " quality about the very name of Boston, the cumulative result of past policy in providing honest values, that gives the average buyer confi- dence in purchasing goods bearing the Boston trade-mark. Our considerations thus far have dealt more particularly with the advantages which Boston offers in the wholesale, jobbing, import and export, trades. Many of the advantages cited with reference to these fields apply with equal force to the retail trade. It is sufficient on this point to repeat that the retailer in Boston can calculate on a local market with a possible buying power equal to that normally wielded by more than a million and a half people. A highly developed and low- fare system of local transit steam, electric, elevated and subway focuses this enormous volume of purchasing power largely on the shopping districts of Boston proper. Any one who has ever attempted to make his way along Washington street on a fine Saturday afternoon can have no further doubts as to the opportunity in the retail field which Boston presents. Industrial Boston, like commercial Boston, is far wider in extent than is generally supposed. Figures as to the city proper give only a superficial and incomplete idea of the real importance of the community as a manufacturing center. A Federal Census Bulletin (No. 101) issued in 1909, and en- titled " Industrial Districts," contains the following state- ment, which constitutes a recognition of the unity of the Greater Boston industrial district by the census authorities: " Certain suburban towns and cities connected with Boston by trolleys and steam-roads are so closely allied industrially that it seems proper to consider them a part of the industrial district of which Boston is the center." The bulletin then goes on to enumerate forty-three cities [ 207 1 New England and towns, comprising an area of about 500 square miles and a population of over 1,354,000 in 1905, estimated at about 1,500,000 today, as included within the Boston industrial district here defined. These communities are territorially con- tinuous and intimately knit together by commercial and finan- cial ties and identity of business interests of every sort. They make one great, homogeneous, industrial area. Similar dis- tricts are outlined for twelve other leading manufacturing cities of the country, and a study of the comparisons thus made possible reveal some startling and highly encouraging facts as to the industrial situation in and around Boston. Any attempt systematically to describe the conditions with regard to industries in a region must take account (1) of the volume of production, (2) of the character of production, and (3) of the rate of industrial increase. Among the thirteen districts considered the largest in the country Boston ranks fourth as regards total value of manufactured products in 1905, the figures showing an annual volume of production only a little short of half a bil- lion. The districts ranking Boston in respect to value of product were those about New York, Chicago and Philadel- phia, cities whose populations were from three to ten times greater than that of Boston, a proportion by no means equaled in the value of products. The city areas selected for purposes of this study were chosen by the Census Bureau with the idea of making them as comparable as possible; those about Chicago, Philadelphia and Boston, being almost iden- tical in extent. This, in a measure, worked to the disadvan- tage of Boston in the comparisons, because, while in the case of the sister cities the districts defined really marked the limits of the industrial zones of which they were the centers, the country beyond shading off quickly into farming sections, around Boston the zone of industrial activity extends solidly for many miles further. An extension of ten miles in the radii of the districts would have enormously cut down the lead in the value of manufactured product enjoyed by the other cities by reason of their greater size. The significance of all this is in showing the wider reach and greater continu- [ 208 1 The Industrial Boston ity of the manufacturing region of which Boston is the center. With this important reservation in mind, then, we may con- clude that as regards volume of production Boston ranks fourth among the great industrial centers of the country. The city proper, with its restricted area of thirty-eight square miles, took fifth rank, being surpassed by St. Louis as well as by the other three cities mentioned. In the production of her whole industrial district however St. Louis showed a value hardly two-thirds that of the Boston district. As regards quality of production, the industrial district of Greater Boston probably ranks first in the country. An enumeration of the leading industries would include: Boots and shoes, cut stock and findings, leather, rubber products, slaughtering and meat packing, printing and publishing, foundry and machine shop products, wool, clothing, textiles, electrical machinery and supplies. Other industries of great importance are chocolate and cocoa products, shipbuilding, iron and steel, sugar and molasses refining, watches, ma- chinery, etc. All of these minister to fundamental human needs. They are staple in character, and most of them demand a highly skilled grade of labor and a degree of financial sup- port and ability in management that puts them in the class of high-grade industries. It should be noted in this connection that the tendency operative throughout the industries of the State, as well as in Boston, is distinctly toward a superior quality of production. Massachusetts and New England, remote as they are from the sources of raw materials and of fuel supply, cannot com- pete with manufacturing centers in the South and West in the production of low-grade commodities, the bulk of whose value lies in the material they contain and not in the manipu- lation and fabrication they undergo. Such commodities repre- sent only a low-labor cost. The proportion of industrial in- telligence and skill which has entered into their designing and production is relatively small. But these two qualities, the product of what might be termed human resources, constitute two of the most important industrial assets of Massachusetts. Assets they are, too, most difficult to duplicate elsewhere. They f 209 1 New England are the result of a century of industrial experience, and the advantages which the momentum of an early start in manufac- turing pursuits has given us. In an estimate of industrial re- sources, they must be reckoned of even more account than proximity to supplies of raw materials or to markets, an ad- vantage which every improvement in transportation has les- sened and which has never been decisive, as witness the great cotton industry of England, thousands of miles from the near- est cotton field and still vigorous, flourishing and expanding. Obviously, the industrial policy which will enable our manu- facturers to profit most fully from this advantage, to avail themselves most completely of the splendid human resources created during a century in this region, and at the same time overcome the disadvantage of our geographical location and the dearth of mineral wealth, is one which will aim at an in- creasingly higher quality of product, a product that will in- corporate a very large amount of value in comparatively small bulk and so be easy of transportation to distant markets. A significant and encouraging feature of the industrial situa- tion in the State during the past decade has been the fact that during a period of most remarkable progress and expansion of all industries the heaviest advances were made in those fields where the production is of the highest grade. In some instances this advance has been at an accelerated rate, grow- ing more rapid each year. Boston's labor supply is her most valuable industrial re- source. This fact, and the advantage which it confers, is gen- erally recognized throughout the country. The population census of 1905 shows 60,856 males and 23,170 females, a total of 84,026 persons, or about one-seventh of the total population, reporting themselves as engaged in manufactur- ing pursuits in Boston. These figures apply only to purely industrial occupations, and do not include unskilled laborers or persons engaged in trade, transportation, fisheries, agri- culture, or mining. The possible labor supply that can be drawn upon by local industries is much larger. Within the fourteen cities and towns contiguous to Boston, and industri- ally a part of it, there were 56,552 persons returned as en- [ 210 1 The Industrial Boston gaged in manufacturing pursuits in 1905. In the fifteen cities and towns not contiguous to Boston proper, but in the metropolitan district, 50,470 persons reported themselves as in manufacturing pursuits in 1905. Within the Greater Boston industrial district then, the region largely within a twelve- mile radius of the State House, there were in the last census year nearly a quarter of a million persons earning their liveli- hood by employment in industries. In view of the extraordi- nary industrial growth in this region, to be noted