Norwich bulletin., 1914-01-31
POSITIVE. AND NEGATIVE FARMING
 NEGATIVE
NEGATIVE

\
 farming. Having got his seeds into
 his soil and furnished them with just
 the right proportions of nitrogen and
 phosphorus and potash and lime. etc.
 which they need, the real farmers
 work has but begun. He must then
 sit up nights and work to keep the forty eleven kinds of enemies with which thoughtful Nature has filled the air and the woods and the water and the subsoil from devouring his vege- table babies while they are still a-born- ing.
 He must fight cut-worms and wire worms and a dozen other sorts Of worms in the dirt: he must fight crows and blackbirds and rabbits and woodchucks and dozen other sorts Of vertebrate thieves: he must fight po- tato- bugs and cabbage butterflies and onion maggots and cucumber beetles and stinking squash bugs and root borers: he must fight the early and the late blight on his potatoes, and the rust on his oats and asparagus, and anthracnose on his berries, and black on his cherries, and yellows on his peaches, and tent caterpillars and codling moths on his apples, and grubS in his meadows and moleS under his lawns and muskrats in his brooks, and about nine or nineteen or nine l " 1AIlC OlH0E dl1LdSOIilBlS WHO WILL SttL
 him up alive if he doesn't kill them first.
 And at the same time and all the time, weeds, weeds and still more weeds. They don't need sowing or planting: they don't need cultivation or fertilizing: they are always on
 hand, ready to come up thfckest where wanted the least, and able to take for themselves away from the honest plants all the food you've provided for the latter.
 Moreover, if you've killed the weeds and bettered the bugs and the beasts and the blight, over the late spring l and the early fall hangs always the chance of untimely frost to nip in bud or ear the cosseted crops: and all through the hot summer the danger of drought to stunt and wither them. It's these things which the theoreti- cal farmer doesn't appreciate. He may give them some consideration, but he pretty nearly always fails to reckon them up at their true value. He as- sents to them when they're suggested, and dismisses them with an ssOh, of course fellows got to do some spraying and hoeing." Some spray ing and hoeing!" We'll, I should guess so- Some" and then some: and then some more. Early and late; in sea- son and out of season; day in and day 1 out; and never any certainty, at the best, whether the effort is to be suc- cessfuI or not.
 1 Why, if should have ten acres of decently level land, without any weeds, l and immune from blights, and protect l ed from all forms of bugdom, and in- 1 accessible to four-legged or winged robbers, I wouldn't ask for a radium mine. I'd get rich simply sitting on l my back steps watching things grow! It's this pesky "Negative farming" | which keeps us poor and puts cricks 1 in our backs and wrinkles on our faces.
 1 As I've been thinking it over. I've wondered if it wouldn't be possible to draw a sharp line between the two kinds of agriculture: have one set of I farmers devote themselves wholly to
 raising good things, and another set devote themselves wholly to fighting 1 the bad things. It's asking a good deal l of man that he shall be at once a successful angel of peace and a l thorough going demon of destruction. 1t requires two different sorts of skill 1 to raise steers and to butcher them.