Norwich bulletin., 1913-10-18

which tells of some one turning de- feat into victory" or a disaster into poetic license. They don't happen in fact Defeat is defeat, and disaster is disaster. It doesn't alter their natures to change their names
 But it is sometimes practicable for men, not being wholly helpless peb- bleS, to foreSee disaster and avoid it; or to take a new road to another end when defeated in the campaign they start with.
 That's about what we mean, when we talk of blessings in disguise" "- those of us who really mean anything and are not merely parroting what we've heard others say.
 Take the recent thoughts and Frosts. etc, which have hurt us so. With the single exception of winter wheat, , every crop in the country seems to be short. The promise is for a sharp and steep increase in the cost of pretty nearly all grains. It certainly looks as if we might yet have to pay g a hundred for corn meal and com parable rates for other rations.
 We New England farmers have got out of the habit of raising our own feed. We've come to rely upon farmers out west to do our work for us. Now it looks as if we were going to pay a pretty stiff bill,-and have the dickens own job finding the wherewithal to pay.
 The year has been one of crop dis aster. Our seasonal campaign has ended in defeat Don't let's mince words. We've been beaten: we are being beaten: we're going to continue being beaten all winter. Our defeat is not 2 matter of phrases: it's fact of history.
 The real question is not whether we've been licked, but whether we're going to lie still on the pounded beach and take another licking in some other storm: or whether we shall build some sort of sea-wan be- hind which We can escape the next meteorological convulsion.
 Time was when the average New England farm was entirely self-sup- porting. It was the source of it's in come and outgo, both It supplied itself with corn and beef and pork It furnished itself and had something to send out. 1t produced grain and meat: school children and sehOol- ma 'amS: ministers and statesmen.
 At present the New England farm buys its corn and beef and pork: sees its schools dwindling: and imports it's statesmen from abroad.
 Quite few Jeremiahs and cassan- 
 this state of things. They have made themselves more or less unpopular thereby, but have produced no other effect.
 Now we are having to pay more for chicken feed than the chickens can possibly pay back in eggs We're having to buy our horses over again in the provender we feed them with.
 We've been using the other fellows crutches so long that our own legs have lost their carrying power. At last the Crutches have broken. Shall we buy some more at a fancy price, or shall We try to make our own legs do their own work, hereafter?
 The average New England farmer has grown up in the belief that he couldn't raise corn and other grains as cheaply as he can buy them from the west. Perhaps he can't some years But the average New England farm, if properly managed, could raise all the chicken feed it's hens consume for less than $1.75 and all the corn meal its animals would need for less than $2 a hundred. A good deal less I know this, because l know farms New England farm could raise a con siderable part of these things.
 It would be silly to advocate a re- turn to grain growing in New Eng land for export. We haven't the available acreage for that sort of thing. But we could and should raise practically all the feed and forage our farm animals consume right on the farm. It is not only poor economy to buy such things-it is dunn poor farming. And now and then comes a year like this when it brings us perilously close to bankruptcy.
 
 ought to know, by this time. that most of the farmers of Eastern Con- necticut' don't take any interest in corn growing. I've been told so, times