later, it is reasonable to assume that the laboring population has been largely augumented during the past five years. This opin- ion is supported by the fact that in the period of 19001905 the industrial population of the Greater Boston district in- creased over 20 percent. If this rate has continued, and there is good reason for thinking it has actually been accelerated, the labor supply of the district today should be close to one- third of a million workers. Within this vast industrial army will be found men and women possessing almost every kind of manual skill required in the complex industries of today. The manufacturer who locates in the Greater Boston district will always find within easy access an abundant and elastic labor supply capable of adapting itself quickly and surely to his every need. The opportunity afforded the laborer in Boston for secur- ing a general educational training and a vocational equip- ment is unsurpassed anywhere in the country. The educa- tional authorities of the State and of the city have recognized the importance of developing to the utmost our human re- sources the intelligence and skill of our industrial workers. To this end far-reaching plans are now in the making for a comprehensive and thorough-going system of industrial and commercial schools, which shall conserve and further de- velop the advantage which the alert brains and deft fingers of our work-people have created. The State Board of Edu- cation, reorganized a year ago along lines best calculated to secure efficiency in working out promptly and effectively a scheme of industrial and commercial training, has already made a beginning in its important task, and the future prom- [ 211 ] New England ises rapid developments. The experience of Germany shows strikingly what may be accomplished for the furtherance of industry and trade through a wise system of public instruc- tion, carefully adjusted to the economic needs of the com- munity. Massachusetts bids fair to repeat this experience, and Boston will naturally be in the forefront of the movement. We have now 'arrived at the consideration of what is per- haps the most striking, significant, and encouraging, feature of the local industrial situation. This consideration has to do with the rate of progress made by industries within the dis- trict, as measured by the increase in the value of their product. Among the five leading industrial districts of the country those lying about New York, Chicago, Philadel- phia, Boston and Pittsburg the Boston district ranked second as regards the rate of increase in the value of the product of its industries during the period 1900-1905, being exceeded by New York alone. This single fact is con- clusive evidence of the splendid vitality, expanding power, and sound enterprise, that have always characterized Boston's industries in the past, and will continue to characterize them in the future. That changes have been going on in the local industrial field, that there has been a shifting and readjustment of in- dustrial activities, a movement to the suburbs and an aban- donment of old industrial centers within the city proper, is not denied. But that this tendency is something to become alarmed over, and proclaimed as an ominous symptom, is a wholly wrong construction to put on the situation. For con- sider that in the five-year period 1900-1905 the value of the output of industries within the Greater Boston district in- creased 29.2 percent. During the same period the increase for the Chicago district was 20.4 percent, for the Philadel- phia district 16.3 percent, and for the Pittsburg district 12.8 percent. The comparison with Chicago and Philadelphia is especially significant, as the districts for those cities are practically indentical in size with that of Boston, each of them being about 500 square miles in extent. Chicago, prob- ably more than any other city, with the exception of New [ 212 ] The Industrial Boston York, is associated throughout the country generally with astounding progress ; resistless, overleaping expansion in in- dustry and trade. And yet the product of Chicago's industrial district increased in value during the period under considera- tion only about two-thirds as fast as the product of the Boston district. This fact has to be mulled over a bit before its full import is grasped. Philadelphia showed an increase only little more than half, and Pittsburg one less than half, that of Boston, whose advance was exceeded by the scant margin of 3^ percent by New York alone. To be sure, Boston proper during the period 19001905 showed an increase of only 13.3 percent in the volume of manufactured output, while the Greater Boston district, out- side of the thirty-eight square miles of the political unit at the center, made the astounding advance of 42.7 percent. As asserted before, this indicates not a decline but rather a shifting of industry to regions a little further out, where the prices of land and the rental of plants are lower than in the congested districts of the city proper. The very fact that the rate of growth within the city has diminished, accompanied as it is by the fact that just outside and around the city that growth is going on more rapidly than before, is in itself evi- dence of the splendid vitality and expanding power of our industries. To argue that because the surging increase in the volume of manufacturing activity could not be accommo- dated within the narrow confines of the small municipal unit industries are therefore decadent, is to see only one small part of the whole situation, and is in no sense a correct in- terpretation of conditions. On the other hand, while the rapid expansion of industries just outside of Boston and the slowing up of the rate of in- dustrial advance in the city proper is an evidence of abound- ing industrial vitality and capacity for growth, it also indi- cates a failure, as yet, to so organize industrial activities within the city as to permit of the considerable expansion which is yet possible, a situation found in all large cities. There is still plenty of land admirably adapted for factory sites along the water front of municipal Boston, relatively [ 213 1 New England high-priced, to be sure, but capable of being profitably em- ployed for industrial purposes if developed in the right way. The city proper, generally speaking, by reason of the higher cost of land, is not so well adapted to large industries re- quiring extensive yards for sheds and storage space as the more open regions outside. But for a host of smaller, lighter industries, which make up fully two-thirds of those enumer- ated in the census classification, industries which can go up in the air in properly constructed buildings rather than along the ground, and whose machinery is of a kind that can be in- stalled on upper floors and lofts and operated by electric power or gas engine, to industries of this sort, the high cost of land in the city proper would be no obstacle, provided there could be found large, modern, factory-loft buildings, four to six stories in height, which would so fully utilize the land as to make it support a large volume of industry and thus reduce its cost to a point where it would not be a burden on the manufacturer. Such buildings should have the best pos- sible transportation connections, both rail and water, when feasible, and should be constructed of such materials and on such plans as to reduce the insurance rates of tenants to the lowest possible figure. They should be well-lighted, venti- lated, and equipped with all needful sanitary facilities, so as to make it possible for work-people to realize their highest efficiency, and should be so arranged that space could be util- ized in the most economical way. Housed in buildings of this type, right in the midst of the dense labor market of the city proper, and enjoying all the indirect advantages that accrue from location in the heart of a great producing and marketing center, and from close and constant contact with allied trades, the proprietors of hundreds of small manufacturing industries would find themselves situated to far better advantage in Boston than anywhere else in the State. Wages in and around Boston are moderate for industries of high grade. Labor, while well organized, is intelligently and conservatively led and reasonable in its demands. Industrial disturbances are comparatively infrequent and seldom of seri- [ 214 1 The Industrial Boston ous consequence. Boston has probably suffered fewer losses from this cause than any other city of equal size in the coun- try. It is worth noting, also, that trade unions in a large city are not in a position to dominate the local labor market to anything like the extent that is possible in the smaller cities and towns. They are overshadowed by the magnitude and complexity of the whole industrial situation, and the variety of trades prevents any one from gaining a place of such com- manding power as to lead to abuses such as are sometimes found in localities where great concentration of a few indus- tries has taken place. To the manufacturer whose experience with organized labor has