Norwich bulletin., 1911-11-18

time yaWping that T told you SOL and l disapprove of the practice. But l want apologetically and meekly to re- mark, right here, that 1 HAVE been telling you so for To, these many years ever since The Bulletin began eircu- lating these yagrAnt and desultory Farmers Talks.
 Over and over again I have tried to prick the bubble of the booming and bounding and bragging west, and to indicate that the presentAday field for farming is right here in the east.
 Facts like this winning of the worlds record for corn production by a Connecticut farmer on a Connecticut farm simply serve as illustrations of the truth, which is proven in scores of other ways.
 We have the cheaper land; we have the nearer markets; we have the re- suits of seasonal experience for cen turies to fall back on- All we need is to put as much brains and as much energy and as much work into our farming as they do out west, and we can beat the blooming west out of it's boots at it's own game.
 We may not be able to raise figs and oranges and dates and lemons and tropical fruits. But we can raise pret- ty nearly everything else, of better quality and more profftably.
 The only thing to remember is that
  they have become anticipated and in effective, for other methods which fit the needs of tie times. We can't ex- pect to do better than grandfather. if grandfatEer's ways of doing things. Grandfather did his work in his day; that day has long since gone back into the limbo of a past eternity. This is another day. calling for other forms of procedure. offering different avenues to success.
 Experience is wise teacher: and one of it's most valuable teachings is road and when to make a new one of better grade. When experience is used solely to defend routine it becomes a blind leader of the blind and magnih- cent ditch ch-6ller-nothing more. See Matt. KY. 14.
 don't know how MI. Davis Of Granby, Mass, raised his whacking how MT. White of Collinsville, Conn. raised his still whackingest crop of corn this year. What seems to be clear is that they both raised mighty good corn each in it's turn, beat the world They did it on the old farms of these old states. They did it with the corn nat ural to the locality. They beat the new new and supposedly richer lands out west.
 Now. I take back nothing I have ever said about the unwisdom of ar guing from exceptions. It isn't to be assumed by anybody that all New England farmers can now produce 112 bushels of shelled corn per acre. simply by initiating b1r. Whites methods But the fact. that he did such thing on his old land in this old state leads to the reasonable inference that others of us, on our old lands, might well be anie to raise average crops exceeding the average crops of the west, as he exceeded it's best crop.
 There's more or less "happen- charce" about these exceptional yields. Che enthusiastic scientific farmer" know of asserts that there remains no element of chance in farm production If farmers only farm scientifically. Seems to me this is a little too sweep Ing, not to say t'bTash.' When you mix carbonate of soda with vinegar they effervesce- They always have and al ways will, so long as your soda is req sonably pure and your vinegar reason ably sour But when you mix seeds and soil and fertilizer together you cont know everything about any one of them, nor about the resultant com blnations- If we could be as sure of our soil as we are of our home made vinegar, and as sure of our fertilizers as we are of the soda we buy, C. P from the druggist. and as sure of the combinations those soils and fertilizers
  ton soda and vinegar will make why then we might eliminate one big eIe- ment of uncertainty from our caIcIIla- tions. Even in that case We should have to take our chances with the weather and the seasons. with Iaprc- dictable drouths or equally unpredict- able rains.
 No, we farmers must continue to ac- cept the gambling element in our work It isn't q sure thing yet and isn't going to be for some time to come. But even in gambling the shrewd gambler wins oftener and wins more than the sucker. Even with all tho uncertainties of season and soil and with all the mystery of hidden chem fca1 or other action going on under the surface of our seed beds, we are still in some measure, masters of our fates- We can't always win big re- suits, but we can generally reach bet ter results than now, if we go after them right.
 It is because MT. White has shown what We Nutmeg farmers can do un- Ger favorable conditions that I take off my hat to him. and thank him for winning that s100. I feel almost IS good about it as if l had got the money myself. l hope that next year some other Connecticut farmer will "git up and git thar with a profit of about seven times STO0
 THE FARMER.