Norwich bulletin., 1913-04-12
LEAN LIVING IN NEW ENGLAND LOOKS
 GOOD COMPARATIVELY


 and declared he would stay there, in a kindly climate, till the Connecticut
 weather got summer enough iii 1t to
 be fit to live with. He disappeared southward about the middle of Feb ruary. He was back again about the middle of March,--right in the midst of the March-iest weather we had that season. No more of New Orleans for him. It didn't freeze any, there, to be sure. But the days were raw disagreeable by the excessive humid ity. and there want a hotel or board ing house in the place fitted up with adequate heating apparatus. or sup piled with sufficient bedding. He shivered in overcoat and gloves all day and shivered under thin blankets all night, even when he added that same oVercoat to the bed covers.
 It might be a little colder, he ad- mitted, up in Connecticut But at least he could have a stove, there, and some quilts on his bed.
 Another neiehbor of mine, only three years ago. went off, hot-foot to Tex as. He was tired of having to raise things in a summer only three months long Down in Texas. he had been told. one could begin his Spring work anytime in December or Janu- arv; have potatoes or onions ready to sell by April, and raise two crops more of something else on the same ground before the next onion sowing season returned.
 Well. he's back again, also. It was all true, what he was told. He could raise three crops a year on the same ground. good crops, too. But, as he puts it, Whats the use of working twelve months of the year to raise three sets of crops, if you can't sell 'em when you've raised 'em ?'
 There isn't farm in all Connecticut so poor but that the right man, treating it right, can get something off it. There isn't a farm in the black-dirt district of the famous corn belt so rich but that there is some thing "pis'n" about it. We've all of us known farms which long did nothing better than starve their owners, but which. in the hands of new farmers, have been made profitable.
 When farmer finds out what his farm will do, and understands also eralIy make a pretty good work team by hitching up together his own capacity with the farms opportunity.
 Nature must be humored and ca joled. We can't drive her Y ct just that thing is what whole lot of us are trying to do We're planting po- tatoes on what was meant for corn land: or we're putting corn into what was meant tor orchard ground: or the land was made to grow hay. We're attempting to fit square pegs into round holes. We're trying to do work we're constitutionally unfitted for on soil that was made for some thing else. Of course we fail. Then we hear of some one else, of quite makeup from ourselves, l on entirely unlike soil, who l really does that which we can't. 1 we grow discontented and | want chance
 The chances are that we, with our owE peculiar abilities, might do things On our own wiIlful soil which that | other fellow couldn't do on his,-if l we'd only take pains, as he did, to | ind out what the natural aptitudes of | and our soils were
 But aren't some farms better than | other farms? and some climates bet -er than other climates? Why, sure. | But there isn't any farm in any eli mate on which anybody can grow l You can't grow dates in i Maine, but you can grow very good 1 and very profitable potatoes. You can't grow potatoes in the salty sands | 1f the Sahara, but the cunning Arabs | ean and do grow dates in them,-the ] pest dates of the world.
 } You can probably raise wheat in l Nebraska and corn in Ohio easier than l YOU can in Connecticut. But you're | much less likely to have what you do 1 raise blown into Canada by a cyclone | Dr swept into the muddy Ohio by a | 'reshet. Moreover, you can get better 1 prices with shorter hauls to market
 And. not least of all you're better 1 off alive and dry on a thin-soiled hill 1 n New England, than you would be | drowned in an Ohio food or crushed ! o death under the debris of a Nebras- "a tornado.
 THE FARMER