Norwich bulletin. [volume] (Norwich, Conn.) 1895-2011, 1910-03-05

| and twice as big and got twice as Inuch
| money for them? Didn't you have to
so half a mile round to keep out OF
the orchard, lest the sight of the trees
should move him to tell you how on
his ranch they fed the windfaH oranges
and peaches to the pigs and how you
never tasted an orange till you tried a
California navel right Off the tree
It's much the Same with the settlers
in Florida ana in Saskatchewan. The
one tells you of grapefruit and kum-
quats common as choke-cherfies,
and of raising elephants and tomatoes
in March as easy as you can raise bur-
docks in August. The other can't even
see your one span of horses and your
pillow; his eyes are accustomed to
tractor engines drawing twenty plows
and a harrow at the same time, and
doing forty acres a day. And You
have to get behind him and push the
back of his head so as to tip his face
down, in order to enable him to discov
er your wheat or oats or rye He's ac-
customed to look up at his wheat:
about as we look up at the tops OF
pine trees. AT least, you'd think so to
hear him talk.
The farmers of the new southwest
have the same habit Instead of rum
ming down their neighbofhoods, they
are forever boosting 'eIn on the wings
of 4 very high flying self loridcat1on.
This morning I picked up an old, last
with an account of the Boone county
Mo, fair The things the farmers of
Boone county told that innocent city
reporter were calculated to make the
Late lamented Baron Munchausen
ashamed of his incapacity. He report
ed that there were $4,000 farmers at
the fair, and the only grumbler among
them was one who rode twenty miles
in a buggy and the corn was SO high
all the way that he couldn't get a
breath of a breeze. One farmer, six
miles southeast of the county seat,
had a hundred acres of corn and mot
q stalk of it less than fifteen feet
high Another, -four miles north,
went into his cornfieId just before
UP to come to the fair, and
50 ears of corn on IS stalks.
and the shortest WAS 13 inches long"
He began to brag about it at the fair,
and everyone to whom he spoke shut
him up with a That's nothIn'i my
corn's jest as good One man near
the river had 1000 bushels of wheat
threshed out and 500 acres of corn,
las fine as the American flag ever flew
over" and a flood came along and
swept it all away. But he had since
refused an offer of S125 an acre for the |
land, THE river gets my |
crop once in a while he said, "but If
make a crop once in three years I'm
way ahead" There are a hundred |
whom owns at least one horse worth
a thousand dollars, and one of them |
had just refused $1,000 for his-want- |
ed $500. The farmers are so rich
railroad across the county, Just to haul
their hogs and homdny to market. "And. |
say, there's a shoe factory in one town |
that pays $4,000 week in wages and |
ships shoes to Boston"
Did you ever hear such talk that |
at your county fair, dearly beloved /
New England farmer? Did you ever
do any such talking as that yourself
Dr. anything which might be classed |
with it? I-rayther-guess- But /
I'll wager you've heard lots of talk /
which was quite as much exaggerated |
facts-only on Just the opposite side. |
You haven't heard much Dragging |
about crops and farms and farming |
profits, but you've heard a tremendous
farms and farm losses, which was as
bad d stretching of the truth as these |
Boone county chaps bombast.
or course the eminentIy desirable |
thing is that we should all, in Califor- |
mia and Boone county and Connecticut, |
tell the exact truth. But that's a bIam- |
ed hard thing for anybody to do. 1T |
takes a mighty smart man to tell the |
truth said an old lawyer to me, once.
We most Of us stretch it, one way or /
the other, even when we don't mean /
to. I want to suggest as matter of /
" ouldn't be cheerfuIler and pleasanter |
all round, when we do stretch things,
to pull 'en up rather than down? In /
stead of whining about the failure Of /
our potato crop, why not whoop hilari- |
ously about our big apples? Instead of |
telling everybody how Neighbor Hosk-
ms lost money on his boss trade, why |
1ot tell how much he's making every |
week from his hens? Instead of adver-
Using to every stranger the fact that |
Seighbor Johnson's oats didn't yield |
enough to pay for the seed and labor,
Why not brag atoTt the bunkum hay
crop he cut off his south meadow? In
stead of announcing that you want to
self out for half what your place cost you
30 as to go somewhere else where folks
ire alive. why not try to make visitors
,nvious of your fortunate location, SO
hat they'll want to get in near you?
sn't that a better way to foster in
creased values in real estate?
Don't understand me as defending
nendacity. Far from it; stick as close
o the truth as you possibly can But.
( you must wabb1e q little in it, for
leaven's sake lie white; don't lie
black!
THE FARMER.