Norwich bulletin., 1912-09-14
A WORLDWIDE CAUSE FOR cOMPLAINT-THE
 WORST NOT THIS SIDE THE ATLANTIC


 other. Each one of us has got to make his own bed, and sleep in it. Nevertheless, where general purpose farming is practical, this era of high prices certainly does furnish mighty strong argument for making our farms self -suf1cing and self providing. as far as possible.
 But we were talking about the sea scnahIe discouragenient in England and Europe as well as in America No matter which kind of farming we do, if the season turns out so bad that none of our crops give us living re- turns and we have to buy everything, pretty black and the going pretty rocky.
 It might seem as if we were all up against it." and as if the "it'' we were lup against was something uncomforta bly hard and sharp -cornered. There's one thing which is being emphasized by this combination of high prices and bad weather. Ii is not new thing but one of those old wis doms we get to overlook, just because l 1t is so old and trite. It is the truth set forth in the well-known catch about the little farm well-tilled.s Within my radius of observation, know of just three pieces of corn and just two of potatoes which are doing | finely-as well. almost, as in good year. Every one of those five pieces has been intensively cultivated. I don't happen to know about the fert- l ilization of all of them Two, at least, were treated, so far as manure is con cerned, the same as any other year. Tlvrf RRa xrrfo In five 01t1 r.. ed in way that some of the neighbors thought absurd. The best patch of corn in the lot was plowed deep, har- rowed to ashy mellowness and fneness, 1 planted early and covered deep, ma nured in the hill as well as broadcast narrowed once after planting before the corn came up, cultivated three | times with scratch teeth, twice with wide sweeps" twice with horse hoes, and twice by hand. In addition. aft I err the corn had grown too tall to per- init of horse work it was gone over carefully, and every weed of the anna ranth or pigweed or ragweed sort was pulled out before it got a foot high. As a result of this work, not a leaf Epf a single corn plant so much as duoop during six weeks of parching drought: the soil hasn't had any weeds l to feed and has put all it's strength 1 into corn: the rows stand thick and tall an deep green, loaded with big ears and without basket full of weeds to the acre in the mellow, moist ground underneath them. The ears are already so well matured that, if killing frost should come tonight it could only injure the fodder" The corn itself is safe. This, on land which l has been in corn for nine consecutive years, In a season which has stunted or killed at least nine-tenths of the corn within radius of ten miles. The only visible explanation is that inten- sive cultivation made the crop.
 Similarly intensive cultivation has been done on the other patches of good corn and potatoes which mentioned. .One swallow doesn't make a sum mer," and good crop doesn't prove any thing. But when I see fifty or hun dred corn and potato-helds showing measly failure, and just five showing bunkufn crops, and learn that the five wore intenEively cultivated, while the others were gone over in the usual Init or miss" way--then begin to put two and two together
 And whenever man does that with a sufficiently black pencil on a sufficient ly white sheet of paper, and adds them
 
 to find that they make four-no more and no less never three nor five.
 I ----------
 The trouble with most of us is that we're trying to do so much that we can't do anything well. This, by the way isn't concealed argument in favor of special farming Some of us no doubt are muzzle- loading single barrels. But there are double barrels and nine-shot repeaters among farm , CTS as well as guns. Possibly Smith may not be able, on his farm, to raise anything but cranberrfes, It doesn't Follow that Jones, on another farm. may not be able to raise a dozen diff Iferent crops and all good ones. There's a difference in both men and dirt, But, : as rule. we try to spread ourselves out too thin: to cover toe much ground, In good years we get along toierably. Nature sometimes seems ip a real motherly mood and willing tS overlook our neglect and make up for . our failures. It's when she gets into one of her tantruns and sends along a year like the present that we must do the trick ourselves-o it won't Joe done. And it's a mighty scarce sort of farmer who can cover fifty acres as efficiently as he can ten.
 N Of course, the bigger the acreage the bigger the total crop provided the big acreerage all does well. But it's better in the end to make ten dollars off single acre than to lose a dollal an acre on fifty. Just that is what often happens when we try to do toe much. If the season proves favorab ble we shall come out all right, anyway But how are we going to know plant ing time, what the following month; r are to be? It is all well enough tC . hope for the best. But 1t is wiser strategy to prepare for the worst Such preparation will not cause u! kany harm. if the year proves benea. Jcient: it may save us from sorry dam. age in the other event.
 Every farm has it's Limitations. Mos farmers also have theirs. Each one oI Jus, if he is going to attain any sor of success, must work close up to thu Iline of these bounds.
 But he isn't wise if he undertake. to overstep the limits. An insufflcien
 charge of powder in the cartridge vii Ifail to drive the ball with killing force An oyercharge may burst the gun ana
 blow off the gunners head. It's some
 times better to miss a woodchuck thar to spatter one's own brains over tn, landscape.
 The one lesson which the presen
 bad year has impressed on me mos
 forcibly, is just this of taking care O
 the crops and having only such as on,
 can take care of
 That one corn-patch I've mentionet
 is only an acre. If it had been tel
 acres the farmer couldn't have fount
 the help nor the time to fuss over 1
 as he did. He will make a good prof , it off that acre, after paying all tn ! cost of his finicky care The sam i amount of money spent on ten acre
 would have resulted-if the fields o his neighhors are any cl-iterinr-in U