Maine Misadventure

There are several long term trends that are making parts of Maine, and
parts of other states in the northern U.S. have more wilderness.

In the case of Maine, much of the state used to support a small farm
economy when the U.S. was much more agrarian than it is now. Now in
most of Maine, smaller farms are not economically productive (with the
exception of Aroostook County in the northeast of the state where
potato farms predominate). Over the past hundred years, much of
interior Maine that used to be farmland has reverted back to woods.

At the same time, over the last 40 years or so the population of the
state has consolidated toward coast, toward the southwest, and toward
urban areas, such that there are towns throughout Maine that are slowly
dimming and blinking out. Close to where I will be living there is one
town that no longer exists as a coporate entity, Centerville, and two
others that are trying to go in that direction, Whitneyville, and
Cooper (on Cathance Lake) Deorganization means lower taxes for these
towns on the brink. When deorganization succeeds, local control of the
community is given up. This ultimately furthers the trend toward
forested land.

Finally, much of the land in Maine is owned by international timber
companies. Currently they are managing much of the land for pulp
production, and letting forests regrow. If you didn't know better you
might assume much of the land is preserved.

The town where I am buying a house once had about 2500 people and was
an industrial center for cutting wood (thorough water power). Now the
mills are gone, along with the dams (thank goodness). If you didn't
know the history of the town it would be hard to imagine how industrial
the town was in the past.

That is what I meant.

Memphis Jim wrote:
There are several long term trends that are making parts of Maine, and
parts of other states in the northern U.S. have more wilderness.

In the case of Maine, much of the state used to support a small farm
economy when the U.S. was much more agrarian than it is now.


Thanks, your and Greg's explanation make sense. For some stupid reason,
I assumed that since our Country's population is growing, all areas of
the Country would have population increases. The area I live in and the
areas I most visit all are places with considerable growth and the
issues are dealing with this growth while still retaining the open space
that makes the areas desirable. Although ranching isn't profitable for
smaller operations (and VERY difficult even for big ones), the land
they're on is very valuable and many ranches get sold and developed into
"gentleman ranchettes". Thankfully the majority of the mountainous areas
in CO, NM, WY, MT, and UT are National Forests. Hopefully they'll stay
that way.

Willi

Willi wrote:
Memphis Jim wrote:

There are several long term trends that are making parts of Maine, and
parts of other states in the northern U.S. have more wilderness.

In the case of Maine, much of the state used to support a small farm
economy when the U.S. was much more agrarian than it is now.



Thanks, your and Greg's explanation make sense. For some stupid reason,
I assumed that since our Country's population is growing, all areas of
the Country would have population increases.

Check out:

http://www.patagonia.com/enviro/repo...o_common.shtml

--
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

rw wrote:
Willi wrote:

Memphis Jim wrote:

There are several long term trends that are making parts of Maine, and
parts of other states in the northern U.S. have more wilderness.

In the case of Maine, much of the state used to support a small farm
economy when the U.S. was much more agrarian than it is now.




Thanks, your and Greg's explanation make sense. For some stupid reason,
I assumed that since our Country's population is growing, all areas of
the Country would have population increases.


Check out:

http://www.patagonia.com/enviro/repo...o_common.shtml



That's cool! I was aware of some of this in CO and WY but I had no idea
of the extent of it. An incredibly ambitious project. I can't imagine
our government getting involved in something like that (no matter what
party is in office). That's what makes the Nature's Conservancy so
effective, they're able to operate outside of the political system.

Willi

On Sat, 18 Mar 2006 11:20:21 -0700, Willi
wrote:

Memphis Jim wrote:
There are several long term trends that are making parts of Maine, and
parts of other states in the northern U.S. have more wilderness.

In the case of Maine, much of the state used to support a small farm
economy when the U.S. was much more agrarian than it is now.


Thanks, your and Greg's explanation make sense. For some stupid reason,
I assumed that since our Country's population is growing, all areas of
the Country would have population increases. The area I live in and the
areas I most visit all are places with considerable growth and the
issues are dealing with this growth while still retaining the open space
that makes the areas desirable. Although ranching isn't profitable for
smaller operations (and VERY difficult even for big ones), the land
they're on is very valuable and many ranches get sold and developed into
"gentleman ranchettes". Thankfully the majority of the mountainous areas
in CO, NM, WY, MT, and UT are National Forests. Hopefully they'll stay
that way.

Willi

Helps if the land is too lousy to grow profitable crops and too far
from cities and industrial areas to use as homes. Much of what keeps
Northern WI, MN, and the U.P of Michigan going as far as the people
who live there are concerned are tourists and summer people. If not
for the tourists and summer people, a lot more of it would go back to
trees and wild than already has.

