Norwich bulletin. [volume] (Norwich, Conn.) 1895-2011, 1915-05-15
FARMING AS IT. is, AND AS IT USED TO BE

CWrttten Specially for The Bulletin)
There's so-ca1led joke going the
rounds of the papers in their alleged
funny columns which tells how The
Old Farmer replied to The Woman
Who Finds Fault With Prices:
wal mum, ye see it's this way;
we farmers nowadays hev to know the
botanical name of everything we
raise, and the chronological name OF
every bug that eats it, and the phar-
maceutical name of every poison that
kills the bugs:-and it comes high,
mum"
This is certainly rather feeble at
tempt at humor, but it suggests one
or two things which are not at all
humorous. but quite the reverse.
change that has actually come IN
farming methods since the time when
some Of us old 'uns were small boys.
I can remember when on this par
ticular farm, all the level arabic land
followed a regular five-year rotation
of corn or potatoes on sod; oats;
clover; timothy two years; corn or
potatoes again. At the same time the
hiIlsides,-and 1t mattered little how
steep they were-swung from rye to
pasture and from pasture to rye, with
an occasional try at some buckWheat-
The corn and potato land was man
ured on the old sward which was
then turned under and narrowed with
"A'' drags till it was frequently pos
sible to get hoe full of dirt without
going more than two or three steps
after it! But covering the seed was
often quite a trick among the tough
sods. When the crops came up they
were "plowed out" between the rows
with the highest landslide plow avail
able, and then the separate hills hoed
~, W.T.
twice by the best farmers and that
ended 1t till harvesting time.
Nobody had ever heard of potato
bug at that time. Nor do l seem to
remember that we had any special
trouble with any sort of insect. Once
in a great while the governor would
burn out a stray nest of tent cater
pillars on some apple tree. Once he
had to change his small onion bed
because the maggots got into it. And,
Of course, there were striped bugs on
the cncumbers. Also. l remember
hearing about a neighbor whose corn
crop was said to have been injured
by cut-worms. But I. personally,
never saw a cut-worm while 1 was
boy. Nor did I ever dig a rotten po-
tato til was over forty years old
Neither the early nor the late blight
did I ever hear spoken of. Perhaps
it was here, but, if so, it was not
sufficiently serious with US to cause
mention.
Now. we can't raise potatoes with
out fighting beetles from the time
they prick ground till midsummer and
without spraying against blight and
soaking the seed to prevent Scab. It's
constant fight to save corn and
cabbages from the cut-worms. Like
several others of my neighbors I've
had to give up trying to raise oats
because of the prevalence of smut
When my old father first dug pota-
toes on this same farm, he used to
expect and plan for a bushel from
every thirteen hills. That was the
basis on which he estimated his
planting. If he wanted hundred
bushels he planted thirteen hundred
hills. And he usually got his hundred
bushels of tubers,-sometimes a few
less, sometimes q few more, but rea-
sonably close to that. Now, with
vastly higher fertilization, with in
comparably better fitting of the soil
with at least four times as much work
spent in tillage to say nothing of bug
fighting labor and expense, I don't be-
lieve / average a peck from thirteen
hills
In my case, it's the bugs that make
most of the difference. l don't care
how prompt and energetic a farmer
may be in spraying, the bugs hurt the
potato tops, more or less. Further
more, with all due respect to the
scientific gents. the deadly aresenicaI
poisons we have to use to kill the bugs
injure the vines to some extent. That
is, they do with me. The only man
in my neighboThood who continues to
approach the old-fashioned yields is
a chap who plants only half an acre
who has a big family of children, who
never poisons or sprays his vines, but
supplies each youngster with a pan
and an old whisk any pays a nickel
SS$Sz>>z>> -: