Norwich bulletin., 1909-03-13

pe6l bu6 potdlOESs IAOilptACS9 -, - virtue, but over-anxiety is not. The hardest thing in the year for me-and perhaps for some other farmers-ls to keep the golden mean between preclp- itancy and procrastination. want to be on hand when the general roll Is called, but I don't want to answer false alarm.
 As we grow older, and the added experiences of the passing years soak into us, we come to have finer and finer appreciation of the significance of a hundred fugitive and ephemeral signs, by which Nature indicates her progress from snow time to seed-time. I think we older farmers make fewer mistakes in reading the spring prom ise than we used to. Indeed, wed be sorry lot if we didn't. The farmer who isn't learning something every year. whether he Is eighteen or eighty, is on the wrong job. There's SO much of this work that we're ignorant of tsrs best of us, so much that we want to know and ought to know but don't know that l. for one, sometimes feel like dropping on my knees out back of the barn, and asking pardon for being such a fool. But when l reflect. per contra. on how much more l know now, about my slaves and my tyrants in the natural kingdom than l knew when I began playing the great game against them, then l take better heart and am inclined to be somewhat puff cd up.
 Disguise it as we may, there is a certain satisfaction in being "an old farmer" and thus able to recognize the blunders which inexperience leads our younger neighbors into making. Take that onion-bed fable with which n began, for instance; don't think I've really done that thing this year. I did it once, though. And one of my young neigh bors last week. during a real hot spell. got out into his garden and began forling up the dirt where he in- tends to- put some early vegetables. I drove by and saw him doing 1t. (That ground has since been buried under a two foot snow-drift. and it's showing again, as I write; will proba- bly half a dozen times more, before winter gets out of the lap of spring.)
 AS say, saw him digging away and half a mile later, had & real good time, all by lonesome, congratulating myself that I knew more than he did. But do you imagine that stopped and told him he was wasting his time and strength? No, sir-ee; that's what Neighbor Hoskins would have done; it's what Neighbor Hoskins' example has taught me not to do. Why should I attempt to damDen down the powder of his youthful enthusiasm and zeal Because my old boiler is worn and thin, and patched, and won't carry but forty pounds pressure, shall I under take to tell him what steam he may nakcE It's mighty comforting to think that we know little more than some of the youngsters. but it's pretty good judgment to keep our superior knowledge to ourselves-at least until we are asked for a chunk or 1t. We were all younger than we are now. forty years ago. And didn't we all were just where we sre now), were quite old-fogyish. behind-the-times. slow. "sot' in their ways? Didn't we wonder why they couldn't let us alone to try things out for ourselves? Did n't they irritate us with their masked advice and their il-timed croakings2
 "Ths world is made when a man Is born" once wrote Boyle O'Reilley, the poet. It's new world to every new intelligence that comes into it. He must learn 1t from the beginning and for himself. The things others have learned may and should help him, but no other mans experienfe is so val uable as that which he wins through his own venturingE. Az I look back, 1t seems to me that about half my lit tie farming skill has come to me through the teachings of others and through inherited instinct, while the other half has come, letter by letter and word by word, from my own experiments, my own successes, my own mistakes and failures. And that latter half is al- ways the most present with me It may not bulk any larger than the in- parted wisdom of others, but it is solfder, more certain, more helpful.
 IF we arizzlsd and gray boards want to have our young neighbors like us and look up to us a little. we'll do well to stand ready with any advice or sug- gestion our experience may enable us to gfve,-when they ask for 1t: for the rest If the lime, let's keep our superior wisdom corked up so they won't be all the time smelling 1t. know this will suit their ideas best: I think 1t will be, also, the most helpful in the long run.
 THE FARMER. -w1 ~-