In northern MN some of our old pit mines are being turned into fishing
lakes, as the mining business is almost all gone. The Boundary Waters
Canoe Area has been around a long time. 'Useless' land turned to a
tourist bonanza of a mild sort. Fortunately a lot of the land was
turned into state parks and state or national forests during the early
exodus from the area, so it'll stay forests. They snapped them up
before 'the cabin up north' got into huge popularity again.
--

r.bc: vixen
Speaker to squirrels, willow watcher, etc..
Often taunted by trout. Almost entirely harmless.
Really.

"Memphis Jim" wrote in message
oups.com...
There are several long term trends that are making parts of Maine, and
parts of other states in the northern U.S. have more wilderness.

In the case of Maine, much of the state used to support a small farm
economy when the U.S. was much more agrarian than it is now. Now in
most of Maine, smaller farms are not economically productive (with the
exception of Aroostook County in the northeast of the state where
potato farms predominate). Over the past hundred years, much of
interior Maine that used to be farmland has reverted back to woods.

At the same time, over the last 40 years or so the population of the
state has consolidated toward coast, toward the southwest, and toward
urban areas, such that there are towns throughout Maine that are slowly
dimming and blinking out. Close to where I will be living there is one
town that no longer exists as a coporate entity, Centerville, and two
others that are trying to go in that direction, Whitneyville, and
Cooper (on Cathance Lake) Deorganization means lower taxes for these
towns on the brink. When deorganization succeeds, local control of the
community is given up. This ultimately furthers the trend toward
forested land.

Finally, much of the land in Maine is owned by international timber
companies. Currently they are managing much of the land for pulp
production, and letting forests regrow. If you didn't know better you
might assume much of the land is preserved.

The town where I am buying a house once had about 2500 people and was
an industrial center for cutting wood (thorough water power). Now the
mills are gone, along with the dams (thank goodness). If you didn't
know the history of the town it would be hard to imagine how industrial
the town was in the past.

That is what I meant.


What town is that where you are buying? It sounds like something east of
Lincoln...out by the lakes on the Airline. I grew up in Bradford, a small
town in central Maine that matches your description perfectly. Back at the
turn of the last century, the town had something like 2000 residents, a
mill, several town centers, a movie theatre, and lots of activity. When I
left in the late 70s, the entire Bradford/North Bradford/Bradford Center
region had only about 600 residents, and falling, and the woods (my regular
haunts) had many many overgrown foundations and reclaimed homesteads. You'd
know you were in one when you were walking in the woods and you stumbled
onto an apple tree grove, found rhubarb and raspberries growing in patches,
and a little poking around inevitably turned up an old collapsed foundation,
a well (don't fall in), and some rusted farm machinery tangled in the
grasses. Often, 50+ year old trees were growing from the foundation, and
there was little or no trace of the access road left. A little sleuthing
would show how the current woods road or skidder trail network used to be a
main road across the region, and how old anonymous sections of stone wall
that were deep in the forest were once roadside features, made by people
long ago whose memories had faded along with the landscape they created.
More than once, I'd find an old cemetary the did not appear on any maps, and
was barely recognizable.

I used to wonder what those folks would think if they saw the region today.
What was, to them, a small dirt access road out back became the main paved
highway through town. The old town center, with its church, lumberyard,
store and even railway station is now a lost ruin deep in the woods, miles
from any road or trail, with only 4-legged visitors.

--riverman

"riverman" wrote in message ...

...When I left in the late 70s, the entire Bradford/North
Bradford/Bradford Center region had only about 600 residents, and falling,
and the woods (my regular haunts) had many many overgrown foundations and
reclaimed homesteads. You'd know you were in one when you were walking in
the woods and you stumbled onto an apple tree grove, found rhubarb and
raspberries growing in patches, and a little poking around inevitably
turned up an old collapsed foundation, a well (don't fall in), and some
rusted farm machinery tangled in the grasses. Often, 50+ year old trees
were growing from the foundation, and there was little or no trace of the
access road left. A little sleuthing would show how the current woods road
or skidder trail network used to be a main road across the region, and how
old anonymous sections of stone wall that were deep in the forest were
once roadside features, made by people long ago whose memories had faded
along with the landscape they created. More than once, I'd find an old
cemetary the did not appear on any maps, and was barely recognizable.

I used to wonder what those folks would think if they saw the region
today. What was, to them, a small dirt access road out back became the
main paved highway through town. The old town center, with its church,
lumberyard, store and even railway station is now a lost ruin deep in the
woods, miles from any road or trail, with only 4-legged visitors.

