Norwich bulletin., 1917-02-24
THE FARMERS BEsETTlNG SIN


 see if you're a real farmer. just how 1 much of this sort of thing goes into your own makeup
 Also, if your observation Is keen and l guided by calm reason, you'll see how such a state of things comes to be. | You didn't set out with any delib- crate intention to produce them. You 1 conceited.' Indeed. the chances are | that you don't believe, even now, that you are self-conceited.s You'd be
 madder'n a wet hen if some one told | you, face to face, that you were. | But just take a few minutes of i searching elf-communion before the clear mirror of truth. and see If you don't discover a few streaks in the image before you've been gazing at it i very long.
 | Consider the farmers life and work, and it will be clear what a powerful thrust his very environment gives him | in this unfortunate direction.
 His work is mostly alone. He has ] a multi-Sided and complicated prob- ! lem set before him: how to make a l profit several varieties of crops with an insufficient supply of more or less one-sided manures, with a lack of 1 help, in the face of an unforeseeabie l hordes of bugs and beasts and birds and blight.
 He has to study things out for hln- i self; draw possible conclusions frcta | highly unresponsive sources; reason i out courses of conduct and guess at I plans where reason fails to connect with anything substantial. Often he | has to rely upon the merest instinct, when neither study nor authorization nor outside information can give any l clear light upon his way. As years I go on, he accumulates store of ex- perience. He knows what has hap | @<%r what may reasonably be expected to i happen in the future to similar crops under similar conditions. He comes to know his soils, what they need, what they want to do and what they | can generally be made to do He knows what areas to ignore from fear Of possible freshets, and what to let alone through danger from possible
 knows where, in the past, his judg- | ment has been prUvN& wise and his
 methods good by success.
 Is it any wonder that he comes to
 nave pretty high idea of his own ShrewdneSS?
 It is a characteristic of human na- ture that it should never forget its own triumphs. though its memory for failure Is seldom as keen.
 More than ninety years ago, my grandfather was planting a piece of | corn It was dry spring; the soil l ''NN Pe1SSCIS-Oys seeing the old | man and his sons engaged in corn l planting, stopped by the wayside to ask him why he didn't wait til the soil | was moist. Some openly sneered at | hlrn That corn'M never sprout in | dry dust.' they said You're inst wastin time and seed'' The old man paid small heed to advice, warning or | Sneer He simply repeated to his sons | the orders he had given when they be- gan planting; Dig down with the cor | nerS of your hoes till you strike mist l dIrt and put the seed down into it." | Ihey did so It didn't rain or even | sprinkle for two weeks longer But | nVe days after planting, that corn was prlcking through, and six days after planting the rows were visible across | the patch. Then the old farmer toolr his hoe over his beack and went down the held to the side nearest the road 1 Whenever he saw one of his critics an preaching he hailed him. Hey, there; | come over here and see whether | know how to plant corn or not'' was his challenge. Said it wouldn't never come up till after a rain, didn't ye? | SIX days ago. that was, and now I'm | out here ready to begin hoein' it!'
 He remembered that occurrenee +o the day Of his death, and told 1t prob | aoiy hundred times Not only that, puL ms son;.my own father.-remem- pered 1t all his life. too. and told 1t, over and over again. Did the old 1armer know, when he was planting that seed, that it would be "up'' in inc | record time of five day?
 Most assuredIy not. But he had a peIer. born of past experience and KnoWiedge Of that particular kind of | corn on that particular sort of soil. He | pet his belief against the other fellows guess-Work and won. Of course hay | Ing won, he couldn't help brargine. Ana the story of that brag has now lasted ninety years. so that I can pass 1t on to you.
 That is just an illustration. Can't you see from it how natural how aJ- l most inevitable 1t is that the farmer With scores of such happenings to ffe l creoit In the past, comes to have a 1 rather exaggerated opinion of his own Iarming wisdom? Can you blame him | ,ln ,nucn 1T ne prefers and insists upon | IaVlng ms own way on his own farm? | Gan you not see how, also, he grows | into feeling of half pity half con | tempt Tor some other farmer who fails 1 when he Is sure he would have suc- ceeoed under the same circumstances l
 In. other words, don't you see fsnw Mr. Farmers self-conceit grows with l what it feeds on7
 And yet, natural as # all is, can't ,,e ou alSo see now this very over-ween- ing ser-conhdence is powerfully ef- Tective in holding him back from new prospects?
 The real spring and motive power of U -n progress is dissatisfaction, dis atsIact1on with all that one accom- dishes compared with all that ona nlgnt, would or could accomplish. The l Hsl moWlng-machine was a real fri- mpn or human ingenuity But If look l.. our horses to pull 1t, three or fo,Ir