Norwich bulletin., 1914-05-02

than the 3S per cent. of the retail value of our produce which is our present average.
 . Two winters ago ! listened, with a few other farmers, to a we'll inten- toned city engineers explanation Of how we could safely get rid of our "slops' by means of a modern septic drainage system. which implied and necessitated a copious supply of run ming water as a flushing agent. And every farmer who listened depended for his water supply on a pump!
 Some years ago there was a crusade for warm barns." It struck some CT our town friends as close to cruelty that dumb animals should be stabbed during the winter in barns which, barring the wind, were just about as cold inside as outside. So we were exhorted not to put furnace heat into our barns, but to build them so they would keep themselves warm by the simple device of double boarding, with an air-space between. We were sol emnly assured that, so potent was this air-spaee, it would amply suffice to keep any stable above freezing, no matter what the weather outside. l happened to be building a new one just at that time, and so l determined to make it frost-proof. I double boarded it, leaving a six inch air space. l also papered between the boaFdings, to make assurance doubly sure, since pa pervious to frost
 And the first real winter night we had wooden pail which l had left half filled with water in this frost proof structure froze solid, broke two hoops and burst it's own bottom out!
 It used to be said that nine news paper readers out of ten felt sure they could run the paper better than the editor. The chances really were that any one of them, planted in the ed itor's chair at D. m would have been under the desk a helpless heap by midnight, when the editors real Wor- ries were getting ready to begin.
 People who wouldn't know whether to SOW clover seed in October or April and who don't know ''gee" from 1raw'' generally think they could manage all most any old farm better than it's own CT They seem inbued with the mo- tion that farming doesn't have 10 be learned; that it is not in any sense a trade with tricks of it's own which must be studied that it isn't sur rounded with any conditions which can't be controlled by the farmer as easily as a steering wheel controls an automobile.
 Which is just where they don't show so much good sense as the sim pie seeming farmers they patronizing- ly assume to instruct.
 It is curious fact that the very best farmers of a community are, usu- ally, the hardest to get any sort of ad vice or suggestion from.
 They are apt to be men who have studied their own conditions so closely and so carefully that they have some sort of control over them. In that very process they have learned humility They have learned that no two farms are just alike, no two farmers just alike, no environments just alike Therefore they see at the outset that the methods which may be wise foI them might be supreme folly for a neighbor on another farm. Of how they manage their own lands an6 stock they will talk freely. But you can't hire them to tell you what to dc with your different lands and differ ent stock.
 They don't know. And they know they don't know. And they have sense enough to keep still when talking would simply display their ignorance.
 There's often real wisdom involved in silence. and real folly in garrulous suggestions born of ignorance or i'm perfect knowledge.
 THE FARMER