Norwich bulletin., 1910-12-24
THE UPS AND DOWNS OF FARM CROPS


 1 | was nightly amused, the other day, in reading The Man Who Talks" account of the way in which his wise mother steered him off from growing ! into g. professional reformer That's where 1 am inclined to think she did l a good job There are quite enough natural born reformers, as it is, go- ing up and down the land seeking evils to devour Not but that there is need of reformation in all of us, individually, and in all of us, consid- cred as a bunch. The trouble is not so much because there are too many reformers, but because they spread themselves out too wide and too thin, and try to do too many good things all at once. Humanity is a queer lot and the longer you live with it the queerer it gets. It can't seem to stand either virtue or wisdom by the whole sale, but must have them administered in minims and only one variety at a time. But every reformer gets up on his own separate stump and pro ceeds to flail the universe because all it's countless millions don't hasten to get up on that same stump, regardless of any and all other stumps, no mat ter how enticing. Once in a great while, enough of us forget our partic- ular whim in reform long enough to unite with those who are banging away at some other reform. And then that one thing which we've united to carry is carried. After which we dissolve into separate bands again, and resume our ineffective bushwhac ck- ing in the service of our personal ideas.
 We farmers are apt to be all reform CTS, in our individual ways. One trou- TNN I %E,r,A to reform our neighbors, whom we can't effectively influence, rather than the only fellows whom we do con- trol, i.e., our own selves. Take, for example this very matter of alter nate over-p production and under-pro- duction, to which allusion has been made. Until we can reform out of existence the toll-gate system of do- ing business, just as we've reformed it off our rural roads, we have got to make the best we can of it. And we simply cannot tell, beforehand, in the spring, say, what the market for our fall crops is going to be; whether high or low. We don't know how much other farmers are going to attempt producing; we don't know what the season is going to be, whether one of good or of poor yield. We must take our chances, gamblers that we are.
 But keen gamblers don't take un- necessary chances, nor do they take any chance blindly. Not if they're gambling to win. Which is just what we farmers have to do. every year. We've got to win som metbjng. somehow. or go to the poorhouse. We can't support our families and keep the children at school and pay our taxes, if we lose our bets against nature, all of them. have several neighbors who, when any particular crop has been unusually good and therefore un- profftably cheap one year, always put in double acreage of that crop, the next year. They "fgger it out'' that a majority of farmers, disgusted with low prices, will stop trying to raise that particular crop and that. conse- quently, there will be a shortage, the coming year, with better prices. Sim ilarly. if & year has been marked by small yields and high prices, they put in less of that particular thing, next year, so as not to be caught with a lot of 1t when the market is drugged by an over-sGpply from others who have been led into over production by the hope that high prices will rule a second year. That's one way to take the gamblers advantage in the game.
 have other neighbors who take a different tack. They find their land
 
 staple crops. They can raise those particular things rather cheaply and Of good quality. So they stick right to them, year after year always try ing to produce about the same amount Their reasoning is that things will about ''even up" in the long run; that if prices are low this year, they'll probably be good, next year; and that they will likely do better, in a long course of years, to stick to the crops they know most of and can raise best, rather than go experimenting all over the crop-list. That's another way to take the gamblers advantage of the game.
 Out in that broom corn country, al- most twice as many acres were in broom corn this year as last The crop was at least a third larger per acre. Yet the farmers who raise 1t aren't going to get any more, If as nucn actual money this year for their big, good crop as they got last year for their small, poor crop. If their oh- Jeet was to keep up prices-and we may assume that this is every pro ducer's natural desiFe-they simply threw away their chance when they increased their acreage of broom corn. They might have been better off had they followed either of the plans just outlined. Probably each one of them hoped his nefghbors would plant less or at any rate no more, while he would put in some more acres and get the gold. That isn't the way it works. however.
 In actual practice, suspect that the most successful refermers are those who reform themselves and their own belongings and their own farms and farming methods, and let it go at that We admittedly don't hear so much of them nor from them. They don't make as much noise and smoke. But there's too much noise and smoke. as It IS. Sometimes neither noise nor smoke avail so much as quiet atten- ton to biz Last summer a big thrashing machine sort of automobile