Norwich bulletin., 1914-09-19
NATURES MANDATE: LET YOUR FARM
 TEACH YOU

' kNE1 ' S4NH S ANA& "A N4~@A = - TEACl (Written Specially for The Bulletin.)
 To continue our talk about the fer ,tilizer question:
 4. :TWo things arc about as sure as any things can be in this onsartin world, to wit. namely, that is to say:
 We eastern farmers have got to use fertilizer. if we expect to make crops; and
 get enough off their own barnyards to fill the bill
 Most of us have got to skimp our :sfangry fields, if we rely solely on our own farm made manure, or have got sdp buy something, somewhere. from somebody, to help out.
 If we skimp the fields, the fields skimp their crops, which is bad for our farms and bad for our pocketbooks. If we buy commercial fertilizer reckless ly, we are apt to find, at the end of the season. that we have paid more for the increase of the crop than the increase will sell for. Which is not only bad for our farms and bad for OUT pocket Books but mighty bad for our peace of mind and several other things.
 What are we going to do. between these two sharks of high fertilizer prices and low produce. prices?
 Is there any rule by which we can govern our fertilizer purchases? s,es Yes, brother, there is one; special :. rule, made for your own particular farIn, for each field on it and for each crop you put in.
 ,.Ys.If.s a rule made by natural law, 5and Ion and over and under and through the soil. It's rule which, when you've once learned it, will en- able you to steer your agricultural raft on a straight line to agricultural success.
 "That sounds sood," you say. "Just tell us this wonderful rule, MT. Wise Man, so we can all get rich quick"
 Oh, bless you. I can't tell you the rule. l don't know it. Nor does any other living man know it, be he prac- tical farmer or college professor or agricultural editor.
 The rule for your farm and your fields, I mean.
 i ! .ft'ssa. rule which is not printed nor printable. It Is not spelled out in let ters and words. Instead, it is planted III CTypIiC dud5TdIIlS- tuTOuSH your Q1rC and floats in vapory puzzles through Your atmosphere, and jiggle-joggles through the variations of your sea- sons, like a moving picture run back ward and turned upside down.
 And you are the one only man who ular rule and formulating the proper methods of applying it
 Others may offer helpful suggestions which may aid you in your transla- St1on of it. Others may hint at meth , ods by which they have made out a, lew words of the rule for their farms. But, even if I knew the whole rule for my own farm, 1t would do you, on your different farm, mighty little good $ to- know. it. s-S For you're not working my farm; you're working your own. and that's D quite different proposition
 It may be true, acording to the old saw, that what's sauce for the goose Is sauce for the gander It is just ex-, Rctly as true, according to another old .Eaw, that one mans meat is another .nan's poison. hear. some one saying. "Dirt's dirt. and waters water, and airs air, the world over Whats the sense in pre- tending there's any such wonderful aifference?'
 Well. my dear. it certainly is true ore is, ore. Suppose you have a mine Df iron ore on your hill and I've mine pf lead ore on Hardscrabble They're both worth working, too.
 Would you think that the same rule which enables you to get pig-iron out pf your hematite would be the best pne for me to follow in turning my galena into pig-lead?
 The two ores require absolutely dif- Ierent methods of treatment If I lhould try the iron ore treatment on 1mys. lead, or you the lead ore treatment pm your iron. the only things either of hs would get out of our mines would be a lot of worthless slag-and free ticket to the poor-houset
 There are only a limited number of pres. But there is an unlimited va hety in soils. Every farmer who has eyer held a blow or handled a hoe hows that some soil is gravelly and some sandy and some clay-y and tome loamy; that some is stony and borne is Stoneless; that some is black Ind cheese-y and some Is gray and umpy; that there is usually a more or ess fertile top soil and a more or less barren subsoil. anywhere from two hches to two feet down.
 Such things are obvious to the eye Ind the touch. But they are not lard and fast distinctions Gravel ines down into. sand. and shale shades 9n into foam. and on some hills there sn't any flndable top soil. and in some nch pockets nor reachable subsoil Moreover, these obvious and manifest appearances don't begin to tell the whole story of the dirt Somehow sometime in some mysterious way ad Nature may have filled your soi with an excess of phosphoric acid similarly, she may have filled my soil with an excess of nitrogenous humus pr she may have scattered carelessly 'La1et, of potash salts through Nefghbol Jones's dirt. She has loaded up one dace with more lime than it ought tc lave, and hasn't drtbbled a bit or thers, a mile away. One farm has got an oversupply of silica ana mother 8 surplus of soda, in ont brm or, another. Nay, one corne, If one field may have so much sul.