Norwich bulletin., 1911-01-14
GRABBED AGE AND YOUTH NEED NOT BE AT ODDS
fwritten Specially for The Bulletin.)

(written Specially for The Bulletin.)
 We old hayseeds actually know a lot of things about our farms. there's no denying it. Indeed, wherefore should anyone seek to deny it? Why, land alive, how can a man live forty or hfty years on the same stone heap without coming to know something about the pebbles under him? He can't help 1t, unless he was born pima. Nor can he help airing his knowledge, now and then, unless he was porn dumb. I'm not bit inclined to min fmize the extent or the value of this knowledge of detail. It comes. to us ss tan comes to our cheeks in the March winds and tho May suns; as swinging the axe or straining at the dung-fork.
 Once, when | was even greener than now, I remember watching an old farmer blowing in a characteristic New England field There were some rocks in sight and several trees and a couple of old stumps. and it was something of q sight to observe how the old chap these obstacles. There wasn't any yell ing: nor any yanking of the reins; nor any very noticeable effort the blow handles. When the wise old horses came to just the right point as to certain stump they swerved the least little bit, the plowman gave a scarcely perceptible twist of the hand, "Stiddy, thar Baldy,' the share slid out into the old furrow. scraped around the ex- posed root, and was back again in the fresh sward a second later, going on just as smoothly as if there wasn't stick in the whole pasture. l could see all this and admire it as a bit of si<ilful workmanship. But every turn about the lessening sward, when he came to a certain place which, to me. looked just like any other place, the old man would give a sort of side ways squint at something on the edge of the field and then his hands would shift on the blow handles and I could see that the point was slowly rising and the turf-slice thinning till, in- stead of blowing furrow six inches deep, he was turning barely three inches At last my curiosity got the better of me, and, as he stopped to let the horses breathe, I asked him: 'Un- cle Ike, why don't you blow as deep over there as the rest of the patch?' 'T1uh!" he grunted. "a'nt no use try ing to; there's a quarry of cobble- there. md you might as we'll try to blow . macadam road" 'But how do you know just when you're comin' to itT' persisted: looks like all the rest to me-" "Huh" he grunted again. guess you'd know where twas If you'd plowed over it nd broke $ many sheers in it as I hev." And on fbov went once more.
 remember once going fishing to Cspherus shoaI in New London sloop with . New London skipper. The wind was contrary and we tackled and tibed and dlled and stood on and stood off end did all sorts of nautical stunts. Especially when we were getting through the Rip, which was real Rip and not mere ripple that tum- bling morning. Then we struck a bet ter wind and sailed smoothly on. It was all water to me-water in front of uA water behind us, water all around us. with . distant loom of hills on the recognize. Then, all at once. the skip per remarked: "Well. here we be- and proceeded to drop anchor into what I should have supposed to be about three hundred fathoms of wa tW, tried to see the ranges" he palnstakingiy pointed out to me, but, bless you, couldn't tell one blue filmy point from another and shouldn't have known what to do with them, if had been able to. But the skipper knew when he came to that shoal, just as Uncle Ike knew when he approached
 
 stones.
 Now the knowledge of just where fnere happens to be a submarine hill or q subterrene rockheap is not, in it. 9oaf, especially important to the world at Da<go. But it's mighty useful to the man who holds the blow handles or the tiiler. It's knowledge which comes to the skipper of the sloop and the skip per of the blow by long habitude and reiterated experience. It's exceedingly handy for both--and for many others who are dependent upon the right ex- erciso ef that knowledge.
 1 as, now an old farmer-as years go -and know a good many little things about my fields and their differing ail- nents and curious whims which only experience can teach. I don't know them all, nor do I know all about any of them. Nor am I really cocksure of those l think I know. Perhaps this very season may show me that some. of the things I thought I knew weren't so, after all. Perhaps it may bring a proof of something which I am now doubtful of. We'll. it's the truth want most and need most, no matter whether it agrees with my pre- conceived notions of truth or not As eaid, l am now to be classed as an old farmer. | can also remember, very we'll when I was a. young farmer LAe David, T have been young and TOW I am old." and I want to suggest one thing to those who are still young.
 That ie just this: That there's more proft in learning what the old man really knows than in sneering at or making sport of his queer whims or