Norwich bulletin., 1909-05-22


 It is doubtful if there is today in the | United States a higher authority on l general farming than Dean Roberts of | Cornell university, New York. For thirty years he was Dean of the Col lego of Agriculture in that great uni versity; Is the author of numerous widely used text books on agriculture; is reckoned the foremost authority on matters connected with land fertility; has only recently retired from active work by reason of age, and was made professor emeritus" when he retired, 1 in simple appreciation of his work and the rank it holds. The judgment of experience and such primacy in the l world of agricultural education is worth good deal on any farming sub- | ject he feels himself competent to pro- nounce upon.
 In a short paper contributed to a re- cent number of The Outlook, Dean Roberts oondenses more solid sense and moFe truth about the difficulties of rural living than I have seen in all the voluminous literature called forth by or for the Commission on Country Life. He strikes at the root of the matter in just three words, stating in those three "the one cause which more than all others produces the conditions 
 profits" The emphasis is his, not mine.
 When | read that, [ wanted to take the first train for Ithaca, N r., just to shake hands with the man who could see through the hole in the mill stone I didn't go, for the very req son he mentions. Hack of profits" from which to pay railroad fares and the wages of man to do my work while was gone. But, if there's anything in "telepathy' and thought transfer ence,h Dean Roberts knew, that day l that one lonely and cranky hayseed was just pumping congratulations at him across the intervening latitude.
 If you followed the doings before that Country Life Commission, you'll remem Der 1t was called upon to in- dorse about as many remedies for farming troubles as there are drugs catalogued in the pharmacopeias for the cure of all human ailments. One man thought good roads would solve the problem; another wanted better rural schools; a third called for uni versal cooperation; a fourth thought the whole difficulty lay in lack of sO cial advantages; a fifth wanted gov ernment railroads and traction engine trains; a sixth demanded the repeal or the nOIl6SL6dQ dEly anu tue SLOppdSN of western farm settlement. And so on and on. ad infinitum, ad nauseam. Now, there was some reason in ev- cry one of these diagnoses; each critic had a real grievance behind him. But they were all one sided and one eyed. Each saw just one phase and magni- fled 1t into the whole thing. His vis ion showed him symptoms, but not the real disease. Ills nostrum was ad- dressed to the alleviation of symptoms not to the cure of the cause for these symptoms. Doctor Roberts, on the other hand, has pointed his finger | straight to the center and source of the internal disease which manifests itself in differing external symptoms. The cure of that cause would instantly abolish and destroy the whole distress ing, brood of boils and plains and blotches on the surface. Lack of profits" That tells the whole thing in words anyone can understand.
 Let me quote few lines from this lucid and enlighteninq article: .....
 "A large number of farmers-I be- lteve a majority of them-are now and for the last twenty five years have been selling many of the staple crops at a real loss. By this I mean that if the farmers time is charged up, to his wheat field, for instance, at the wages of common laborers, and if there be added the other items in the cost of production, teams, the hired men and their board, threshing bills. seed and fertilizers, the selling price of the crop win not balance the account, Astonishing as the statement is, it is fact that many hay and grain farm CTS are working for fifty cents or less day and boarding themselves. For the last twenty-five years wheat has sold on an average, on the farm, at scarcely more than a cent a pound At the present yield the farmer must receive at least two cents If he makes wages, and two and half cents if he receives a fair profit" Dean Rob- erts adds, with sarcasm which ought to bite somebody somewhere: We boast of our mammoth grain crops and cheap bread and then wonder. Whats the matter with the farmer? and the man who buys his bread at less than cost answers, enthusiastically, He's all right"
 The average gross income of the wheat raiser in the last census year, 1900, was seven dollars and two and a half cents per acre. The rent of land. interest on capital. seed and la pcr come to more than this What does the farmer get for himself? Bear in mind too, that, since this was the average, there must have been many who got even less. Nice outlook for those at or under the average, isn't it :? Says Dean Roberts: "The baker has just arrived, and I am wondering how
 Adding to Ills Collection.
 If 1t be true, as asserted, that there