been unfortunate, a city like Boston, with its diversified industries and abundant, varied and elastic labor supply, offers a most attractive field. The cost of living in Boston is not high relatively to other cities of like proportions. A study of the price quotations for thirty staple articles of food, given in Bulletin No. 77 of the Federal Bureau of Labor in 1908, shows that as regards about one-fifth of the articles mentioned, prices in Boston were low as compared with the average for the largest cities ; in about three-fifths of the cases they were moderate ; and in about one-fifth of the cases high. Clothing and house furnish- ings are certainly not above the average in cost, while on meats and fish Boston prices are probably somewhat below the mean level. The rents of work-people's dwellings, while higher than in the smaller cities, are moderate, all things con- sidered; and the average workingman prefers to live in the city, even though his dwelling costs him slightly more, be- cause of the greater variety and cheapness of entertainment and diversion. Factory and labor legislation in Massachusetts, while ad- vanced, cannot be said to have retarded the development of industries, and in fact have conferred many advantages, not the least of which is the unusual degree of contentment that prevails among the laboring class. It has been found particu- larly difficult to induce an artisan to leave Boston. He likes to live here. Taxation of manufacturing corporations in Boston is [ 215 1 The Industrial Boston not relatively burdensome. While no special exemptions are granted, industries are not affected unfavorably by the man- ner in which they are called upon to contribute for the sup- port of the State. The rate of taxation in Boston, $16.40 per thousand in 1910, is distinctly lower than that in many other large cities, and considerably below the average for the cities of the State. Fuel and power costs in Boston are comparatively low, by reason of the heavy receipts of tidewater coal. Steam coal is generally about $1 less per ton than at inland points not in or near the coal fields. The local electric power company fur- nishes current for manufacturing purposes at remarkably low rates and stands ready to assist the manufacturer in every reasonable way. The financial strength of Boston is widely known and ad- mitted. The per capita total assessed valuation of the city in 1907 was $2,159, the highest in the group of fifteen leading cities with a population of over 300,000. This figure is a significant index to the accumulated wealth of the community. The total banking capital for Massachusetts, as given in the Bank Commissioner's report for 1909, was $1,749,826,025.29, of which some $800,000,000, or only a little less than half, was in Boston banks. The city's bank clearances in 1909 reached the enormous total of $8,440,382,263. The increase in banking capital for the State as a whole during 1909 was over $72,000,000. But it is not necessary to go on piling up figures to show the unquestioned financial resources of Bos- ton. For half a century the city has been a mecca for promo- ters of sound enterprises of every kind, and the reservoirs of capital are kept full to overflowing by the splendid energy and thrift of the people. Local industry need never halt by reason of lack of capital. Such are the industrial conditions in Greater Boston. Such are the openings for manufacturers. Along the metropolitan water front, from Lynn on the north to Weymouth on the south, are vast reaches of tidewater lands and flats, easy of connection by rail, within ready access to abundant supplies of labor of every kind a region unsurpassed in the world f 217 1 New England as an arena for an almost limitless industrial development a development favored by every environing condition, created and natural. No discerning manufacturer, seeking a site for his factory, can afford to omit the Greater Boston district from his calculations. WELLESLEY HILLS STATION, ON THE BOSTON & ALBANY RAILROAD Industry and trade are the foundation stones of a city's growth and prosperity. Without them, no substantial prog- ress, no considerable and lasting achievement can be made. But business success, material welfare, a plentitude of the things which minister to the physical wants are, after all, only means to a higher end, and not ultimate ends themselves. Their existence makes possible the creation of all those in- strumentalities, physical and cultural, which render the life of the community richer, finer, more complete. They call into being a class of people who have won a competence, who en- joy some measure of relaxation from the fierce competitive struggle, and a leisure that enables them to devote themselves [ 218 ] The Industrial Boston to the pursuit of artistic and educational aims and to the building up of a better and more intelligent civic life. The community which has achieved this condition represents an advanced stage of development. Boston has probably gone further in this direction than any other city in the country. This very fact presupposes a high degree of industrial and commercial development. None but a wealthy city could be so beautiful as Boston. Within the metropolitan district can be found topography and physical surroundings to suit every taste. Hills, streams, valleys, and reaches of level expanse, afford a variety of scenery and a diversity of soil and site that provide a favor- ing environment for every type of the city's activities, and a matchless setting for the community as a whole. Among the low hills which approach the harbor from all sides are found residential sections unsurpassed for beauty and healthfulness in the world. On the flat lands along the Charles, the Mystic and the Neponset, and rimming the shores of the bay, are found the busy, prospering factories which every year turn hundreds of millions of dollars worth of varied products into the channels of world commerce. On the central peninsula, jutting boldly into the inner harbors, and throwing up the bluff eminence of Beacon Hill at its terminus, lies the heart of the whole region, the business core of Greater Boston. Nature surpassed herself in molding the physical environ- ment of Boston. The dwellers in the favored region have taken full advantage of her bounty. Located in the very heart of the city is the superb Charles River basin, affording, sum- mer and winter, manifold opportunities for outdoor recrea- tion. Within the metropolitan district ten thousand acres of open spaces, linked together by twenty -five miles of continu- ous boulevards, present the most extensive park system in the country, and the most accessible. The excellence of the high- ways about Boston, and for that matter throughout the State, is so widely known as to render comment unnecessary. The region is a paradise for those who drive either in carriages or automobiles. Vast metropolitan systems of water supply and [ 219 "1 New England sewage disposal also provide the people of the Greater Bos- ton district with a most efficient service in respect to these great public utilities so essential to comfortable and healthful living. But the charm of Boston is not alone found in the extent and excellence of its public works and in the superb environ- ment which Nature has provided. It must be sought, too, in the traditions, ideals and habits of the people, their attain- ments in education, art and general culture, and in the his- torical associations inseparably bound up with the life of the region. All these blend into one harmonious composite im- pression that might be termed the spirit or the personality of the city. This charm, this personality of Boston, is widely felt and acknowledged. It is indefinable, but intensely real. All the elements of the city's varied life compose it. Nor is it confined to any one class or section. Every one privileged to live within its influence feels it. Literally, it may be said that many people, for whom circumstances have shaped attractive opportunities elsewhere, choose to sacrifice those opportuni- ties for the sake of remaining in Boston. Wage-earners as well as those with salaries and independent incomes have a like experience. The artisan, the man who earns a moderate in- come by work with his hands, prefers to spend that income in Boston, because it yields him there more genuine pleasure and satisfaction in living than he can find elsewhere. 