Norwich bulletin., 1917-11-23
THERE ARE FOUR DIVISIONS OF FARMERS

eWritten Specially for The Farmer.) At one of the innumerable dairy conventions continually being held at Washington or elsewhere, pr. Pear a week or so ago made speech in which he divided up the milk produc- CTS of the country into four groups:
 l. Those who know how to produce clean milk and do it;
 2- Those who would produce clean milk if they knew how;
 g. Those who know how to produce clean milk but don't do it;
 (. Those who don't know how to produce clean milk and don't want to learn
 Probably this grouping is all right think about it. the more it seems to me as if it was a pretty good way to divide up farmers of all sorts.
 There are those who know how 10 farm and do it. those who would be glad to farm right if they only knew how: those who know enough but are too durn shiftless to use their knowi- edge and those who not only don't know how to. farm but don't want to be taught or shown how.
 And, by gravy, that last division is about as big as all the other three combined. in my part of the country,
 Of course when we come to talk about such things we need to be fair ly reasonable and tolerabIy tolerant
 IL won't do for those of us whose noses. naturally point exactly north northwest by north to condemn, off, hand and unheard. all those whose noses tilt in another direction or at another angle The difinition of "clean milk and the definition of good farming" are neither of them neces- sarflT descriptions of our practice = just yours and mine
 There is. for example. wide diff ference between the definition of -clean milk" as given by the New York city board of health and that which would be given by more sensi- ble men
 Likewise. there might be a consider able variation between the idea of -gcod farming" held by a New Eng lander struggling with the bleak ridges of some Hardscra bblss Hill, af1d q western wheat-grower whose whole farm doesn't contain pebble big as a henis egg. and who can't see a hill ten feet high on any local horizon
 One mans idea of good farming is to raise lots of corn and oats; anoth- er's is to grow only hay; another be- Hewes in fiye-year rotation and still another is one of three years. One goes in for fruit while another wants c0wB and cows and still more COWS to produce milk
 One. like T. B. Terry, raises noth- fng but potatoes and sells them all on Ine pAaCes 1nOrner, like David Ran kin raises corn and clover and feeds 1t all out on the place. selling only the meat products
 One uses commercial fertilizer and another despises the stuff and will spread nothing but stable manure
 Every single ene Of these plans may be good farming. wise farming, extra nrst-class Al farming.-under certain conditions And every one may be utterly tdiotic farming. under other and different conditions whats one mans meat is another mans poison says the old adage. Good medicine for a case of sciatica might not avail l much against typhoid fever or pneu- monia- A sledge is a fine tool to crack stone with but poor one to kill flies on the window pane
 Did you ever try to make up d de- l hnitson of good farming? One that | should it all farming conditions in all l places and for all farmers? Not iustt omD for your own farm but for your both sides of you and also for your other nefghbors out in Dakota | and down i'm Texas2
 so far ms ann concerned. the only HaGMAtfnm Eve ever been able to arr r4wn at rums s@nnethfng like this. 4ANm