Norwich bulletin., 1910-12-31
Especial to The Bulletin.

Especial to The Bulletin.
 Whether it is absolutely true or not an small details l cannot avouch, but they tell of II. w Campbell of South Dakota. Let me tell it to you, if you haven't already heard it.
 He was a Vermonter who had gone west to get into a better farming country-as he hoped--than old Yer mont could furnish. He had settled on what gave promise Of being a splendid wheat farm. He had worked early and late hard on his fields, only to meet constant sledee- -hammering fail ure. Those were dark days all through the newer west. Drouth and insect enemies. especially drouth, were too much for the unaclicmated farm CTS from the east, who were trying tD get n living in Longitude 101 West by the methods used in Longitude 73. With thousands of others, Campbell was sore and tired and discouraged. Everything he had he had sunk in his Tafling venture. He had stuck to it ril the last possible moment. The locker was empty, the pocFetbook was collapsed. there wasn't ray of hope on any horizon. He had just one lame mule left help carry him back to- wards '5od's country" in the east. And he was letting that lame mule
 
 cause it was already doomed to failure ns a wheat crop. and that was all the value he could ever expect to get from sf.
 Going out to catch his mule for the last time and start eastward, Campbell noticed that, though there had been no yain since he turned the mule on the wheat, yet in the mule tracks, where the soil was packed and firmed. the -r-Ha -45 T6 and tall while everywhere else the stems were puny and spindling and Besdless. Now this man Campbell not only had the usual useful aSortment of stout arms and big hands and stur- dy legs. he also had some brains in his head. They came in handy, just then and there-exceedingly handy. He left She mule alone and went slowly all over his field. Everywhere he found it the same. Where the mule had step ped on the ground and competed it the wheat Tn those tracks was good Wheat-good enough for anybody. Where the mule hadn't stepped on the ground the wheat was good for noth- Sng except pasture, and pretty poor For even that.
 What made ths difference? Why" he thought to himself, If 1 only had enough mules and could have driven ghem all over the field till they'd step
 
 good wheat all over it. But what spe- Cal virture was there in the foot of mule toward making wheat grow2 Campbell didn't catch the mule. It was doing well where it was and he had job of thinking to do, right away. He went back to his shack and thought Then he began experimenting. If lame mule could make wheat grow on his prairie with it's hind foot, couldn't he. a man wtrh brains in his head, ( ale than a mules foot? He tried first one eehcme ant shen another, till at last he had eN NOlved an entirely new sys- lem of farming. He lacked the right kind of tools. and had to make them himself because he hadn't the money to hire them made and the manufac- turers of agricultural tools simply laughed at his crazy notions.
 We'll, all that was twenty five or more years ago. Now the tools which are needed for the Campbell system Of "arid farming" are made by half a score of firms in the United States and by manufacturers in Hungary and India. He is the owner of five good wheat farms with an asgrerate of 5000 acres in wheat each year. pro- slucing an average of sixty bushels to che acre. He has grown so rich that he has to keep a force of clerks in his office to look after his farm and other accounts. His lame mule started a movement which has revolutionized agriculture over an immense area, has made him independently wealthy and has converted so many other farmers ahereabouts that E. H. Hartman once said to him: MT. Campbell if the Union Pacific railroad gave you a mill lion dollars a year it wouldn't pay you for the increased freight from your work
 There are several great moral les sons to be drawn from this little bit of history. You can study them out for yourselves. That'll save me the trou- ble of doing It. and they may stick to you a little longer than if I elaborate them for you. Besides, I want to add the different story of another farmer fin another part of the country This ones name is Davenport and he lives down in Texas, where there isn't so much trouble from drouths. But the farmers there have their own difficult ties. and most of his neighbors are a rather discouraged lot. They raise cotton. and then cotton, and then some ing prices, and the scheming specula- tors, and the inefficient help procura ble. and the boil weevil, and a few dozen other troubles they have to go barefoot some of the time and their youngsters all of the time You see they haven't anything to sell but cot ton, and that they can sell only once e year while they have to keep buy tsG things of all sorts about all the tine. When the cotton is sold if they get a decent price they're flush for a while. Then they're strapped all the -