220 Boston: The Next Phase BOSTON is a city which has suffered much from acute defi- nition. Indeed, this has been carried so far that there are today properly two identical cities the Boston of fact and New England, and the Boston of fiction as known to the world. The second of these two is an honorable tradition surely ; but, as a matter of truth, it is great legend, and to be taken as such. To the public of this country, and even, in lesser degree, before the nations, Boston has been too much represented in the garb of her past. That garb has been put ^aside at home, and to wear it abroad is both affectation and fraud. Boston is no longer (even if it ever was) an American Athens; it is a complex modern city, less American, if the facts were known, than many a younger sister of the West ; a field of social experiment partly conscious, partly fortuitous, where certain racial, municipal, commercial and social dramas are enacting themselves for those who have the eye to see. It is no more accurate to speak of Boston as separate from New England than to speak of Boston without its suburbs. Just as a set of special conditions has wrought the city into a huge Suburbia, another set of conditions, peculiar to the locality, but sharing certain elements with all American cities, has wrought in the city a profound dependence on New Eng- land, not only for its superficial wealth, but for that ultimate wealth of any city or any nation its people. In years past Boston has drawn much of its worldly prosperity from the sea, but today, in a human sense, the strength of the hills is hers also. Of the thousands of dwellings that go to make the sum of the city's population, there are relatively few which do not send their roots down into the soil in Vermont, in New Hampshire, in Maine, or in the states south of this group. The water areas have classified Boston by districts with the utmost precision. In the center of all lies the business dis- [ 221 1 New England trict, not very large, but well concentrated, and minutely full of sharp little classifications and subdivisions of its own. At its rim lie three large areas, each with the population of a moderate-sized city; the North End, the West End and the South End. Across bridge and ferry are sprawled what may be termed the three " maritime " suburbs, Charles- town, East Boston and South Boston, which fall into a second group as naturally as the " ends " into a first. Outly- ing inland are the regions of Dorchester and Roxbury, origi- nally (and until not long since) towns, but now numerous cities, quite as distinctive of character as any of the other districts. To attempt a formula for this scattered and diverse population is therefore as brisk a generalization as plenty more of which literature has been convicted as absurd as the indictment of a nation. There remains one district so sharply defined, and of so unique a character, as often to pass- for the whole of Boston. The Back Bay and its people have, so far as such a thing is possible, the homogenity which is very convenient for definition. It is, indeed, largely the relic of the great tradition, venerable, dignified, and ancient with what antiquity a young country can claim. But it is no more exclusively representative of Boston today than the South End, and in certain important respects, not so much so ; and it is certainly nowhere nearly so representative of the Boston of tomorrow as the North End or the West End, for the simple reason that the most of the babies are coming from these more humble origins. The great tradition is not proportion- ately reproducing itself, and it behooves us therefore the more to understand the actual and the impending Boston. The North End is, in the nature of things, the crucible of the new citizen. It has been so for more than half a century the metal of one nation, the Irish, has passed through its re- fining fire, and the metal of a second, the Italian, is now pass- ing through in its turn. A third seems likely to follow before the region is claimed by the business district. Beginning as a residential section of the old Yankee families, the North End passed, after the Irish famine, to the Irish immigrants. Then came the Italians, able to live more cheaply than the Irish, f 222 1 Boston: The Next Phase and the district became theirs. But if the Jews can underbid them for the space before business grows from Washington street to the wharves, we shall see another change of owner- ship and another entire change of conditions. Quite as important, though less consecutive, has been the trend to the West End. Here, too, lived the " solid " families of the elder city, and the grave old red-brick houses up side streets tell, even through present squalor, the dignified life of that time. Hither came the lodging population, followed, in part, at first, by the immigrants. Today the quarter is divided among Jews, Italians, Irish, Russians, a few remain- ing Yankees, and a numerous population, of working people who live, for the most part singly, in the lodging houses on the northern slopes of Beacon Hill. Ultimately, of course, most of this area will be wanted for business, but at present the West End more resembles a thickly populated rabbit hutch where few but the politicians and a scattering of social workers feel certain of what they are dealing with, or how the dealing is to be done. Of all the quarters to be considered the West End is, in these matters, the most chaotic. When the growth of Boston, the city, was a vigorous and palpable movement by the middle of the last century, what now goes by the name of the South End came into being under special circumstances. Already Americans had begun to live, as it were, with one foot in Europe, and England, in part, in- structed us in the planning of a new city district. The South End was laid out with a generous width of street, with fre- quent well-shaded side streets, house fronts close to the walks, and, behind, an ample space for yard and garden. Every few blocks came a street widened to the admission of a park mod- eled after the " garden squares " of London. They were, and are, surrounded by ranks of high and handsome houses ; dig- nity and seclusion was theirs, and in the days when the South End was still the substantial residential district, the city had a distinction of domestic life which it wants today in its sprawling suburbs. The South End that was made a compact and accessible abode for the people who depend on Boston for their maintenance, and upon whom no less Boston de- [ 223 ] New England pended. It still permitted the people who made their wealth in Boston to continue residents in Boston. If this set of con- ditions had persisted there is reason to think that the city would be a social organism different from the present, and probably better. Certainly, it would have been a more urban community and probably it would have been better governed in the interval. But we have had in the South End the graphic spectacle of a city growing too fast for its strength. The " made land " traveled northward as far as Beacon street and the life of the quarter was drained over into the new houses in the Back Bay. The elevated railway came down Washington street and thundered over the quiet garden squares. There was a migration of the families who had built this district and for reasons which prevented similar families filling their pla*ces. Not all the South End went to the Back Bay by any means, but the set of the current was unmistak- able, and the end came. The South End became the abode of the lodging population who required housing within the five- cent fare limit, or, even nearer, within walking distance. Many of the fine old streets turned squalid ; others turned shabby ; some persisted in a career of frayed gentility ; and to this day there are families of the elder time still in the South End, unable or unwilling to leave their old homes, although all its neighboring associations are gone. The process in the North and West Ends was in a measure inevitable; but this last, undeniably a great loss to the city, might possibly have been avoided. If the " made-land " of Boston had been allowed to fill more gradually, there is reason to suppose that the part of the population which went to live in the suburbs might have been kept as residents of the city, and our whole community life might have been altered. Instead, the South End, a bleak waste of fine old houses fallen on poorer days, confronts Boston as one of the insistent ques- tions, on which only the mere beginnings have been made. What those beginnings are is the test of one of Boston's con- tributions to sociological study in the contemporary method. That the experimentation has not gone farther is due to the slowness of recognition that Boston is more than an over- Boston: The Next Phase grown big town or even a provincial city. Besides, this part of the community, as being less alien and more Yankee, is the least negligible. Here are the New Englanders from the various " up-states." It is here that the youngsters live when they begin to hew out homes and possibly fortunes in the city. No city can afford to neglect them, much less ignore them. Social work has made a beginning here ; but not more than a beginning. It is not too much to say that this inner zone of the city has, by various processes, brought into existence the outer zone already mentioned Charlestown, South Boston, and East Boston half suburb, half city, not desperately poor except in spots, certainly not blatantly rich; containing many good homes and many inferior; thus far a bulwark of good citizenship in serious matters but problematical as to the future. A group of social workers in the South End studying these three districts have hit upon the accurate definition," The Zone of Emergence." As the family dwelling in the inner belt nearer the city's