Norwich bulletin., 1914-11-07
WI4AT IMPROVED MACHINERY MEANS TO
 THE FARMER

and the same amount of hard work.
 But when he cuts out the hard work he generally finds that the profits au- tomatically cut themselves out, too.
 Instead of being labor saving, mod ern methods usually are labor increas- ing. They make labor. rather than eliminate it. They mean more work rather than less.
 With modern knowledge of the way fertilizer behaves, we can raise better crops than our fathers who were re- stricted solely to one-sided barn-yard manure. But the crops won't culti- vate themselves, just because of that The bigger and better they are, the more work cuItivating and harvesting them, It's more work to husk field of corn that averages hundred bush els to the acre than one which doleS out thirty or forty.
 What modern tools and modern nna- chimes and modern methods do IS to make it possible for those who will use them iudgmatically to accomplish more with the same work than could be done without them With the | same work" mind you.
 But the day when successful farming can be done without hard work hasnt t l dawned yet.
 l don't know how the idea originated ] that work is a curse, anyway. It l seems to be held by a great many peo- pIe not farmers alone, but in all sorts of occupations. With a whole lot of 1 us the one idea in life seems to be how to avoid work. We sometimes spend more labor and worry in | scheming how to evade little work | than the work itself would call for I've known a man to spend three l quarters Of an hour hitching up a 1 span of horses, "etting chains, etc, to 1 haul out a small stump, when fifteen minutes work with an old axe and 3 crowbar would have taken it out just | as thoroughly
 Many of the labor unions seem to bs | actuated chiefly by the desire to gel
 bigger wages for doing less work 1 Practically all the eminent statesmen ! who want public office really want il | because they think it will be a private
 snap. will give them easy work anC l good pay.
 Probably there isn't any more use 1T l attempting to contravene so general g
 sentiment than there was in Mrs Partington's attempt to sweep bach
 the Atlantic with parlor broom.
 All the same, I've always had ar l underlying sympathy with old Mrs Burlington. She had got her kitcheT all redded up for the day., the fool 1 swept and the chairs dusted and thC
 windows washed. And here came tht | Atlantic ocean, flooding into the sacreC l precincts. She didn't want it, hadn invited it; it had three thousand mile!
 one way and ten thousand the othel to spread itself out in, and why should | it slobber over her kitchen? She may
 have shown bad judgment in thinking she could beat the Atlantic with hel . ! hpOnr11 61lf I T'f haI4O fa01frer fai she meant well and that she really ha6
 the right on her side.
 This idea that work is a curse ol l even a, hardship may be so genera | that one pen will have no more avai against it than Dame Partington'i broom had against the Atlantic.
 | Nevertheless, it is not curse, an( it is not Q hardship. It is, instead, tht
 one thing which makes life worth liv.
 ing. It is the one thing upon wIicl
 the progress of the world and its fina getting somewhere depend.
 l No fair man has any right to shirk
 in any degree, the share of work whicl
 his whole surroundings exact from hin
 as his contribution to the final good No manly man wants to shirk hi
 share. We farmers ought to be fai
 men and we ought to be manly men
 Therefore, we are the very last peopl
 III Iil6 WOI1o IO ODJCil LO WOEh. WI
 ought rather to welcome it and go a
 1t with no regrets and no whimper
 ings.
 What modern methods and moderl
 devices do for us is.1to heln us mak
 our work more effective. They do no
 abolish 1t nor. reduce it. SThey simpl,
 enable us. if we use them rightly, t
 make our work tell better in results
 to make it count for more.
 They help us to be of more serv1c to our generation and of more prof
 to ourselves, but they don't help u | one whit towards any fools paradis
 of life without work.
 They make our work more wort,
 while, to others and to ourselves. The increase it's products, they increase ou
 power to modify conditions. Most i'm
 portant of all, they increase our en joyment of our work by the very sens
 of added power and effectiveness whic they bring to us. It's much pleasante .