Back in those same late 70s and into the early 80s I knew a number of people
who were involved in the nascent (and apparently stillborn) "back to the
earth" movement. They rented or, in a few cases, bought old farm houses
here in southeast Wisconsin and to one degree or another tried to make at
least a part of their living off the land. Virtually all of them had a
woodlot on or adjacent to their property, and I used to spend a lot of time
exploring in them. I found many of the same kinds of tantalizing clues to
former land use practices you described above and, more often than not, was
left wondering what they might mean. Imagine my delight to find a book
that was all about finding and interpreting those clues. I hadn't thought
about "Reading the Landscape of America" by May Theilgaard Watts, for some
time. Googling it just now, I guessed that it would be long out of print
and difficult to find. Not so. Looks like it was reissued in 1999. Good
thing. Good book:

http://home.att.net/~naturebooks/rtla1.html

Wolfgang

"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...

"riverman" wrote in message
...

...When I left in the late 70s, the entire Bradford/North
Bradford/Bradford Center region had only about 600 residents, and
falling, and the woods (my regular haunts) had many many overgrown
foundations and reclaimed homesteads. You'd know you were in one when you
were walking in the woods and you stumbled onto an apple tree grove,
found rhubarb and raspberries growing in patches, and a little poking
around inevitably turned up an old collapsed foundation, a well (don't
fall in), and some rusted farm machinery tangled in the grasses. Often,
50+ year old trees were growing from the foundation, and there was little
or no trace of the access road left. A little sleuthing would show how
the current woods road or skidder trail network used to be a main road
across the region, and how old anonymous sections of stone wall that were
deep in the forest were once roadside features, made by people long ago
whose memories had faded along with the landscape they created. More than
once, I'd find an old cemetary the did not appear on any maps, and was
barely recognizable.

I used to wonder what those folks would think if they saw the region
today. What was, to them, a small dirt access road out back became the
main paved highway through town. The old town center, with its church,
lumberyard, store and even railway station is now a lost ruin deep in the
woods, miles from any road or trail, with only 4-legged visitors.

Back in those same late 70s and into the early 80s I knew a number of
people who were involved in the nascent (and apparently stillborn) "back
to the earth" movement. They rented or, in a few cases, bought old farm
houses here in southeast Wisconsin and to one degree or another tried to
make at least a part of their living off the land. Virtually all of them
had a woodlot on or adjacent to their property, and I used to spend a lot
of time exploring in them. I found many of the same kinds of tantalizing
clues to former land use practices you described above and, more often
than not, was left wondering what they might mean. Imagine my delight to
find a book that was all about finding and interpreting those clues. I
hadn't thought about "Reading the Landscape of America" by May Theilgaard
Watts, for some time. Googling it just now, I guessed that it would be
long out of print and difficult to find. Not so. Looks like it was
reissued in 1999. Good thing. Good book:

http://home.att.net/~naturebooks/rtla1.html



Wow, this does indeed look like a good book. I think I'll track it down,
thanks. :-)

Meanwhile, a semi nonsequiter...more non- than semi-, is this book:
http://tinyurl.com/ofvtl

While it doesn't describe evolving fauna, it does occupy that same spot in
my memory as "Reading the Landscape" seems to for you. After reading it many
years ago, it now forms the baseline with which I build my familarity with
placenames across the US. I loved it then, and if you haven't read it yet, I
bet you'll enjoy it yourself.

--riverman

"riverman" wrote in message ...

While it doesn't describe evolving fauna,

....or flora, for that matta.

--riverman

"riverman" wrote in message ...

"Wolfgang" wrote in message
...

http://home.att.net/~naturebooks/rtla1.html



Wow, this does indeed look like a good book. I think I'll track it down,
thanks. :-)

De nada.

Meanwhile, a semi nonsequiter...more non- than semi-, is this book:
http://tinyurl.com/ofvtl

While it doesn't describe evolving fauna, it does occupy that same spot in
my memory as "Reading the Landscape" seems to for you. After reading it
many years ago, it now forms the baseline with which I build my familarity
with placenames across the US. I loved it then, and if you haven't read it
yet, I bet you'll enjoy it yourself.

Ack! This happens EVERY time! Clicked on the link. Saw the
title.....scrolled down....saw old friends....Stegner, "Angle of
Repose"....Miller, "A Canticle for Leibowitz".....Boorstin "The
Americans".....I DON'T HAVE TIME TO GO TO THE BOOKSTORE TODAY, YOU *******!


"Names on the Land" is a familiar title but I don't recall ever reading the
book. Odd......this is right up my alley. I'll definitely be keeping an
eye out for it.

Thanks back at ya.

Wolfgang