center waxes in prosperity, it moves a step farther out. The Irish who flocked into the North End in the years following the famine were a thrifty lot in a few years more Charlestown was largely theirs and is today ; or others went to South Boston, which is now pre- dominantly Irish and relatively prosperous. The process is repeating itself with Jew and Italian. Already, the North End has sent a flourishing colony of Italians across to East Bos- ton, and the West End is continually " graduating " its more fortunate Jewish families to the outer boundaries of the city. East Boston, also, contains a large share of the seafaring men who make Boston their port; men of Maine, others na- tive to this State, and a prodigious admixture of Nova Scotians (it is estimated that nearly a quarter of the popula- tion of East Boston is either native or of Nova Scotian ex- traction). These three cities they are virtually cities are obviously not suited to the settlement work which lends a helping hand in the more congested districts. Neither is it well that these people should be left altogether to their own devices which, though honest, are likely also to be clumsy. [ 225 1 New England The South End House, which is making this study, is con- vinced that something must be evolved half-way between church and settlement house ; some type of institution which can be supported both from the outside and the inside, both by people of means and by the families actually enjoying the privileges of the institution. Just what this is to be is not yet certain. Its discovery, if made in Boston, will constitute one of the most important contributions of this city to social ex- perimentation, since these conditions, while presented to Bos- 'ton under certain special guises, are not peculiar to a single locality. They are manifesting themselves elsewhere, and any advance here means an advance all along the line. Completing the roster of city districts come Dorchester, Roxbury, West Roxbury, and Brighton, residential areas, practically suburbs, lying to the westward or southwest, now mainly the abode of the well-to-do or moderately well-to-do, and rather to be looked on as the support of social endeavor than its field. They partake, in a manner, of the general characteristics of Suburbia, the social, commercial, and polit- ical bearing of which are still to be considered. Such, then, in outline is the composition of the Boston of today, and any one attempting to define it in accordance with the terms of the old " literary legend " will either be obliged to drop all of the city except the Back Bay, or else be con- victed of ignorance and slap-dash judgments. Such an enor- mous mass of rubbish has been written about the old notion that it seemed, in a serious consideration of the city that is and is to be, necessary and important to understand the true elements of the community. In certain of the institutions of the city, nevertheless, abide the character of that elder Boston, forethoughtful, fair, con- scientious, mindful of man's duty to himself here and here- after. Sunday is still a Sabbath, as the complete desertion of the business streets on that day will attest ; a score of years ago the city drove out its gamblers ; during the past year the Police Department issued a record of the enforcement of the laws against sexual immorality which made edifying reading. As long as certain fundamental defects persist in modern so- \ 226 1 Boston: The Next Phase ciety, the police will always be at war with a vice as old as monogamy and older, but the police of Boston have, at least, had no resort to the usual compromises, whether of license, seg- regation, or official blindness. In the crusade against Tuber- culosis, Boston has been in the van ; has made, and is making, contributions to the general sum of our knowledge of methods for controlling and checking the disease that cannot be profit- ably neglected by other cities. Numerous small signs tell the observant stranger that there is, after all, a highly sensitized public conscience at work, and if these failed, he would need but to consult the list of societies and institutions in the city directory to note the enormous body of benevolent work which is being carried on each year by bequest, endowment, or cooperation. Forgetting the " legend " altogether, we may say that scores of years amounting to two centuries of dwelling on the serious aspects of things have bred in the reflecting (and the will-making) part of the population, an abiding sense of responsibility to fellow-men which is today legible in the imposing brick and mortar of hundreds (it is said advisedly) of beneficent institutions. Since it is obviously out of the question to trace the origins and sketch the features even of a small proportion of these, let certain of the more characteristic and those principally far- reaching of influence and scope be chosen as representative. When American cities are named in the order of their con- tributions to public improvement, Boston's claim to mention is the system of public parks. Western cities which have grown too fast for their beauty, like young boys long in the leg and lean in the shoulder, have begun to think and talk of planning boulevard, street, square, and vista. The prospectus pamphlets which, notably, St. Louis and Chicago have issued, contain, by way of proof that these results exist outside of the brain of a landscape architect, descriptions or photo- graphs of the Metropolitan Park system of Massachusetts. It is doubtful whether the project originated in Massachu- setts. Similar schemes for beautifying cities have been prac- ticed abroad. These experiments are a matter of general knowledge and such local applications are more generally a [ 227 1 New England matter of collective rather than individual effort. It is better so one-man institutions rarely have the vitality that be- longs to a public impulse. The originality here consisted in the ability to foresee the value and need of such reservations. Their purpose was avowedly benevolent " to make available to the inhabitants open spaces for exercise and recreation." In all such undertakings there is an issue between esthetics and ethics ; whether the institution shall be conducted for the sake of public beauty or public welfare. The monarchs of Europe became landscape gardeners for the sake of esthetics ; they gardened their private grounds which, in the due course of time and democracy, became available for the pleasure of their subjects. But in the Metropolitan Park system, public welfare was the issue at the start. Here was another contri- bution of Massachusetts to the democratic ideal. Esthetics were secondary to ethics ; the good of the many was the end, and beauty was the means. Here, we are quite justified in say- ing, the pure brew of the New England " conscience " turned " social consciousness " is seen at work. We were only justi- fied in this expenditure of public money if the public itself was chiefly to benefit, whereas many a European monarch of today would feel that merely to adorn capital and glorify himself is a justifiable end in itself. These forces and impulses are larger than the individuals they animate. It is not to be supposed that the discreet and able gentlemen who originated and executed the scheme of metropolitan parks were con- scious of serving a national destiny, or even of complying with the spirit of a local tradition, for great historical move- ments can frequently be traced to personal whim. But this does not belittle the magnitude of the forces in operation or discredit their authority. Benevolence can overreach itself, nullifying much of its helpfulness by duplication, as two clergymen, each more bent on saving a man's soul his own way than concerned that the soul should be saved. Some distance back the multiplica- tion of charities in Boston required some safeguard against duplication, unprofitable rivalry, and the opportunities for fraud among applicants. The Associated Charities of Boston, [ 228 ] Boston: The Next Phase dating to 1881, are at once an institution characteristic of the thrift and thoroughness of the community and one which has a beneficial influence on the corresponding situation in other cities. The nature of the organization is easily explained by its " objects " thus formally stated: " To secure the concurrent and harmonious action of the different charities in Boston, in order " To raise the needy above need of relief, prevent begging and imposition, and diminish pauperism ; " To encourage thrift, self-dependence, and industry through friendly intercourse; " To prevent children from growing up paupers." Methods are briefly indicated. A provision that the case of every applicant for relief shall be thoroughly investigated ; another for a means of confidential exchange of information between the Overseers of the Poor, charitable societies and agencies and benevolent individuals ; and a stipulation to make all relief conditional upon good conduct and progress. Employment is, wherever possible, to be offered instead of alms, and poor families are to have the counsel of a friendly visitor. This