Norwich bulletin., 1914-08-29

(Written Specially for the Bulletin).
 I think I've talked a little, once or twice, about the gamble there IS in farming.
 A Kansas editor, who must have been trying little farming on his own hook, now comes to my defense and adds his testimony to the truth of what I've said about it He de- clares that when: it comes to the question of real sport the farmer has them all bested. He is the one genu- inc sport in the national life" And then he goes on to tell why this is so.
 To begin with; every spring he lets his seed and his fertilizer and his summer wages that there'n be rain enough in May and June and sum- shine at harvest time.
 When he plants he does it on a wager with Nature that there won't be any late frost or early drought to kill the crop.
 When he cuts his hay, he bets that he can get it in safely before the rains spoil 1t.
 He buys few pigs,-and takes a chance that he can fatten them and sell them before the hog cholera comes down the lane from next county and stops over night. He fat tens few plump .steers,-and takes the chance that the market won't slump its bottom out the day he un- loads them at the stock-yards
 He plants a field of potatoes; and bets that the blightt won't ruin them
 He sets out a cabbage patch; and bets that the club-root and the green worms won't destroy it.
 He plants some corn; and bets that the cut-worms won't bite 1t off nor the crows pull it up.
 He sets out some fruit trees; and bets that neither the canker-worm nor the codling moth nor the tent caterpillar will chew the life out. of his saplings.
 He starts out every season, betting that it will rain at the right time and not at the wrong time,-knowing that it's all a chance and it may do exactly the opposite
 He bets that it will rain enough and not too much,-knowing that such a miracle hasn't happened yet in the recorded history of agriculture.
 He finds a new bug in his grain one day; a new moth in his orchard the next. He picks up his morning paper to read that new microbe is on it's way to attack his cattle.
 And 50 forth. etc.
 "And,'-I quote again, "the farmer bets them all he can beat them at the game. That is the fascinationS of the farm. Every hour there is a new
 
 situation to try his mettle-with dollars at stake every time. That's the, answer to the question why the farmer doesn't quit the farm. It is because it is too we'll worth while; that is for the men who have the right stuff in them"
 on that last clause. For the men who fsve the right stuff in tthen.''
 Just at present. there's a vast deal of talk about ''feminism." We won't say anything against it. We won't at tempt to controvert a single assertion of it's advocates. nor permit a single sheer at their pretensions.
 But it isn't wise or polite, even under such circumstances, to lose sight of the fact that God also made the masculine sex, and that there is quite as much need for real virility in the world as for real feninisn. Weekly accepting every last utterance of the feminist ultimatun there still remains a purely masculine syllabus which simply cannot be ignored. While it. is true, for example, that the delft touches and serene grace which really make the difference between a home and a barracks are purely fem mine qualities, it mustn't be forgot ten that somebody had to dig out the cellar and lay up the. heavy !founda- tion walls before there could be. a parlor to furnish and decorate And digging dirty dirt, blasting ragged rocks. piling heavy stones into a wall are tasks which demand something be- side deftness and grace. They, call for masculine strength; for a certain stubbornness and doggedness in the meeting of exigent and repulsive tasks: for even a degree of bull head edness which meets the "Thou-shalt- nots'' of natural conditions with a savage and arrogant T will!'' for perhaps. a degree of coarseness and roughness which would be highly dis agreeable at garden party.
 There is place for mascuIinism in the world, and a need of it. Don't let's ignore that fact.
 Two characteristics of masculinism are that it likes to gamble and that