Norwich bulletin., 1912-08-10

'businessp man came out lnto lhe country, bought a two hundred acre farm which wasn't earning us way and is making money off IL. lie mas t~ot himself into print with a rosy ac- co,1nt of his farm and it's success, ana the plain statement that he is go- ing to show the other farmers thlng or two"
 used to read yarns of this sort with a kind of shamed wonder why, With an average brain development, with average physical strength and with more than average powers Of appilca- ton, l cGsddn't do as nicely.
 don't wonder any more, nor do tska much stock in the stories, except as mere illustrations of how absolutely and completely they show the import ed farmers" ignorance of the real conditions around the real farmer here in the east.
 In the first place, this particular Peter Brag of whom I've just been reading bought a two hundred acre Westchester, N. Y, farm, and paid for it, money down.
 The average young farmer, starting out for himself, can very seldom aI- ford a two hundred acre farm within an hour of the biggest city in Ameri- ca If he thinks he can dare the chances, he even more rarely has the money to pay for it. He must leaVe the most of the purchase price on mortgage, for the annual interest pay ments to eat up his profits and keep him poor and tired for from ten to twenty years. He hasn't previously made enough money in the city at some trade or profession to enable him to buy farm as a plaything.
 Then this Peter Brag, after few years of failure to get living off his two hundred acres, hunted up an ag- ricultural expert of long experience, world wide training, and,-presumably high priced. He instructed this eX- pert to make his dairy a success and to produce four tons of hay to the acre off some one-ton- an-acre fields.
 The expert is asserted to be doing it.
 And the Hon. Peter Brag. Esq, pRoudly points to his own swelling chest and desires the surrounding country side to gaze on the spectacle of a successful farmer
 
 One single incident serves to il luatrato the difference between the way this eminent apostle of citided agri- culture does things, and the way the average eastern farmer has to do them. Much of the farm was covered with rocks; loose, boulder like hardheads from the size of small barn down to that of ones head, Buy me a stone e-crusher," coolly said the new ex- pert superintendent, and I'll make the rocks a source of income So the owner bought the stone -crusher,- -only matter of some three or fo UT thousand dollars, l suppose,-and the expert had the rocks cleared off, chew ed up and gradually sold for road making.
 Please imagine the average young New England farmer first buying a two hundred acre farm and paying for it, cash down; then hiring a high salaried expert to boss the manage ment, and furnishing said expert, as a mere introductory incident, with a stone -crusher and the engine to drive 1t!
 Mind you, am not criticsing the Hon. Peter Brag's method, nor sneer- at his expenditure, no doubting his success.
 But l do say that such freak incur sions into the country by men of large capital who are able to sink ten ,twen- ty or a hundred thousand dollars in plant and preparations have in them absolutely nothing of information or even helpfulness for the average farm CT, who has to think twice before he can be sure that he is able to buy a new wagon, and who must first get off his farm any money he can possib- ly use to pay for it or to make im- provements with.
 And when one of these swell front ed capitalists after spending his thousands upon thousands in getting ready, finally does get his stone heap into condition to pay interest on the investment, it certainly does stir up my bile to have him put on the air of a benevolent agriculturist school master and tell me and my brother hayseeds how simple it is to make money off the farm, if only we'll use business" principles.
 Business ''principar' is the way he ought to spell it.
 It doesn't need any one from town to show us how to have money make more money. What we want to know is how to treat dirt so it will make money, We don't find it much service to be shown how a stone erusher can pay it's way crushing cobble-stones we haven't the stone crusher, nor the money to buy one, nor the credit to hold up the manufacturer with. We don't need to be told that a dozen car loads of high grade fertilizer or even a dozen carloads of city stable manure, put on our farms, would help them wonderfully. What we need to be shown is how to get the money of the manurelesS farm, first, to buy the manure with, later.
 Why, friends, don't l know that ] could have saved early crops from last June's killing frOsts if only I had had my gardens roofed over with glass Don't I know that I could have them carried them, lush and luxuriant through July's pitiless drought, il only had had had an adequate irri- gating plant? I don't need any fancy farmer" walking around in specl1less tan shoes and wiltless collar and i'm maculate shirt-sleeves with a newly bought and shining hoe over his shoulder to tell me how I can double production and improve quality and swell income by the judicious ex- penditure of ample capital at the out set. What I would like to know and what the average farmer would like tc know is How to get the capital from the farm to begin with, in order to have 1t for all these manifestly needed Improvements ,etc.
 ..The only earthly lesson can draw from Peter Brag and his too nu- merous congeners is that we should all first get rich in town and then use our capital to bring up exhausted farms. And that lesson doesn't seen worth the learning for two reasons: First, we couldn't all get rich in town if we should go there, as there would be no one out in the country for us to get rich from: and, second we should all starve to death the first month, if there was nobody left tc raise our cabbages and potatoes fol us.
 Most anyone can have fine dinner if there is a good range in the kiteh- en and first class cook presiding ana a pantry stocked with ample supplies