able formulation of theory and method has served other cities as well as it has served Boston. Its passive influence has been as salutary as its active undertakings. Its organization of the city into districts is the story with the moral. The Boston institutions chosen for this study have been selected for their bearing on the only real and ultimate wealth of a city its human resources. This is, oddly, a recent dis- covery; and with all the multitude of Boston's social institu- tions, of which only a few examples can be treated for the present purpose, this fundamental fact has been grasped but vaguely. A distinguished lawyer, speaking in behalf of a re- cent social movement in the city, pointed out that for genera- tions the Yankee genius has been exerted on the mechanical device and the material product on the apparatus of living, not on life. We now come to the point where we must leave mechanisms for a season and attempt to perfect our human institutions. It is a large order, and Boston has barely begun. New England Still, if, forgetting the " legend " and recognizing the char- acter of the city as it is, we can only be sure that Boston has begun, the beginning, as the Greeks say, is half of the whole. Such an attempt has been made by the Associated Charities ; webbing the city with the skein of their district organiza- tions, sixteen of them, in the quarters where most badly needed. The territory is vast, and the population mounts into the hundreds of thousands. It is idle and dishonest to pretend that the Associated Charities reach more than a small per- centage of the deserving poor. Intimacy with any single dis- trict included in the organization is information of that. The point is, that by this federation and systematized method of work, the same amount of effort is made to go many times as far. This is the solid contribution of this institution. Most obvious of any public relation is that between prop- erty owner and paid guard. For so much I pay a man to watch over my goods. Now police establishment is only possi- ble in a highly organized and well criticised state of society. The folly and danger of a large standing army was perfectly recognized in medieval times. But sentry duty is as old as civilization. As a result we take our police for granted, espe- cially in Boston. The reasons will bear inspection. " The governor," says an act of the Massachusetts legisla- ture, " shall, with the advice and consent of the council, ap- point a single police commissioner for the city of Boston." Five years is his term of office ; his annual salary of six thou- sand dollars is a safe figure in many ways. It is not enough to excite the cupidity of wealth, and it enables a man of moder- ate means to make the private sacrifices necessary for per- forming the duties of this office. All expenses of the depart- ment maintenance of buildings, pay of police, and of em- ployes are, of course, borne by the city of Boston upon the requisition of the commissioner. The commissioner's rec- ords must be open at all times to the inspection of the gov- ernor and the mayor of the city. He is answerable ; but elec- tions come and elections go, while the department of police remains firm. Not so many years ago the social settlement was to save [ 230 ] Boston: The Next Phase us. We put our faith in it, and also a generous amount of our money. We tossed our youth into it and bade our clergy fol- low. Mistakes were made and inspirations were put to work. Here and there, what we were pleased to regard as miracles were wrought. Today we are less delirious about settlements, and more intelligent. Certain things they can do for a neigh- borhood as no other agency ; other things they cannot do. Neither can they do the same services for different districts. In Boston there is reason to suppose that all the settlement houses that are to be established for the present are already in existence. The North End has them, and the West End. They are in the South End, and in the quasi-suburbs. Sixteen houses are included in the working federation of the groups. The settlements are cited for a special reason. They are by no means peculiar to Boston, and probably they have reached a higher development in New York and Chicago, where more was at stake. But they deal with conditions common to all large cities. What is perfected here can be adopted elsewhere; and, be it remembered, when they began we were so sure the thing had been found. We see now that it will not be found at a single strike, in the nugget, but must be laboriously panned which applies to all human ad- vance. And the settlements are now arriving at a crucial point which is useful to record. They are relatively where the charities were in 1881, and whither those charities are again returning. They want federation an association for sup- port and activity more intimate and more effectual than that of the present. They are waiting, they say, for an adequate response from the public. But such things have to be fought for. At present, each is struggling for its individual support from its individual clientele. Let them make common cause; let them let it appear, and the support will come of itself. People are not so slow to catch a drift, if it is genuine, and they are mostly grateful for any plausible project that will satisfy their cravings to render a visible and concrete benefit to their fellows. This is important, and it is necessary, for it is the logical next step of a force which a modern city can- not afford to leave out of its reckoning. The advance is in f 231 J New England the main direction that of organization. And organization in the larger sense is precisely the task which confronts the shift- ing, changing, renewing, altering city of Boston as it is today. The lesson, the threat, the promise of the future are all in those shabbily genteel streets of the South End. The houses have style and character; feature is theirs, and dignity. They were built and lived in once by people of means and discrimi- nation. City or not, it was a neighborly place; families in- terchanged visits and married son to daughter. In the same period Charlestown, East Boston, and South Boston had de- veloped a similar social distinction. It was not a season of aristocracy but of reputable commonwealth the very per- sonification of the Massachusetts or shall we say the New England ? idea. If that life had continued as it began, the tone and the administration of Boston affairs would be very different today. We would be an urban community instead of a suburban. The householders of the city would still have their country seats for summer occupancy, and their votes in Boston. Whither they scattered when the neighborhood slump began is part common knowledge and the rest an easy guess. A relatively small proportion migrated into the Back Bay. A much larger proportion sought the suburbs, put their faith in transportation which the railroads pres- ently found it profitable to fulfill, and ceased to be voting members of the Boston community. They still make their money in Boston, and in Boston spend it, but they sleep and vote outside, in one of the two score of bedrooms to the city. Their interests, their conversation, their aspirations, their ideals and their manners are suburban ; and the inj ustice of it is that they are not the ones to suffer for it. In many ways they are better off. Those who pay are, as usual, and by the ines- capable logic of facts, the poor who remain in the city. Ulti- mately, of course, unless the metropolitan district fuses into a single community, this suburban selfishness is bound to be its own defeat, since the house is divided against itself. 232 Transportation TRANSPORTATION, itself one of the industries, has from crude beginnings spread its veins and arteries over wide areas, making possible the development of manufacturing and agriculture, and increasing real estate values in natu- rally advantageous but otherwise impossible localities. Its prime requisites are safety, speed, and a capacity to grow with complex industrial development while maintaining ade- quate connections between the manifold centers which special- ize in various forms of production. It must consist of main lines connecting all the important points, and sufficient feed- ing lines running into sparsely settled districts. Between the railroads, the harbors, and the navigable rivers, adequate connections must always be maintained, to enable speedy and economical interchange of freight ; also for the advantageous interchange of traffic between the lines operated by different companies. From the large cities as radial centers there must run in every direction transportation lines for distri- bution of the various products of different sections. Boston is the transportation center of New England, and from that point radiate the most important water and rail- road lines. Within a fifty-mile radius of Boston there is a greater railroad mileage, per square mile and per capita, than within any other fifty-mile radius in the world. Through- out the entire southern section of New England, which is cov- ered with a close network of