We do not have to journey far over the earth to learn that there are many lands where the fields are not fruitful, and yet such lands are often rich and prosperous. How can this be if the soil is so necessary? Let us go to New England and ask the people living there if they can tell us why rich people sometimes inhabit lands which do not raise enough for them to eat.
H. W. Fairbanks
These jagged rocks are formed of once molten lava. By and by they will crumble and be covered with a layer of soil.
Much of New England is hilly and has a poor, rocky soil. The farmers who first settled there toiled hard, working early and late, and yet got few of the comforts of life. Most of the farmers did not know how to improve the soil or even to keep it in as good condition as it was when they first cleared away the forests and began cultivating it; so many left their farms to seek a living elsewhere. There are now many abandoned farms that are growing up to forests again.
In spite of this poor land, the New England states form one of the most wealthy and prosperous parts of our country. There are many great cities containing hundreds of thousands of people in this territory. The inhabitants enjoy luxuries of every kind sent from all parts of the world. The farmers of New England certainly do not produce this wealth from their rocky soil. Where, then, does it come from?
Industries of almost every sort except farming are carried on in the cities of New England. All these people have to be fed and the farms of this region would hardly support them even if the soil were very productive. So much food is needed every day that if the supply were cut off for only a short time, there would be great suffering.
Somewhere there must be farmers at work raising food supplies for the people of the great cities. The many beautiful and wonderful things made by the workers in the cities must be exchanged with the farmers for the real necessities of life.
Somewhere there must be vast fertile fields which produce much more than their owners require. We will journey westward to the prairies of the Mississippi Valley. Here for hundreds of miles we can see hardly anything but fields of waving wheat and corn. Here are hundreds of granaries and flour mills. Upon the rivers and lakes there are many boats, and upon the land railroads, all carrying flour and other farm products to feed the people of New England. Here are great stock ranches with thousands of cattle and hogs, which, when fattened upon the grain, are also shipped to New England to help feed the people there.
