Norwich bulletin., 1910-05-07

IWritten Specially for The BuIetin.)
Most of US farmers are acquainted
with agricultural grief. We
don't have to wait for the newspapers
TO find out things that are the matter
with us and our crops. We know sew
eral volumes of trouble before the agile
reporter gets round to nose it out and
print it. Some of US are veritable
tanks of tears-always full and run
ming over. We don't have to be tapped
to start the f1ow-an one needs to do
Is to point g. finger at US and we break
out into a perSpiration and exudation
and precipitation of woe. Either the
weather amt right, or the seed amt
good, or the grounds too cold, OF the
SUMS too hot, or a horse goes lame, or
a cow gets sick, or the hens nave the
roup. or the price of eggs goes down
or something else.
It's merry hades to pay all the time,
and no pitch hot, with a, great many
of US. We get SO used to brooding
over our mishaps and losses that we
end by nourishing them into black
gamecocl1s big enough to brighten US.
The result is that we-rnany of us,
that is-get into a state of perpetual
snisgiving. We're AID the time dreading
shoulders to see il some new bogie
ISN'T chasing US; growing stoop-
ehouldered under the weight of the
1nisfortunes we have had or are lnav-
we help eclipse the gayety of nations
to say nothing about making our
selves wretched and everybody else
uncomfortable.
It's been sort o. stay-in- doors
weather of late with me, and I've been
reading the papers. some fresh ones
and some a little Staler. Say when
we farmers of New England read about
that end-of-April snowstorn and
EreeZe-up through the west and south, |
ct strikes me that it's mighty good
time for US to stop our sniveltng and
sing a song of thanffulness to the
good Lord for his mercy in making an
exception in our favori
! read of snow and ice in Chicago |
and st. Louis; of wind and sleet storms |
breaking down the fruit trees which |
were even then in Blossom; of $780,, !
stables in nine states; of ice making |
tn Texas. and Of the young cotton in |
Georgia being frozen in and KILLED |
Then go out and look at my aspara- |
sprouts not one OF which has been |
hurt by freezing, and my green peas |
ready TO bush and unyeHowed by frost, |
and my onions and spinach and lettuce
and beetS and carrots and parsnips |
q already past their first cultivation, and |
my early potatoes priczing the rows.
even hear of one ambitious farmer
gardener who has had sweet corn up
back-bash of old winter which struck |
the west and south during later April |
had come our way? Eth? Where
would we have been? Are we mighty |
lucky felers, or aren't we?
OF course, we're sorry for those who |
cost. But it isn't within ordinary hu- |
man experience that anybody can be |
bad luck as for his own. 1 suppose |
those people out west and down south |
are sincerely glad that we didn't get |
the dose which poisoned them. But !.
a gain, it isn't within common human |
experience that they can he half so |
z Aad of 1t as we are-or ought to be. |
What I'm thinking. these days. and |
what want to suggest to my brother
farmers of Connecticut is that we're |
b icing treated very kindly, in compari- |
son with some others. Also. that it's |
JJrs& easy to grin when we get a |
good thing as 1t is to whimper when /
the whip cuts. Furthermore likewise |
and in addition thereto, that 1t is a /
mighty mean dfsposiEoned horse which |
lays I'D against it's master an occa-
eional whipping, but is never grateful |
for the semi daily oats poured before |
1t by the same hand.
| think you'll agree with me that
" eve got no kick coming this time
Now please go a little further. Re-
that all life is a series of ups |
and downs, q mixture of good luck
and bad luck, a sort of tandem of |
pleasure and pain, and that it is
neither fair nor decent to expect that |
fhe other fellow shall have loss all the
time and we profit ali the time. There
fore, az in our school training in sim
pie arithmetic we were taught when
TO IDIOT and carry one" so we can af-
ford to dot down our memory of this
present streak of good luck and carry
1t over to be set down when the next
cloud comes along with its shadow of
We shall catch it, sometime, without
eoubt. We are no more frost-exempt
than we are tax-e exempt. Then when |
we do, let's recall this spring with our
a Tlrazing good fortune, and take the
evil uncomplainingly
Il tell we, farmin' amt what it used
3 be-" Uncle Jed Prouty is quoted as
3yfng. why, we used to have hot pie
for breakfast every mornin' when ]
was boy, and cold pie for dinner and |
another pie for supper I guess he's
a bout right there. The most of us
can't have, or at least don't have pie
for breakfast and pie for dinner and