Norwich bulletin., 1912-10-26


 spring wheat or rye ,or barley or the clovers He must raise about what his neighbors raise, and his crops will mature about when theirs do, so that they will all be dumping their truck on the market at the same time in a very freshet of deliveries and, Of course. knocking prices down to the bottom of the well.
 The Connecticut farmer can take his choice of fully half a hundren diff ferent crops, any one of which or any dozen of which his climate and his soil will permit him to raise. He cer- tainly can make hay, if he wants to and will take the pains. The best and most profitable hay-raising ever done in the United States was done in Con- necticut He surely can raise pota- toes, and, when he has raised them, he can sell them practically at his own door, for at least double what the Idaho potato-srower can get for his shipment Moreover, the Connecti- cut farmer can grow corn and rye and barley and clover and melons and pumpkins and tomatoes and cucurf1- bers, which the Idaho farmer cannot: he can raise peaches and cherries and pears, which the Idaho farmer can- not: in truth, he can produce every- thing that Idaho will produce, as well as about forty crops which Idaho won't produce and can't be made to.
 Then he can sell what he raises for considerably higher prices than the Idaho farmer can hope to get; in markets which it doesn't cost him to reach, one-half what it costs the Ida hQ farrl1ar in f,.or fian cba
 In other words the Nutmeg farmer can take his choice of crops from list many times lower than that avail able in Idahes and then he can take his choice, within reason, of the markets wherein to sell them. If one happens to be temporarily over stock ed when his crop is ready, perhaps there may be another close by, which is clamoring for just his goods. He isn't restricted to only one market without any competing bidders.
 In answer, ycu may wisely shake your head and sayi "Oh, well, this sounds all right, put we know of men who have gone west and made money" Bless you, and don't yeu know of men who have stayed east, right in Con- necticut. and made money,-made 1t at farming2 I have no doubt some men have made money by farming in the extreme west I suspect that there is, here and there, man so gifted with agricultural genius that he would make money farming on the edge of the Sahara desert He'd breed camels and sell ostrich eggs, and get fancy prices for them.
 Really, you know, farmers sue cess depends quite as much and I sometimes think little more, on the quality of the man than on the character of the farm.
 But what want you to see is that, given the same sort of man with the same industry and perseverance and patience and horse-Sense the sur rounding conditions for success are better in Connecticut than in Idaho. A poor stick of farm may fail in the Connecticut Valley. A better farmer may succeed among the foothills os the Rockies. But the good farmer has better environment, even in the extreme east, than the equally good farmer on the extreme western frontier The chances, outside of what's under his own hat-brim, are better.
 Horace Greeley was a great editor. He was mighty poor farmer His What Know About Farming made a much smaller book than he might have put under the title What Don't Know About Farming" Perhaps his ever- the shoulder advice to some caller whom he was surllly anxious to get rid of, Go West, Young Man" might have been good when he gave it. Perhaps it might not have been. I don't know. That was a long time ago. Much water has run under the bridges since then and it's dunn poor advice now, l don't care who repeats it.
 A country where it takes a man twenty years of good crops to get back the thousand dollars he invested in the farm, when a four per cent. saw ings bank deposit of that same thous- and could have made another thous- and in less than eighteen years,-such a country doesn't meet nay ideal of good farmin' land"
 Stay East, young farmer. Take a slice of the old farm ,or buy a slice off some other old farm, for about | half what you'd have to pay for any | thing decent in western lands. Then | go at it. not with hammer and tongs, | but with blow and harrow and culti- | Vator and Weeder and manure spread | er,--AND BRAINS! Find out what your handiest markets demand: find out what your soil Is fit to produces | find out what help it needs to make 1t l do it's best: feed it and nourish it