Norwich bulletin., 1914-01-31

EWritten Specially For The BulieliiA.t
 Electricity:-that's the word of the age. What used to be the tecnnical Dhreses of an abstruse science are sretfing to be common terms of speech. We talk about amperes and volts as we used to talk about steam and water-power. Such ideas as those of s.positiye" and negative electricity are in the A-B-C class.
 But did you ever hear of positive" and negative farming?
 A breezy western farmer used the terms the other day, in an off-hand fashion that Jolted me out of my 1ol- ling posture and made me sit up straight for minute and listen. It turned out that he meant by the phrases something quite common His idea of positive farming" was that sort of farming quite common. His idea of positive farming was that sort of farming which tends to make crops grow; while negative farming" to him was the seasonal combat we all have to wage to prevent our nattIr- al enemies of drought and freshet and frost and weeds and worms and bugs and law-protected animals from destroying crops before they mature
 There's something, sometimes, in the use of new terms or the new use of old terms which seems to set familiar truths in a new light. When you come to think about it. evidently here are two entirely separate fields of farm work. They involve unlike questions and are for quite diverse purposes. The problems of produc- ing big crops demands that we study the character of our soils; that we take pains with out seeds; that we use just the right sorts of fertilizer in just the right amounts: that we cultivate according to the needs of the crops for mulching, aeration, etc.
 But it won't make much difference how careful we are in these respects, if the frosts kill the crops or drought burns them off, or bugs and worms riddle them, or beasts and birds eat them up.
 A farmer may know as much about the way to raise big crops as a whole agricultural college; but, if the blight and the bugs and the other gobbleuns get 'em before he can, how much good will they do him2
 He must also know how to keep a whole lot of undesirable citizens from other orders of existence away from his fields. He has got to be able to invite his crops with one hand and shoo the bad weather and the bacteria and similar things away with the oth- CT hand. He has to be a ministering Angel of peace and plenty on one side DL nAS LdcS auQ a uSQL1QS man on the other side.
 He must not only plant his garden right but he must also keep the devil out of 1t.
 An that's something which. &C., cording to history, Adam and Eve, who are called '-the first gardeners" weren't able-to do.
 Lazily turning over a pile of &C., curuiated farm publications, the oth- CT day, I noticed that just about half of them were devoted to discussions of how best to fight our enemies. Not more than an even half told of plans for betteEing our crops. There you have its Positive and Negative farm ing.
 Eve sometimes wondered how 1t im that so many people who are not ac- tual working farmers come to have such absolutely impossible ideas about farming. Perhaps it is because they think only of the positive side of it, the growing phase, They assume that farming consists merely in getting the right seeds and the right soil togeth- CT and then cleaning Ilf9 the f5Eadllcfs