Norwich bulletin., 1915-11-27

CWritten Specially for The Bulletin.)
 A good many farmers especially among us of the older generation, seem to have an aversion to the very phrase intensive farming.
 It is not because we are lazy, TOT the most of us are not. Yet, when one considers the subject coolly and impartialIy, it Is difficult to see why any but really lazy folks should oppose it.
 For intensive cultivation" really means little more than just making the most of our opportunities.
 Doubtless the inherent conservatism which accompanies age has much to do with the feeling of those who don like the term or the idea. It's hard to teach an old dog new tricks. And it s harder vet to teach an old farmer new things in farming. Not necessarily be- cause he's stupid or old fogyish. He's seen so many new-fangled notions go into the scrap-heap: he's seen so many of his own youthful experiments turn out disappointmentS:~ he's seen so many of his wisest and canniest plans knocked into failure by sudden freaks of the weather or something else quite as uncomfortable, that he dreads nov cities much as the burnt child dreads the fire.
 Especially and particularly when those novelties are suggested more often by lecturers and writers and professional advisers than by his own equally hard-headed and careful neigh bors.
 But there's one phase of the possi- bilfties in intensive farming" which may suggest to a few even among us older hands some more favorable re- factions.
 I mean the question of greater pro- portionaI profits.
 It is not the size of our crops nor the cost of making those crops, con- sfdering each matter separately, which brings profit.
 The profitable crop is one which sells for more than the cost of pro- ducing it.
 A crop which costs s10 an acre to raise and sells for $11 givesaa profit of $1. If the crop costs $11 to raise and sells for only S1O it is loss. But if, by adding that extra dollar to the cost of production, production is so stimulated that the crop sells for $12.5O having cost $11 to raise-then the profit is $1.50, which is half 8 dollar better than the' profit secured from the smaller expenditure.
 Now, it must be admitted and ac- cepted at the outset that intensive farming, which means higher fertiliza- ton and more frequent tillage and greater labor cost, necessitates much larger total outlay, per acre, than hit or-niss farming.
 The one real question about it is whether, having compelled this great CT initial outlay, it will result in crops which will not only pay back the in creased outlay, but will also increase the profit, i. e., the excess of income over outgo.
 If it won't, then the intenser work didn't pay; if it will, then the in tenser work did pay.
 As an illustration of my meaning, take an acre corn lot. We'll assume that blowing the sward costs $2; that narrowing and marking cost $2 more; that seed and planting cost $1.5O more that two horse cultiVations with s kt- tie and-hoeing around the edges cost another $1.50; that harvesting and husking and shelling cost $2.50; and that it takes you and your team half a day to deliver the bagged grain to the mills This makes your crop cost you about $11. You have twenty bush els of shelled corn and sell it for 75 cents a busheI, or $15 for the crop. In that case you make the difference between $15 and $11. Your profit has been s4.
 Instead of blowing up an unmanured eward suppose you had put on that