Norwich bulletin., 1909-06-19
A FARMERS TALK TO FARMERS
The Truck Patch Sign-When to Take Day Off-Crops
which Excel and Crops that are Slow-Some People
Think Omniscience Needs New Spectacles-All a
Farmer Can Do is to Keep His Part Right and Leave
the Rest to Natures Forces.

and horribly weedy 1t Is easily fifteen
days behind the normal. Asparagus
has felt the sour weather keenly. MY
crop is hardly half an average. On
the other hand, potatoes are looking
very we'll. The bugs think SO, too. !
never saw 50 many "shellbacks'' on the
little plants as this spring. Grass Is
simply beating the record. Fruit trees
are set unusually full, and the berry
yield promises to be something enor-
nous.
There's some sweet with some sour
every season. In a little talk to my
fellow grangers once l summed up my
cropping experience in ths truck patch
by saying that I planted every spring
with the expectation that part of the
varieties would fail wholly, that a part
would fail in some degree, and that not
over HALF would succeed well enough to
return a profit. But have to keep on
planting all sorts because never know
at seed time which half will bring in
profit at harvest and which half will
prove loss. 1t is just as likely to be
one as the other. The very crop which
completely in 1909. with all the care I
can give. And the one which didn't
pay for seed In 1905 may this summer
do finely. Oh. of course, / know that
there arc farmers and gardeners who
think they can always grow good crops
if they use enough judgment and GIN
ger. They're not liars, either. They
may have had run OF luck, and they
may be good deal wiser than !. But
I can't do 1t. with me it is the unex-
pected which happens.
Somehow the years average up fairly
even, after all. Is 1t poor corn year,
Then the potato crop may be bunkum
Do the oats lodge and sprout? Then
the buckwheat and barley may turn
out good. K it's too cold for the roses
to bloom, then hey for the purple and
yellow pansy bed! IT'S a poor philoso-
ply which says: Let things 60" Let
nothing go that you can help. But it's
a comfortable philosophy which says:
Take things as they come" Don't
let go the plow handles; hang to them;
keep the off horse In the furrow; plow
as straight and as deep as you can;
but when the pillow point strikes a fast
rock. ease things and serape over it
gingerly. Don't try to pillow up the
granite foundations of New England
because they happen to be in the line
Of your furrow. 1t doesn't pay. II all
your eggs are in one basket and they
get smashed you won't have eggs for
breakfast. But II you've distributed
them around in fifteen or twenty bas-
kets and even half dozen go to ruin
you still have enough left to keep the
wolf from the door.
One trouble with too many Of US is
that we want everything just as we
want it, and are bound to bawl if we
don't get it that way. We expect ev-
erything we undertake to turn out A
No. l., and SWIVEL more over our mis-
chances than we grin over our sue
cesses. How is it the hymn goes?
1T may not be your way,
1t may not be my way,
But yet in his own way
The Lord will provide"
know people who can sing this
soulfully but can't live it. Without
meaning any disrespect to the AL
mighty, they seem to feel sure that his
judgment isn't as good as their own.
When their way doesn't turn out to
be his way they act,just as IL they
thought omniscience needed new spec
tacles. q
Within certain very narrow limits
we can modify conditions and compel
results. But when we bump UP against
the general laws of nature we're pitt
luHy HoipieSS. our only nope is In
learning them and tagging along with
them. There are twelve months in the
year. But we can plant corn, with
hope of good crop, in only one of the
twelve. We should have but sorry re-
turns If we sowed buckwheat in March
and onions in July. But if we find out
what natures intentions are as re-
CARDS onions and buckwheat and get
into step with her she will often give
us good pay for our labor. A wise
friend of mine once said to me as he
came out from one of his fields;
There, I've done the best I know how
by that two-acres. It's been well
plowed and fitted, adequately fertiI-
lied, planted with the best seed I can
get, and cultivated as well as can do
it. That ends my responsibility. If
tie crop fails 1t isn't my fault" And
he went home to supper with a. good
appetite and, later, to bed with clear
conscience and woFry-less mind.
The farmer who does his own IittIe
part intelligently and industriously is
not called on 10 assume responsibility
for results. They are in hands more
powerful than his own If he falls. mis-
failure entails no disgrace Dishenor
attaches only to those whose failures
are the results OF their own sloth or
unfaithfulness or wilful wrongheaded-