New Britain herald., 1916-02-19
Pnaking Potatoes Gr0w
 On q B1iar Crop Farm
De Pagan of Scotts Swamp District Fools the Wise Ones and Reclains "Played Out' Tract by
 Own Methods.
Own M ethOds.

ZRimed a I2rm and made it one of Y e finest potato producing spots in %ew England is told in Country < fe in America" by H. w. Colling- bod. The article follows:
 Back to the Land. Some fifteen years ago Joseph A.
 hgan, a man at the middle of life,
 bse to the beginning of hope, and Rwhere near the end of performance,
 attracted a case of back-to-t -the-land
 Ner and went hunting for a farm. here are various ways in which this Ever may enter the system Some $n1es it comes somewhat as malaria 3 yellow fever comes through the Eng of a mosquito. The only cure r such a cause is for the patient to "stung'' when he buys his farm. s a rule this fever accompanies a SC of big head, which induces a gan to think that the pen is mightier Ian the blow point, and that he can Iep down from his office stool and m some of these old farmers" how run farm. The fall from the top that stool to the bottom of a Bony furrow is the only cure for this Bsease.
 Joe Pagan got the disease in an- liner and better way. He had been milk man until his health gave out. Then a man is tied to a cows tail, k1d is obligcd to live inside al milk In, life becomes much like a com lsessed yeast cake, with neither the Ioisture nor the heat needed to de- klop the kick" in the yeast. You Ea1ize the possibilities of the yeast to kpand, yet know that the power has kicd Up. Joe Pagan could not stand be strain. SO he sold out his business, kpecting to spend the rest of his hys In town. But there was too kuoh green grass ald blue sky and |otato top In MT. Fagan's makeup. he brick and stone of Hartford ken1ed too much like a prison to @, ban whose heels had taken on brings from the old sod. The need a farm came to him when spring bened, and forthwith he went hunt bg for a piece Of land.
 At the time MT. Pagan started his earch, others were feebly hunting h the opposite direction for a chance Y unload a piece of land. One of the lest old farms in the Connecticut Eailey had struck bottom with dull bId thud. It had been a long time #liing back or sliding down hill but finally got there. Six or seven gen. Fations of a fine old American hnily had offered more or less Erenuous opposition to the slide, but Icwn it had come to the bottom of brtility and productive pride ycf he Connecticut Valley, they found the fd1ans raising corn, squash, and leans on this farm These red men feIld take the blue ribbon at se- fftlng Q piece of farm land They lad to do 1t right, because there was lnly 8 clam shell and a stick in the Fay of tools. The soil itself must be below and responsive if you ever Epect to get a full crop with a stick Ind a clam shell. One of the first
 ettlers bought this fine farm from Fe Indians, and in all the years un |o the time when Joe Pagan got the |ack-to-the-land fever, this farm had |emained in one family. It had |urned out men who fought and |Udged and legislated and invented. |nd subdued- land for the state and |ne nation, but somehow as New Eng end agriculture declined, the breed Ind the farm ran down together, un- Al both struck bottom. When a man Pr farm strikes bottom, there must be bounce if it is ever to rice again -bounce, spirit or ambition, with but which man or farm must remain n the ditch when once fallen. As we shall see, Joe Pagan had bounce largely because he had hope, am- pitfon, and growth.
 Black printers ink was the white tight which found the farm. Mr. Pagan advertised once in a Hartford paper, and it seemed as if every farm
 n Connecticut was for sale. Farm
 Ing had a black eye, and apparently there was no one in the Valley trying to cure the bruise by applying raw beefsteak They all wanted to sell .he steak or eat it. A less hopeful
 nan than Joe Pagan would have con- .luded that there was no use enter ne a business from which every one ras running at top speed. But Pagan had this quality which I call bounce which enables man to squeeze through hard situations and come
 through with a philosophy that leaves 10 dent or scar It is the element ir ] mans nature which makes it i'm possible for him to lie fiat when he falls through a hole. The men witt bounce in him reaches out at the bottom of the hole, gets his hands or and up he comes again ard this bounce enabled MT. Pagan tc find opportunity on the Scott's SwamI farm, though the said opportunit1 I1sd been dumped into the ditch ant covered up.
 A Dream of a Farm.
 Very likely if MT. Pagan had knowr how badly the farm had run down