Norwich bulletin., 1909-02-06

use of a bluegrass and clover and timothy pasture (cost not stated nor interest and taxes ineluded), and an investment of about $357 in money, he figures the very satisfactory profit of $34S. He sold his wool at 26 cents a pound, and his lambs, which averaged 104 pounds each, at $7.10 a hundred He lost only three lambs out of 101 Now, anybody, who has kept sheep for a term of years knows that this isn't "a fair sample" He had ex- traordinarily good fortune with his lambs. Not every year can a small farmer expect to save 9S per cent. of his lambs, especially when they come, as this mans did, during the stormy days of February and March" Very few farmers in this part of the world can let their sheep live solely on pas ture up to the middle of January. Ex- ceedingly few farmers can raise a bunch of 9S lambs which shall weigh an average of 104 pounds each at mar kettng time. And still fewer farmers can rely upon getting $710 a hundred pounds for them. If this man had suffered ordinary losses in the num- Der of his lambs; had been compelled to take his flock up in November in- stead of January; had found the lambs average about 20 pounds less in weight. had been able to get but S5.50 hundred instead of $7.1O; and had been forced to sell his wool at IS 1-2 cents instead of 26. perhaps his bal ance sheet would nave looked different especially when he had charged something for labor and something for pasturage, both of which items he V holly omits in making up his show ing.
 And here's another man who tells row to sell apples md rake money. Do the way l did"; that's the mean ing of his talk. He had some apples that he was offered $1.o0 a barrel for. He didn't take it; he sorted them all over again, rubbed them shiny with a woolen cloth. made one barrel out of two and sold the half for s2.50 a barrel. And so he made money-if we omit all calculation of the time spent in re-sorting and polishing up, and so on. But l wonder how much pay he got, per diem, out of his extra price. for rubbing every individual apple in his 25 barrels with his wooIen cloth ?
 Some ten years ago was bitten by this same bug and thought I'd sea how much money could be made by picking fancy apples for fancy trade. I took twenty barrels, just as they came from the trees, looked over and packed half the lot in the usual way, getting nine barrels of saleable fruit and one of culls from this half, which brought me, all told, S11.60 Then looked over the other ten barrels; sorted them unsparingly; rejected every imperfect or undersized fruit; packed them ex- actly even all through-as good at one end of the barrel as the other and as good in the middle as at either end wrapped every apple in a square of tissue paper; got four barrels of fancies and six of culls, and thought I was going to get rich when the returns came in. This carefully sorted, fairly packed half netted me just $9.75, all told. It took me a full day of hard work to sort out the fancy lot; 1t took me less than half a day to pack the ordinary lot. So you see I lost $1S5 and six hours sharp work by trying to put out fancy goods.
 Now, here's the point about all this: It isn't safe to generalize from single happenings. Because, one year, lost money by putting up extra fancy goods don't feel any right-or find any ex- cuse, even-for rushing into print with the dogmatic and unqualified state ment that the farmer who packs fancy fruit is a fool. Nor has this other chap. whoever he be, any right or ex- cuse. because he made a little some- thing one year by doing that same thing, to rush into print condemning every orchardist who doesn't follow him as an old fogy and not fit for his job
 About the only working lesson either one of us has a right to deduce from his own individual experience is that you can't most always sometimes tell"
 But there is a moral suggestion in it which has a real and practical bear ing We're all so short-sighted and so poor sighted, at the best; all our ex- perience is so unsatisfactory and all our observation Is so uncertain and am. 1nnrninr- in rr r...n.a.ist A