Norwich bulletin., 1910-01-15


 There are more ways than one to skin cat.' I used to hear so. when was a boy, anyway l don't know that 1t impressed me very pleasantly at the time. for l was, even as a kid, fond of cats and didn't want to skin 'em. But I used to hear 1t often and from all sorts and conditions of men. and came to remember it. As years passed and had to take increasing work and enlarging responsibilities 1 began to see the real meaning which is borne by the figurative saying.
 We farmers have to do a whole lot Of work with restricted means. We aren't always nor often able to have the costly tools and machinery which are best fitted for doing the exact sort Of work We happen to have on hand. Our incomes don't warrant us in pur- chasing them. We have to get along with such appliances, often with such makeshifts, as we have It isn't so much the question as to what tool or what machine is the best. but whether we can make such as we have serve the purpose. Many a farmer uses a plain cut-off saw to rip boards with work and time, al nd he doesn't feel like spending hard-earned money. for rip saw which he may use but twice a year. For years and years my old father dug postholes with a spade and crowbar. because they would do" and he needed the money a posthole digger would have cost for other things. For some years I did the rough blacksmith ing work which a farmer on a. back farm must do for himself. using an old globe coal stove for forge. IL wasn't handy; it wasn't always effec- tive; it was wasteful of coal and of iron. too. But it would do" on pinch and the money even a cheap portable forge would have cost was wanted elsewhere. We all know how it is, We must get along with what we have, not with what we would like. We have to do the best we can with unsuitable tools. We have to work with what is at hand.
 Just that. take it, is the underlying meaning of the old saying about skim ming the eat. Of course. there is there must be, a right way to skin a cat. There is a right way for almost every thing; way that produces best results at least cost and labor. Bluff we can't do them in that best Way-there are other ways in which they can be done, after a fashion. Right there farm management How to Make the Best Use of What We Have" there's a title for book which might have a good deal of value for good many of us mudsills- There isn't a Man Jack of us all but is practicing that sort of thing every season. I'm inclined to think that one reason for the greater success of some farmers is that they
 
 ing such methods than the most Of us They get some use and profit out of tools and machines and animals that others lack gumption to utilize. Is Well. perhaps an illustration or two will make my meaning clearer.
 While the slow ox-teann is not yet wholly out of use on some farms. how many farmers and dairymen who are compelled to keep bull or two ever think of using a bull-team? Most farmers who own these ill-reputed an imals are more or less afraid of them and have as little to do with them as possible. Yet I've just been looking at a picture which some friend sent | me the other day of Importer, Tom and Hawkeye," three registered Swiss bulls hitched up as a spike team' to | a two wheeled cart and worked on the l Barnes Hill stock farm at colIinsVille | just as three oxen or three horses are | sometimes worked. Photographs gen erally tell the truth of what the | camera sees, and this photograph rep resents the three animals hitched to a | cart standing fetlock deep in thick | meadow grass. against background | of trees, all three as calm contented- looking, apparently as docile and man | ifestly well broken" SIS any OK team you ever saw. And they certain | ly look more intelligent than most | oxen.
 As a rule bulls are supposed to be | treacherous, fll-tempered and rather 1 dangerous animals Similarly. the mule | has an evil repute to his hind legs l Yet an old driver who had been used l to horses and mules all his life once | told me that this was a libel. fThere's | ugly mules." said he. just as there's | balky horses. But you treat mule a 8 | well as you'd treat a horse. handle him | as kindly, feed him anything like as | well, keep him as clean and trust him | as fully. and you'n find that hell be | just safe and gentle" Perhaps the | same thing may be true Of bulls. Ger | tainly, if they can be made to do any | thing more useful than eating their | heads off in boxstalls and occasionally | chasing a farmer out of his own barn | yard. the work they do is so much clear l gain.
 Once, many years ago, dairying who used the oid-fashioned | stone dasher-churn to make butter had !