Norwich bulletin., 1909-06-05

(Written Specially Tor The Bullenn-J
was very much pleased at The
Bulletins judicious and pointed COM
ment on the agricultural departments
tale OF the farmer who turned a vir-
gin wilderness of rs acres into a $1,000
year farm IN Is years. Under the
same conditions few families could
achieve such a success as this. That
is simple truth, simply stated, and
ought to suggest warning to unduly
optimistic city folks, who aspire for
home on farm. See EDITORIAL "A
Most Successful Farmer" in Bulletin
of Mag 2S.
Such accounts of unusual, phenom-
email, somewhat mysterious successes
sometimes do good by stimulating ex-
perienced farmers to looking over their
own Fences to see what they can do
towards improving them. They also
do harm by planting In the minds Of.
inexperienced people utterly imp ssfble
ideas of what farming offers to them.
1t seems to be a craze among certain
editors of agricultural papers to hunt
out and print conspicuously freak sto-
ries Hike this, and suggest or explicitly
declare that they are generally posi-
BILE and feasible. People who know
little or nothing about the real prob
lens Of farm life read these enticing
and more or less veracious histories,
and think they see in the outcome a
mark blazing their way back to Eden.
II one city man could do that, surely
! can do the same" IS their thought.
They talk it over with other country
thirsty city men and mutually quite
done can be DONE" If they ask some
real farmer and find him somewhat
doubtful about the thing, they dismiss
him as IAN old moss back" and IAN
old rngy." Since he hasn't won any
such success, why. it must be because
he lacks energy or business sense or in
dustxy or something else.
New ! don't happen to know much
about the real facts in the case OF this
professional man whose longing for
the freedom of country life led him at
So years to abandon the city for
farm And such accounts as that Civ
en- DO not tell the real facts because
they are not tellable. They can't be
put into words; they must be lived
with and experienced. But any farmer
who has cleared rs acres Of heavily
timbered land. built a comfortable
home. a barn, silo and poultry houses"
with no help except that of one wood
chopper for three months and two car
penters for two weeks, and who has
got O. living off the place while doing
It, must have found the freedom of
country life" Just a l-e-e-A-l-e bit con-
stricted-at the corners and round the
edges anyway. And I'm wondering
just what he did with the stumps from
that heavy timber.
| used TO take much more stock in
these fairy-Iike tales Of agricultural
suecess than 1 do now. Not that /
charge anybody with deliberate or in
- 81 l. h
sort of thing. But none of us can see
both sides of a tree at the same time,
and few of us can remember every
thing that has happened for eighteen
years. Our vision Is limited; our
memories are treacherous; our imag-
inaftons are often vivid; our vanity
coIors our spectacies and shows a rosy
tint on that which the honest sunlight
cabs yellow.
One thing in this mans gtory struck
mo. when he began "a years ago he
had six children aged from thirteen
down. They must have grown up so
that, twelve years later, they were
from twelve to twenty-five. For most
of the time the father had three help
ers in his outdoor work; the mother
had three assistants in the indoor de-
partment. think / could make a
farm Of rs acres quite productive with
seven people to help unexpectedly If
didn't have to scare up wages Of a
dollar and a half a day for each one
Of them every Saturday afternoon.
When the labor question is eliminated
from the farm problem about half the
problem Is extirpated.
The other day a professional man,
VINO had been talking with a farmer,
took sharp issue with me as to the
PROFITS of farming, and produced a
sheef on which he had set down from
this farming neighbours dictation the
results from a ten acre field of oats
in 1908. Here is the tale, as he had it,
OF charges against the crop:
rowing $500. ..-.-....... $1S.OO
Seed, 40 bushels at so cents. =. :, 24.OO
terCHizer ............... 22.00
h@4ping -....... 30 800
Threshing 600 bushels) ........ 24.0O
Cost of crop ................ $4,000
He sold nine tons Of straw at $40 a
ton and had 800 bushels of oats at so
cents, or $3.50, making total crop
vakue of $50 against a total cost Of
production of 500. This gave the very
comfortable profit of $4T4-as he fig
urpd II. What you you say to that ?"
aslned my professional friend. Say
to chat p lie responded. Say nothing
tin find out some more about It than
you've got on that paper" As l have
had opportunity have, since then,