Norwich bulletin., 1915-03-13
THE FARM AS SERF OR ALLY

(Written Specially for The Bulletin.)
 There are two ways of treating the farm. One may attack it as if it were Te work Si with it as if it were an ally.
 You may treat it as the Germans treat Belgium; pound it and whack it and bully it and knock the stuffing out of it to make it do what you want; or you may treat it as Eng land and France treat each other, as a co-worker to be considered and helped, rather than abused and pill laged.
 Even as boy used to notice the difference in which my father and my uncle approached the sticks of fire wood they were splitting up for the stove. Father would yank big chunk out of the sawed pile, decide off-hand about bow he wanted to split it, and then go at it with all his might to make it split his way. He wanted to ''slab' it, say. Very well; he'd whack away at one side, perhaps dozen times, till at last he'd worn off the slab he set after. Then he'd puff and take a fresh hold of the axe and go after another slab. He'd always get the chunk into stove-wood, sooner or later, but it frequently was later" rather than sooner, and he used to wear out axe -helves, temper and init tens rather prodigally. Uncle, on the other hand, would pick up his chunk, look it over to see what way it wanted to split, and then crack it open that way. Same with the halves. He'd notice their grain and take advantage of it.
 As a boy I used to think he was 1aZier than father, because he didn't pound the chunks so vigorously and so hastefuIly. But, as I have re- called the scene, since, I seem to re- member that he used to get out every whit as big a pile of split sticks as the governor. And it has occurred to me that instead of being lazy, he judgmatical than my father. In stead of bullying the wood apart where it didn't want to cleave, he took advantage of it's natural cleavage planes and followed them as far as practicable.
 I've seen farmers who go at their farms just as father used to go at knotty chunk of log. They make up their minds what they want to do, what crops they want to raise, how they want to raise 'em, etc. Then they, figurativefy speaking, take the poor old farm by the nape of the neck and the seat of it's trousers and fling # into their scheme Take that" they seem to say, as they bat it over one ear: "and that, as they Diff it across the other; now grow potatoes, durn ye! We'll see who's master!
 They never ask or try to find out what the farm would like to do, or what 1t is fitted to do or what it will do best. They simply know what they want to do, and demand that the farm shall meet them halfway, when, per- haps, it is so tied down by it's own natural limitations and conditions that it can't even wiggle their way.
 
 It used to be said that you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear Doubtless. with sufficient pains and puttertng. one might make some sort of purse out of the hogs auraI ap- bondage. Whether it would be a very good purse is another question: That 1t wouldn't be Q silk purse admits of no question at all. Likewise doubt less one can raise potatoes on what the Lord and nature intended for a dairy pasture. But whether they'll be very good and highly profitable pota- toes is 8 question. Anyway, every dollar they bring in will have to be sweated for more copiously and will - come harder than the dollars worth of cream or butter which the farm na- turally wants to pass over.
 Or the exact reverse may be the case. The farm may be just eager to grow potatoes, and yet be as unfit for dairying as a farm can be. In that case it will doubtless produce some milk. if you go at it tooth and nail, hammer and tongs, but everything will come hard and slow and the mar gin of profit will be apt to be very narraW.
 Farming is business, they tell us. Then why not take it up with busi- ness spirit, and in a business way?
 If some big cotton mill should fail and it's acres of intricate machinery should come on to the auction market do you suppose any fertilizer manu- facturer would buy it and try to make fertilizer with it? It may be all right for spinning cotton yarn or weaving ing nitrate of soda and dried bones.
 Of course every farm is just soiI- what-not. And isn't dirt dirt"? YOU ask: Isn't soil soil?''
 Surely. But you know just as well as anyone that there's a difference in dirt. Up among the marble and lime stone hills Of Vermont I've seen farms which hadn't an acre of level land in one place on them, but which sup ported more COWS and sheep than any similar area in the richest corner of the famous western 'corn belt" could have done Hills which in many places would have turned brown and dusty in any ordinary summer, there remained green even through pro- longed drouths. Years ago knew of one such farm whose owner made a comfortable living solely by renting his pastures. He never thought of icultivating any land beyond what was