Stewart MacDonald , M.D. I feel sad when I drive along the road in Little Sands . What has happened to the thriving community that it was when I was going to school? I have to settle in my mind what was the cause, where a community would thrive for some 200 years and then, especially the west¬ ern end, would return to the wooded area where the early settlers had worked so hard to stump and clear the land. Several things have occurred. Education in later years improved, and the young people thought that farming did not pay. During World War II many young men joined up in the Armed Services. After the war many veter¬ ans left the farms for more interesting or better paying jobs. Transportation changed as bus travel was discon¬ tinued. This meant that people felt that they had to get outside work in order to buy a car. In recent years the trains were discontinued, so farmers could no longer ship their potatoes by rail and bring in lime and fertil¬ izer. Closing of the one room school and busing chil¬ dren to school several miles away diminished commu¬ nity togetherness. The Federal Government's Develop¬ ment Plan gave $200,000,000 to improve conditions on the Island. The result was to encourage larger farms while granting money to build smaller houses. Govern¬ ment regulations determined the size of crops and the amount of milk, for example. When the cows disappear, the farms lose the high value of their fertilizer. The loss of Little Sands wharf and the range light removed the fishing industry from the district. Government reforesta¬ tion plans have resulted in planting thousands of trees on land that used to be farmed. The loss of the growth of seaweed which had been a boon for the farmers de¬ prived the land of a valuable source of fertilizer. These are some of the changes which seem to have contributed to the diminished farming in Little Sands . i 120