Norwich bulletin. [volume] (Norwich, Conn.) 1895-2011, 1909-06-26

fingers weren't sore, and perhaps his
l'ttle back wasn't aching long before
the dinner-horn blewi But what corn
we used to get from those fields treat
ed in this way from two to four times
each season. / don't do as much I'm
ger work nowadays as we used to, and
the horseshoe makes possible a great
r. unction in the amount of hand hoe
ing required But l can't ignore the
fand-hoe wholly. In order to get the
results 1 want have to give my corn
Patch at least one thorough hoelng,
aid usually one or two more dress
ines" around the edges and in the por-
toms where the soil cakes hardest OF
the weeds grow rankest.
In small garden crops, likewise,
can't rely wholly on labor saving tools.
In such beds as onions and beets and
csrrots and parsnips the double wheel
hoe helps much But when it has done
the best you can make 1t do there re-
n aims a lot of work in pulling weeds
from the row itself in thinning out
too thick seedlings, in loosenlng the
Gflt between the plants, ETC., which
we on this half acre have to get down
on our knees and do with fingers and
tGrd- weeders as we crawl abasedly
a'cLg the rows.
OF course, a great deal depends upon
what sort of farming one is doing
v neither it is in tensfve or extensive.
I illage methods which suit one system
wor't work at all with the other. The
labor cost is also a determining factor
in many cases. You can't afford to
pu: eleven dollars worth of labor on a
ten dollar crop. The farmer VINO
srreads himself over a hundred acres
Of cultivation, each year, usually, works
or the principle of getting what ne
can at the least expense. The trucker.
OH the other hand who condenses him
self upon two or three acres, follows
Numerically different line. HIS
rule is: Get the best and biggest crop
you can-and darn the expense" It's
a waste of time to argue which is the
best rule. There isn't any best rule"
for all sorts Of farmers on all sorts
of farms. The right thing for one is
the wrong thing for another. Circum-
stances govern, not theories. One may
fb6 il more profitable to work ten
acres and get twenty bushels to the
acre; another may find it better to put
tire same work and fertilizer on four
acres and get fifty bushels to the acre.
Like many other things in life, lit
all depends" For me I'm convinced
that thorough work, generous manur-
lnEs udliI care VI q lew dIACo 40 A1OAS
profitable than slipshod work, made
quate fertilizing, and neglect spread
over many acres. And / can't help
thinking, after watching the methods
of some of my neighbors, that good
deal of their affection for modern Ia
Dor saving machines is due to lazlness,
rather than to a carefully thought out
system of crop management. They
used to tell a story of young Daniel
Webster Following his father in the
meadow, he kept complaining that his
scythe wasn't hung right. Irritated
by his constant fault-finding, the older
Webster finally exclaimed: Hang it
yourself Dan" Whereupon Dan"
hung it on an apple-tree limb and sat
down in the shade It's a great deal
easier to lean over the bars and watch
the horses and the hired man go round
the meadow on the moving machine
than it is TO get hold of the old scythe
and NOV out the fence corners where
the machine can't get That's one rea-
son why there are so many hedge rows
Of wasteful shrubbery along farm
fences. It's great deal easier to let
the horse drag cultivator a few times
back and forth across a field, stirr-
ing about half the dirt and killing
about half the weeds, than it is to grab
a hoe and stir all the dirt and kill
all the weeds. That's one. reason why
some farms are wearing out.
Whichever sort of farming one does
he must bear in mind that he can't
get something for nothing. No real
success can be achieved without work,
hard work. Work doesn't always bring
alas, we know that too well.
But success never comes without it,
There's no easy way to climb a lad
der. l. for one don't believe there's
any easy way to farm it. A man can
exist on a farm with very little work
if he is willing to live on soggy
potatoes and is lucky at fishing. But
we're not thinking of that kind. Mod
ern tools are helpful in so far as they
enable us to do more work and better
work than we could do without them.
When they tempt US to let poor work
pass because they do so much of it
so easily, their value is open to ques-
ton. Good farming calls for head
work and hand-work both Neither
one will fully take the place of the
other. THE FARMER.