Norwich bulletin., 1914-09-26

1 isn't required to farm as father did, nor even as he himself did last year He isn't under any law compelling | him to farm as the neighbors do. to raise the same things they do or com pete with them in their markets. He can branch out on any one or score of side lines and make the one he chooses a main line. whenever he so decides.
 Connecticut is a little state, with lit- l tie farms, mostly tilted up on hill-
 sides and broken in upon by mountains and swamps. We can't compete with the great ranches of the middle west in we haven't fields big enough or level enough to make use of gang blows and | traction engines and other big ma
 chimes practicable. The extra labor ligt tools such as we must depend on, eats up all possible profit from many crops. Our strong hold has got to be in the use of our smaller fields and farms for
 the production of just what the great wheat growers of the plains would call side issues.
 We can raise beyfies where the l western farmers can't, and we have l markets for them which the western farmers can't reach. This is a field 1 WAAtN4A Aelk lAlCl5 WiO IldluIc1ly lcAG u small fruit culture can extend be- yond it's present occupancy. Espe- cially in such a fruit is red raspber- ries. Strawberries are sometimes
 grown in over-supply. but I don't re-
 member, ever knowing a Season when my neighbors who grow berries had 1 enough red raspberries to meet the tdemand I know, I've had to start my own little plantation in order to have any, for the simple reason that, I frxy@ ye1y~ <,rT& @4 I--p4
 them for anything like decent price.
 Where the land is suitable for them, | they're about the easiest berry to raise ever tried, too. N
 I The same may be said of orchard fruits. Talk about your Oregon ap- ples! never tasted so good fruit l from Hood river or any other western tapple country as I've eaten from trees standing in Connecticut. And don't
 believe you ever did, either! There
 are thousands of acres of natural
 orchard land in the state, worth more for that than for any other purpose | it could be put to. Yet Connecticut every year imports from other states more apples for its own eating than falf it raises!
 The same may be said of many va | rieties of vegetables. It's a mighty rare year when Connecticut produces within it's own borders all the aspir- tagus and all the green peas and all
 the tomatoes and all the melons it consumes. It might, with no great | stretching of the imagination, be be- l lieved capable of raising not only it's l own demand, but enough to ship into other states.
 And here's ike poultry business. It
 doesn't take a big farm nor a very
 Etich, farm to, make a hen yard. One
 which is mostly gravel will save buy
 ing "grit',; and, if 1t has a few fields
 able to produce some corn and some oats and some buckwheat it ought tc ] much high priced poultry food. There's l not a state know of-and I've trav- , eled over several-which affords better 7 natural opportunities for fowls thar little Connecticut.
 ooh, eyerybody's going into the hor Business" you say. No, no; not quite so bad as that. 4 good many farm . CTS are. I'll admit, Some who art plunging into it without a full un. 3 derstanding of it.. will pretty soon gt out of it. and denounce 1t as a fas' word Why. even today. the grea
 bulk of the eggs consumed in tn, United States are produced. not b! hen specialists, but by scatterinl 8 the distinctively poultry producint
 plants of the country wouldn't sup
 ply the demand for month. There y room for more of them. The man wh 3 likes hens, who understands them an, Il l who makes them his business, is, o t ought to be, able to produce bette
 eggs at a lower cost than the genera t farmer who just keeps a few aroun = his barn yard feeds them when h
 happens to think of it. and gather
 the eggs when he is lucky enough t # stumble on the stolen nests.
 - |
 VI "The man who likes hens" sait d That's just what mean. too. Tn $ farmer who likes horses and hate r. hens wants to keep out of the he Il business. I have neighbor with 1T little farm of thirty acres, 25 of whic IS he rents out as pasture to whomso d ever will, who is making a comfort al able living from his chickens. Bu l. he likes his birds. He knows ever - ~ ~~