Norwich bulletin., 1909-07-31

twritten Specially for The Bulletin.)
 Diversity or specialize? Which?' That is the question good many thoughtful farmers worry over the one good many, of equal intelligence are divided by. Jack f-all-tradesD and master of none," is the sheer the specialists fling at those who diversity one basket retort these latter to the specialists. The proverbial ''man-up- A-tree" who is on neither side and is in no hurry to jump down, is apt to pc puzzled a little by the controversy and to wonder which side really has the right of it.
 suspect that, like most other hu- man arguments, there's truth on both sides, and more or less error, too. It is the tendency of human nature, when once 1t has taken sides, to exag Rerate everything which sustains. it's contention, and to minimize everything which seems to favor the other view, Of course, tfIis isn't quite fair, but then, mighty few of us are used to be- ing fair in anything, and why should this be an exception?
 Looking at the debate in general terms, it must be admitted that the specialists make out a strong case. The whole spirit of the age tends towards specialization. The movement is especially marked in science. Years ago one man devoted himself to botany and was supposed to be able to- cover that field; another took up entomology and was supposed to study and under. stand all about all sorts of insects; third went in for chemistry and became an all-'round chemist Then the bot anist found that he was insensibly de- <rnffnC nf hfu m hn cffidC of herbaceous plants and didn't have leisure to learn the trees and the dichens and the microscopic fungi. So others took up those branches and he dropped them. The entomologist like-F wise found there were so many bugs in the world that no one man could hope to know them all so he just dropped all but the winged insects, and others took up observation of the other classes. So with the chemist and the student of animals. This first division of the subjects has been since re- divided and sub divided, till now there are botanists who study only one group of plants like the fungi, or just one family of trees like the thornbearers and entomologists who work solely in one corner of the bug world; and chemists who do nothing beyond work ing out the reactions of one group of salts; and zoologists who confine all their time and effort to learning the last thing possible about just gas teropods, or just deep-sea animalcuia, too small for the naked eye to distin- guish. That's the reason why science is becoming so technical and, also, so exact.
 Likewise in industry the whole trend Is towards specialization. Once each cotton factory undertook to do about G4rAr rxvfH Hft1n rs.b 4,.l. LA .f4L cotton and to make about everything which could be made from cotton. But now most factories confine themselves closely to just one line of production, seeking to excel either in quality or economy, along just that narrow line. One factory makes only cotton thread, and another only cotton twine. Indeed fin these highly specialized factories the idea is carried still further until all the various processes of a single man. ufacture are divided among workmen and machines so that one man with one tool does only one thing day in ana day out-just punching holes per- haps, and then passing on the job to another, who does another similar fraction of the work In many big factories and shops there are no more all-'round workmen, but just an army of specialists, each one of whom does one thing better than anybody else could do 1t, but does nothing else.
 1t is this very narrowing of effort this restricting Of individual output to the one line in which the individual excels-which makes modern econo- mics possible in manufacturing in transportation. and in scores of other ways. Now doesn't it seem reasona- ble that it ought to work similarly in farming2 Don't blame the specialist if he grows irritated with you, when you don't see it his way. He certain iy has strong argument and an al- turing analogy behind him.
 And yet, when it comes to applying this theory to farming, T hae me doots," as the Scotchmen say. I don't believe that any cotton factory, if 1t could make cotton thread during only sen weeks of the year-if it must dis charge its hands and shut down it's machinery for the other forty-two weeks--I don't believe any cotton fac tory under those conditions, would conflne itself solely to making cotton thread. It would have to find some thing else to hold its workmen and to feed It's machines when it couldn't make thread, or the machines would rust and the worknen scatter beyond