Norwich bulletin., 1914-12-26
Now, was this farringq

Now, was this farming?
 don. think so. Honest Intun. I don't. It looks to me like a case of spending much money and taking much trouble for the sake of having something to brag about
 Which isn't farming. Not by a long shot
 once had another neiahhor who always grew mammoth pumpkins. Hardly year passed that he didn't take one or two to the fair and win hrst prize on them. 1 got tired of if and one year I decided to see what a gardener could do in the line of big pumpkins. So I invested in about half a dozen packets of seeds from haIf a dozen seed men, each of whom announced his particular variety as positively the biggest ever grown. Ac- corolng to these YeraciouS gentlemen pumpkins of these sorts had been ralsed weighing close to 200 pounds. My nelghboP had never got above 100 pounds. yet, and seemed to have a chance
 We'll, took strip Of rich garden soil and nanured it again and put it into fine tilth. Then, for fear I had underest1mated my job, I manured 1t once more, and narrowed the ton dressing in made twelve hills. and further rnanured each one of them. Then 1 planted two hills of each of my six varieties. forced them with glass frames put over them till they sprouted through; protected them with wire screens from bugs and beetles: nursed them along with freduerlt wa terings of water leached through a hoghhead of mixed hen, sheep and hog manure. whenever the ground got dry. kept the soil among them and for ten feet either side as free from weeds as the center of Main street and as mellow as an aSE-heap; pfnched of the side-runners and the ends of the main stems as soon as the fruit had set; and so forth and so on.
 TWO weeks before fair time I cut my initials and the year in the shell of what promised to be the l1izgesf one. The cuts granulated along fI,eTri edges into fancy designs, which helped draW attention to the pumpkin When It was put on the scales at fine fair It weighed something over no pounds and gave me first award, without any question: Also a premium of 50 cents.
 Later I began to "figger up" had put almost BIO TYeI-th of manure and fertilizer on that pumpkin patch. I had put more than S10 worth of lime and fuss into caring for it. Also. I had to lose day. taking the big 'un to the fair, when my time was in 5~-AI oCAAl1Alu LO harvest mature crops before frost. Altogether I reck- oned that that pumpkin spurt had cost me fully $25. In return I had got 90 cents, smell Of glory last ing rom twenty minutes to half an hour, and a dozen or two big punlp- h1ns' @ so coarse-hesied and high-coI- ored that they wouldn't do for pies. Even the COWS refused to eat them so long as there was anything better within reach. such as dead grass, dried weeds or rotten apples.
 Again; was this farming or sar-
 Not much. It was just Dit Of tom foolery which. having once done T should have counted myself a silly 7aellanapes to repeat.
 My neishbor had his "record" cow. which cost him much time. tpolIble and money, and returned him no qt!iTalent-tlnless he considered his ability to brag about her in the back 'oom of the store an eauivaIent.
 l had my big pumpkin. which cost ne something more than I ever got or 1t. I do not frequent that store
 aek room and so had no chance to all attention to my own wonderful 7ess as a pumpkin producer to any, ody except Peter, the off horse. and Speekles, the spotted ce4v. Neither # them seemed to take any real in crest in it, not so much as in the 1pple or carrot they suspected I might lave in some handy pocket
 But done "records" set a mark of 'upren1e excellence worth striving owaFds, even though few can hope equal them? I imagine someone asEdng that question.
 As a. matter Of theory. yes: ss a natter of plain, everyday fRnt Ra
 record" is always an exception: made a record because the most and unique exception known. A comet is an exception. The sun is q daily commonplace. Yet & wise world wouldn't swap its one every th9Egs each ono were bigger and lcnge~-taiiea GhSn eTer seen before.
 So far as incentive to s1sproveneat Is caacensea, ths record made by a cow which never paid her own sx- pensiVe way and which died hefcre her time, killed by fiIe process of record" making. can hardly be con sidered as 8 shining success.
 Suppose, if we want incentives, we take the ordinary. average production of the farmers about us as a nainfmuDa mark; or suppose we take our eggr suppose we make it our fixed farming policy never to fall below that aver age, if effort and foresight can pfs- vent it, but each year to better ik, again if effort and foresight can do so?
 Don't you think that such plan would really accomplish more useful results thaa wild-eyed: chasing after
 I'll & FSa1E7ErR. ]