Norwich bulletin., 1911-01-28
CENSUS FARM REPORTS AND EXPOSITION TESTS.

1 CENSUS FARM kEPOkIS f(Written Specially for The Bulletin.) I I've been looking over the. prelim-
 mary report of the census bureau on Connecticut agricultural statistics. some of the facts brought out are i quite interesting. Some are more than that-they are highly suggestive. For instance, the bureau reports that there are 26,431 farms in the state, with 8
 total acreage of 2.176oO0 acres. This seems to be an average of about 82 l acres to each farm, which is a very
 sensible size. Considering the gen.
 eral character of Connecticut farms. l think 1t is safe to say that there aqe
 more men who can't properly take care of S2 acres than there are men
 who can manage Ss acres.
 | But in these very figures is to be found an illustration of how mis1ead- 1 ing the talk of averages is when | applied to individual cases. You see, ! there are some farms of an acre and l some of over a thousand acres. When i you come to add 'em all together anu l bunch 'em up and shake out an aver 1 age, you get about S2 acres But | when you examine the detailed reports you'll find that 1S,616 are of 9s acres 1 or less and only 7,815 of a hundred ! acres or more. Indeed, you'll find
 that 12,019 are of less than 50 acres l each.--almost one-falf of the whole ! number. There are 22S farms of over l 500 acres each,-40 Of over a thousand acres. These big ranches unduly affect
 the averages which you get when you 1 include them in the '-fggerin'." In the ten years between 1900 and 1910 there l was an increase of only about seven per cent in the number of farms hav- ing less than 50 acres, while there was an increase in the number of thou sand d-acre farms in the same ten years l from 26 to 40,-a gain of 54 per cent. | This isn't matter for congratulation ! In a state so densely populated as Connecticut state with so many in- | sfstent markets all over it, a state which doesn't produce one-quarter of I what it consumes, the need of the times is for little farms. we'll titled, 1 intensely cultivated, and made pro-
 ductive to the last limit of the last inch in the last fence-corner. Thou l sand acre ranches are out of place in 1 Nutmeg dom.
 l And here's bit of puzzle that haven't yet got through my wool. | in the state since 1900 which is fgur- l ed to be a loss of 3 per cent while l there has has been a decrease of 136,- l 00o acres in the land farmed,, which I is figured to be 6 per cent It's easy enough to explain the decrease in the number of farms, by assuming that 1 517 farmers have bought up and add l ed to their holdings that number of adjoining places which have come into l the market But what gets me is.- ] what's become of those 136,000 acres ! of land? Acres don't shrink when l they change owners, nor evaporate and 1 blow away. think there ought to be a commission appointed to find out what's happened to those 1S6.ooo acres. At the average value of $33 an
 acre,-which is what the bureau re- 1 ports to be the rate for Connecticut 1 farm -land,-it ought to be worth look ing up and fastening on to the map. 1 in some way, so that there won't any more get away before the next cen l sus!
 ] Another interesting fact brought l out in returns is the proof they af- 1 ford of the increase in wage-rates. | The farmers of Connecticut paid out l just $2.54s,o0o more than they paid for labor in 19to-an increase of 62 1 per cent. in this one single item of l farm expense. I wonder, if the facts l as to prices of Connecticut farm-pr duce in 1900 and 1910 could be com- pared, whether it would be found that l there had been an increase of any 1 thing like 62 per cent. in them? It certainly would seem as if there ought to have been, in simple justice, if the | l1<dS 4irtd IO pay LliGLI
 in wages. It's only from what he gets | for his crcps that he obtains the
 money wherewith to pay wages.
 ! However, it is to be noted that the | Connecticut farmer, while he was l soaked 62 per cent. more for labor, deliberately bought and applied Te per cent. more fertilizer than in 1900. This
 seems to indicate that he knows what sort of trees make shingles. He has l caught on to the great truth that, if it l is going to cost him more to raise and
 harvest his stuff. he must, somehow. l get more stuff of an acre. One way
 to do that is to put on more fertilizer, l islam it on with a shovel instead of 1 drib'ble it from teaspoon Sometimes
 it happens that the cheapest way to l stop money leaking off the farm is to stuff few more dollar bills into the leak. This won't invariably work, I'm l free to admit. Sending good money l after bad" isn't always sound busf- ness sense The practice certainly has
 a bad name. But some mighty iil-re- puted and disgraceful looking pups arc ! said to be good coon-dogs. If you're 1 looking after coon, it isn't so much 1 the dogs points that count as his
 ability to get the coon. There are ex- 1 captions to all rules. I think, myself, l that it shows good farming sense, as labor cost goes up on farmers, for 1 them to increase their fertilizer ex 1 penses. It really won't cost much more in labor to care for an acre of 1 eighty bushel corn than for one nf | forty bushels. And, if MT. Farmer
 Man can get the bigger crop by gener | ors use of fertilizers, can get it with I out spending all the value of the in crease for the manures, isn't he there
 by providing the extra funds for 1 wages? !. l Speaking of corn, reminds me of ! something which Ina sn't any relation to the census reports, but what WAS | Drought out at the recent New Eng I land Corn Exposition. That is 8 fact, now seemingly settled beyond reason able controversy, that our old-fash- l toned New England flint corn is a 1 better and richer corn than any other variety The buncombe stories which l float eastward from the big western