railroads with branches running in every direction, are found manufacturing industries of every description, many of them surpassing in their lines any in the world in quantity and quality of output. This is not the result of a preconceived plan on the part of either the manufacturers or the transportation companies. Nature en- dowed this section with abundant waterpowers and fertile lands, and gradually, as these were harnessed and developed f 233 1 New England and small industries began to grow and prosper, transporta- tion took on larger life and developed hand in hand with a mighty industrial growth that has never been equaled in the history of any country. As the demands for the products of these mills and shops and lands grew, and new markets were opened in the West and South, it became necessary to find means for handling goods and produce quickly and econom- ically. It was then that the railroads pushed outside and spur tracks to deliver at the doors of the factories their raw mate- rials and take away the finished product, and built stations in the agricultural districts. Neither transportation systems nor the industries of New England have yet reached the height of their development. They are at the threshold of the possibilities which their natural location has placed within their power. This is made evident in the abundant waterpowers that have not yet been utilized, and the large undeveloped areas of land that lie along the trunk lines of the railroads, possessing great diversity of natural resources and capable of great produc- tivity. There is however a weak link in this chain of indus- trial and commercial development. The farmer has failed to take advantage, to the extent that the manufacturer has, of the inventive genius of man in creating facilities for taking to market the products of his land and labor. The present facilities in New England for carrying farm produce to its markets, the best in the world, should awaken a new interest in the minds of those seeking to invest capital and skill where results are sure to prove commensurate with intelligent effort. As early as 1835 we find transportation services adver- tised. This was in the days of the stage coach. Now, with all the modern forms of travel, we find a department maintained by every passenger-carrying company for acquainting the traveler or pleasure-seeker with the different routes of travel and the suitable localities in the mountains or at the seashore for summer outings, and for hunting and fishing in the for- ests and lakes of the northern states. This service also ex- tends to the business departments, rendering assistance to corporations desirous of locating factories, with the ability f 234 1 Transportation to furnish information concerning the special advantages that are to be found in the different localities along their lines. The " barren and rockbound " idea, that has for gen- erations furnished jests for the scoffer and despairing songs for the bard, has in this way been dealt a death blow by the transportation companies, to whose activities unmistakable signs attest that the tide has definitely turned toward New England's undeveloped opportunities. Going back to the early period of the settlement of New England, which the historians tell us teems with traditions of hardships endured in the effort for a mere existence, we find the crudest possible means of transportation. First of all was the boat, by mean.s of which the early pioneers spread out and formed settlements along the coasts and rivers. Arti- sans for the most part, wherever they settled they soon har- nessed the waterpowers for manufacturing, and then came the demand for other channels of distribution. The old road- ways with their swinging gates covered with pikes, consti- tuted the first inland ways, or " turnpikes," over which horse- drawn vehicles of the crudest sort were slowly moved. A demand for any essential to the progress of civilization and human advancement has never yet failed to be met. So at this time, when development of the natural resources of the in- terior seemed advantageous to the growth of the country and the progress of the people, and inland channels for more rapid transportation of the products of the new industries that were beginning to specialize were demanded, the steam railroad came to meet the need. The transportation problem of New England is different from that of any other section of the United States, or any other country in the world. It grew as the New England towns grew, as the streets of Boston grew. It grew with the development of the railroad idea and with the growth of the section haltingly, spasmodically, without plan for the present or provision for the future. At the very first there were no railroads, of course. There were only the stage coaches for passengers and the water routes and teams for freight. When the railroads came their progress was very f 235 1 Transportation timid. They were built here a few miles and there a few miles, with no idea of ultimate extent or possible consolidation. The growth of the railroad idea and the growth of the country were more or less synchronous, and the development was not unlike the development of business needing the transporta- tion services of railroads. The great change came with the consolidation of several independent lines into what was the germ of the great system that now serves almost the whole of New England, the New York, New Haven & Hartford company. This was in 1873. Then there was the Boston & Maine, which had gathered in several independent lines, and was preparing to take over several more important ones. The period beginning about that time saw the railroads of New England enter upon the most strenuous phase of their existence. The systems were big in name and in money-making power, but their trackage and equipment was inadequate, and steadily became more inadequate. " In compact New England the intensive character of its development had impeded the improvement of transportation facilities along modern lines. The dense population, socially and industrially the most highly organized in the country, and demanding a correspondingly efficient service, was, by very reason of its advanced standing, long compelled to put up with a low-grade service. This was because of the many difficulties and the excessive costs involved. In one respect, however, the ground was prepared for the change. The process of consoli- dation and unification were well-nigh complete." * In 1840 there were only 426 miles of railroad in New Eng- land. The principal lines were those running from Boston to Worcester, Providence, and Lowell. In ten years there had been an increase to nearly 3,000 miles. New lines and con- solidations have rapidly followed. In Massachusetts alone are carried nearly 150,000,000 passengers a year, while the freight hauled approximates 50,000,000 tons. With the growth of the railroad there came rapid and important changes in some of the old centers of population. New and 1 This passage, and several others quoted in this chapter, is from an article by Mr. Sylvester Baxter, published in The Outlook. \ 237 1 New England enterprising cities sprang up in what had been isolated locali- ties. Previous to this there had been in New England no in- land towns of over 4,500 population. In Worcester we now have the largest inland city in the world, and many other cities and large towns have grown to large proportions as the result of railroad extension. The growth of these inland towns has helped to develop the surrounding farming terri- tory by bringing excellent markets for their products within easy reach of the farms. The period of greatest development of the railroad was between 1830 and 1850. Since then it has practically superceded all other forms of transportation. At about the time some of the great transcontinental rail- roads were being planned and built, and the West was being considered with reference to its potential as well as its pres- ent needs, the railroad problem in New England had assumed its most perplexing and difficult phase. What had been done had not been properly planned with reference either to the future of the section or of the railroads. The tracks and the equipment were old in model and not adequate for the traffic then offering. The industrial conception of railroads had radically changed since these were built, and there had been such improvement in building and operation as to make them out of date and incapable of performing the service demanded of them. The separate roads had, many of them, been pros- perous, and the terms of consolidation or lease required that the rate of earnings be maintained. The needs of the section, though increasing, were not to be closely estimated. Rail- roading had not become the finished science it is now, and financial interests were neither able nor willing to advance the enormous sums of money they now unhesitatingly fur- nish. The new managers of the augmented companies had be- fore them a series of very stiff problems. It happens that the development of transportation in New England has fallen largely to the initiative of