Norwich bulletin., 1910-03-26

gatherer came round, he asked tnlS NAT Pomeroy of Holton Kansas, the value of the cattle he had sold the previous year. He was answered truthfully $5,- 500. Then MT. Statistics found out
 raised some 5000 bushels of corn worth $2,500, and some $1,500 worth
 of hay. and about s1,000 worth of oats, I and he added the whole together. cat the income from MT. Pomeroy's farm 1 at $10,50O. Now the fact was that MT. Pomeroy fed all the corn and hay and
 oats he raised to his cattle, and had to l buy several hundred bushels of corn to | boot. and his only income from the | whole bunch of stuff was the price he
 got for tine fatted cattle, less the | amount he had to pay out for bought en corn. His income, instead of be- ing s10,500. was less than $5,000. Yet
 the bigger figures went into the state
 year book. with others collected in | doubtless similar ways, to show forth 1 how Kansas farmers were getting
 rich"
 Here's bit of testimony from Farm CT Drake of Green Township, New
 Jersey, a dairy farmer who sells milk. 1 At a conservative estimate of ruling l prices" says Farmer Drake. sthe ] farmer on a hundred acre farm is | working for nothing himself, half price | for his wife and children, and handing i the profits ever to the hired man." Let me add another testimony from | my own 1909 account book. Last year.
 by reason of troublesome physical
 weakness and the pressure of some | outside duties, was compelled to v1o- l late my long rule of doing without hir i ed help. I had to have a hired man" , for the season. I paid him just the ruling rate of wages. He was good man, steady, faithful, sober. He did what he was told to do, as he was told to do it, and sometimes seemed to take 9 n suits of his labor. I worked rather more hours than he did, during the | whole season, and accomplished much more, because l was used to it,, while he was not and had to learn. At the end of the fall, I found that had paid out in wages to him and the other hir- ed help in having time, more than I had left wherewith to pay my own wages. and the cost of seeds, and the cost of fertilizer, and the cost of keep ing a team, and the taxes, and the de- preciation on tools, and the insurance bill.
 It was blamed bad season for my particular business, in the way of weather and such like. My crops ran short, mostly, and this must be consid- cred in making up a verdict. But, de- spite the high prices for things had to buy and despite the shortness of crops, I was not able to obtain much better prices for my products than the average for preceding years My gross selling prices hardly reached 10 per cent above the ten-year average while
 my gross buying prices for such things as seeds and fertilizers and horse feed ran fully 40 per cent. above the ten year average.
 Now, if anybody else can figure out a great boom in my individual agricul- tural business from such facts, he can beat me at the blackboard. I frankly admit that I think Farmer Pomeroy of Ear nd "a ar T1f-olx nf Tey sev are nearer the real farming truth than nice old Secretary Wilson, beam ing about Washington with his fig ures of unprecedented farm wealth on paper
 Please don't understand me as 4kiek- inq;" durn a kicker any time and all the timei There are lean years and fat years; there are good crops and poor crops; there's a time to whistle and a time to keep quiet I'm willing to take the years as they come and for better or worse. as the case may be Sometimes, when I go fishing, I hook a big trout; once I pulled out a dead cat When it's trout feel like shaking hands with myself-or most anybody else; when it's a dead cat, I want to crawl into a hole. and pull the hole in after me. I couldn't some how think of myself greatly for tunate at fishing if I should get a whole string of deceased and malodor- ous felines- Nor can I understand the fisherman who should make a brag of the number and weight of such game he caught.
 The simple truth is that we farmers of the east, who are near enough to- gether so we can see ourselves are catching about as many dead cats as trout. these days, in our agricultural adventurings. And I think that the less Fourth of July bunconbe we emit and the less our well meaning but often impractical friends of the Silk Hat Platoon emit for us the better sense we'll all shoW.s It's a more suitable time for sober counsel in the face of a crisis than for premature jubiIation over yet unwon victory.
 THE FARMER.