Norwich bulletin., 1914-08-22

CWritten Especially for The Bulletin)
 notice. among distinctively farm papers, a growing irritation at the disposition of many wel-meaning gentlemen and ladies-mostly from the cities+to set themselves up as teachers of better farming and apostles of rural uplift.''
 a One such paper in a recent editorial about what it calls the too prevalent idea among the city people that there is great need for bureaus and pro- pagandas conceived and financed in the city and manned by city men to go out and tell the farmers how to farn,'' says very emphatically that farmers are, as rule, doing better farming and increasing their yields just about as fast as the profits of the business warrant. No amount Of shouting" it remarks. Twill cause them to make two blades of grass orc two calves grow next year where one grew last unless they can make the two pay better than the one. And it sug- gests how ridiculous the shoe would look on the other foot in the follow ing paragraph:
 of the farmers should organize a bureau to try to influence the clothing manufacturers to make two suits this year where they made one last they would be called crazy. Yet we need clothing almost as badly as we need food, and it is about as hard to get. Few of us have as much money as we want, and many have less than is actually needed Yet a suggestion from this farmers bureau to the govern ment and the bankers that they double the amount of money in circulation next year would be met with ridicule. Yet these suggestions are no more ab- surd than many of the suggestions that are handed out to farmers by the city bureaus for the advancement Of ag- riculture. Why not call a halt to this flood of unasked for advice, and give the farmer chance to get his pay"
 l confess to finding some pleasure in that sort of talk. If any one thing tries my fragile temper more sorely than ano.%er. it is for some chap who doesn't know the difference between a farm and a country estate' to tell me. either face to face or through some newspaper, his idea of how I could increase yields.
 Suffering saints! Don't I know. myself how I could increase them Don't I know my own dirt after six .ty years living with it and on it bet ter than A1gernon Chichester Sprygge of Buncoville is likely to know it from a glance out of his bubble-wagon? His assumption that he can give me use ful information or advice about my own trade is based upon enc or two ideas in his own head. Either he thinks he's about eleven hundred times wiser and brighter than I, CT he thinks that I'm about eleven hundred times stupider than he. Whichever be his position I am frank to say that I resent it.
 When it comes tc selling "renovated' butter at a fancy price as the real thing, or working off the bottom Of fIaa fo-- suburban building lots" I'm quite sure that he could give me cards and spades and then beat me. should never dream of offering him advice about how to sell more of that sort of goods. But when the question is one of how to raise more corn or more potatoes to the acre or fat more sheep and more steers on. the farm I haven't yet asked for his advice-and I don't want it! When I really desire counsel in such matters I shall go to the actual corn-potato grower and the actual sheep p-steer raiser and ask him how he does it at a profit.
 Right there is the wkole nub Of tho nnatter-in that one word profit
 l can double yields of almost any crop, almost any year. That isn't what puzzles me. can make two
 
 in the South Meadow where but one blade was cut this summer, by simply putting on, this fall a few tons of fer tilizer to feed the roots into luxuriant development, and then a few tons more, next spring to stimulate them into quick and rank stalk-leaf growth
 That fertilizer will cost me, on the land, more than $40 a ton. The grass it produces will fetch me, on the land, standing, just s5 a ton. That's the ruling price, hereabouts. Now will one ton of so fertilizer give me eight extra tons of S5 grass? I've never seen one that would and honestly, I don't believe one was ever made that would.
 # it doubled the yield it might give me two tons extra. That would come to S10, standing-a net loss of $50.
 In case I cut it and cured it and