the New Haven company. While the Boston & Maine has become, through consolidation and leases, a great system, it has been operated upon a different plan than the New Haven, partly because of inherent difficul- ties, onerous financial burdens, and less rapid growth of the f 238 1 Transportation section it served, and partly because of the different methods of its managers. " At that time the New Haven had already become a big consolidated system. ' Big ' well characterizes a New England railway operating more than four thousand miles of track. Considering density of population served, intensity of traffic, frequency of train movements, and volume of business, this is the equivalent of at least a sixteen-thousand-mile system beyond the Mississippi. The New Haven holds the record among American railways for the largest dividends declared consecutively through a long period dating from the or- ganization of the company as the New York, New Haven & Hartford in 1873. Consequently the inertia of 'Let well enough alone ! ' had been difficult to overcome, but it was seen that not to develop the traffic possibilities of the property by liberal expenditures backed by the highest engineering skill and administrative ability would mean atrophy. In 1903 the capital stock was $70,897,300. The stockholders had voted an increase to $77,000,000. Later on, the full $100,000,000 legislatively authorized was issued. And in less than six years $116,288,000 was spent for improvements. It is doubtful if the head of any great railway has ever before faced such a diversity of transportation problems as became the task of Mr. Mellen when he came back to the New Haven: Vast re- construction in tracks and terminals ; enormous additions to the equipment ; readj usting relationships with the trunk lines, and formulating new policies in behalf of New England, as well as strengthening his company's own position as a na- tional factor in transportation ; developing a broad policy in the local field occupied by the trolley-line services ; improv- ing and extending the company's marine lines ; opening up new connections with the systems beyond the Hudson ; ener- getically dealing with coal-carrying agencies to safeguard the fuel-supply services vital to New England's industries ; great terminal improvements in New York and elsewhere ; electri- fication on a scale that meant revolution in motive power con- ditions. The New Haven is much more than a railway com- pany. In marine transportation it does a large and profitable [ 239 1 New England business. It practically controls the trolley services in Con- necticut and Rhode Island. Through the charter rights of ac- quired street-railway properties in Connecticut it inciden- tally supplies electricity and gas for light, heat, and power. New York City locally constitutes the greatest market for New England industries and is also a chief gateway to the markets west and south. This circumstance has developed an extraordinarily expeditious freight service. A piece of leather one day converted into shoes in a New England factory may the next day take its place on the shelf of the New York retailer." More than $116,000,000 has already been expended for improvements on the system, not including $43,268,000 for new equipment, and the rest of the great sum for improve- ments that make great economies in operation possible, and that enable the road to handle the business offered and pro- vide in an adequate manner for the future. Perhaps there has never been a work of reorganization of this magnitude ac- complished in the history of American railroading. A study of its progress and scope gives a better idea of the greatness of New England, and its rate of growth, than almost any other method that can be suggested, and that is the excuse for specifying some of the things done by the New Haven since 1903, which is not so very long ago. It may also be well to suggest that this same policy and vigorous method is soon to be applied to the Boston & Maine lines, and the re- sults will probably be as beneficent for the northern portion of New England as they are shown to be for the southern. There are two natural divisions of the railroads of New England, despite the fact of the one control: those running south of Boston and those running north of Boston. Both systems connect with the West direct, and also with the ex- port and import shipping traffic through Boston harbor. The interchange of freight between the two divisions is as yet comparatively small, but the tendency is toward a rapid in- crease, and in time it will become necessary to secure a more economical way of handling traffic when en route from the south or north to a point beyond Boston. Of the roads run- [ 240 1 Transportation ning south, the New York, New Haven & Hartford has a greater concentration of passenger traffic than any railroad in the United States. It covers a section admirably adapted for manufacturing interests. Nearly every product that can be mentioned is manufactured within its limits. The system of railroads running north from Boston also reaches the West direct. The trunk line of the Boston & Maine along the coast of Massachusetts and New Hampshire joins the Maine Central at Portland. Another trunk line runs further inland and furnishes the commercial avenue for sev- eral important manufacturing towns, and also has a terminus at Portland. A third trunk line along the Merrimac val- ley serves several cities and large towns famous for their tex- tile industries. Over this line connections can be made with the Grand Trunk for Canada and the Northwest. Throughout all of the three northern states of New England, and many of them along the lines of railroads, are extraordinary water- powers which if utilized would revolutionize transportation and industry. Vermont, rich in natural resources and excelling in soil- produced wealth, has two trunk lines of railroad running north and south its entire length. These furnish channels for marketing its marble, granite, slate, and limestone. It is in direct connection with Boston and the big cities of the West. The farming districts in Vermont are in many instances a greater distance from shipping points than in the states lying south of it, and consequently there is less truck farming and market gardening. There are however excellent oppor- tunities, for fruit growing and potato raising, and with good railroad facilities, manufacturing and agriculture in these sections of waterpowers and fertile soil would produce liberal reward for capital and enterprise. Eleven trunk and branch lines of the Boston & Maine rail- road enter New Hampshire from the south, and there are several transverse branch lines in the eastern and central sec- tions of the State. The delightful summer climate and scenery of the White mountains bring a multitude of summer visit- ors, who constitute an important part of the traffic of the [ 241 ] New England roads extending north. The Mt. Washington railroad, from the base to the summit of Mt. Washington, a distance of about four miles and attaining an altitude of over 6000 feet, is one of the most remarkable railroad constructions in the world. There are large areas in the central portion of this State at such distances from railroads as to leave fertile soils and magnificent waterpowers without means for proper de- velopment. Live transportation enterprises could open up enticing prospects for manufacturing and agriculture in these now isolated sections. From Portland the Maine Central railroad operates lines along the Androscoggin and Penobscot rivers. The Somerset river and Rangeley lakes railroads extend into the Rangeley and Moosehead lake regions, and connect with the Canadian Pacific. Through the central portion of the State, and reach- ing far up into the lumber regions, and on to connect with the Intercolonial railway in Canada is the Bangor and Aroos- took railroad. Some of the largest lumber mills in the world are in this section, and these make a great amount of bulky freight. A single mill in nine months shipped 26,000,000 feet of long lumber, 4,000,000 laths, 5,500,000 clapboards, be- sides thousands of cords of pulp wood. In the Aroostook re- gion potato raising is an important industry. Twenty-nine and a quarter million bushels, raised on 130,000 acres, were shipped from there in a single season. There is an immense traffic over these roads in summer, when multitudes from all over the country seek this playground of America with its charming scenery and unequaled sporting grounds. This whole north country abounds in natural resources that have scarcely been touched, and it awaits avenues of transporta- tion and industrial activity to turn what is now a wilderness into a vast community teejning with life and enterprise. To encourage greater activity in agricultural enterprises the Boston & Maine railroad first adopted a plan to operate educational farming trains. This idea originated in the West and has undoubtedly been of great benefit to farmers in the production of better crops, to the railroads in increased traffic, and to the public in general in enabling them to ob- [ 242 ]