Norwich bulletin., 1917-03-24


 cwr4tten spAdlafsy for The Rulletin.) )
 I was ssncersJS pleased and not a little amused by. Uncle Dantef S quaint cornpAments to this column and it's wrftar. the ether day., his assertion that deserved gold medal for beIn' able to run farm and keep a hired man at the same time.
 Doubtless he, like, others Of us. has had his trials and has also heard the monotone of grumbling which rises necessarily from every rural district over the dificuity of getting and keeping adequate and competent help on the farm.
 It certainly is . problem. Accord ing to the old saying, where there IS much smoke there must be some nre. So, where the complaints and appeals come so consistently and so2 widely from farmers, it would be unreason- able to suggest that there isn't real basis for them
 The farm-help question Is really one which underlies the future of farming Unless farm-owners can ind laoor' sufficient in amount and skilled enough in performance to work their acres 10 advantage, the acres will have to lie unworked. And the city consumers will have to go without the potatoes and cabbages and onions and Aucn which those acres might have pro daced. There's nothing more certain than that.
 In enc sense, it's worse than the eternal Cand infernal) triangle" which Is the basis for so many Frencn plays. That triangle" consists of the man. Our triangle of sorrow has for it's corners the farmer, the consumer and the hired man.
 Ai. He has the land: he has the seed; he has the experience; he has the tools, and he has some manure with which to raise produce to sell. He sincerely and ardently wants to raise and sell all that he can for. his own profit. Not only the securing of that competence which is his dearest de- sire, but the possibility of a decent present living for himself and his family depend upon his making the most he can off his farm-lands. But he can work only very limited area himself, "alll by his lonesome" In fact, he can work almost nothing, en- tirely alone. Practically all the SO he uses call for an additional pair of hands either to operate or to secure the results of their operation. To get the most and best out of his acres he must have more or less help, accord ing to the amount of work called for.
 At the next corner of the triangle stands the consumer. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say, in stead of stands there the consumer dances;-dances up and down, and kicks and squeals and shakes his fist and roars denunciations at the far mer for not getting him more pota- toes and cabbages and onions and milk. So that he can buy them cheaper.
 And at the third corner stands,- OF leans or reclines the possible hired man." nonchalantly chewing a straw. while he fingers whether he'd better stay in the country another year at forty a month and privileges. or move to the city where his brother in-law Is gettln' $S day for do1n' less work. the corners of that triangle and puff out its sides till. instead of three cornered cantankerousness, with each of its angles at odds with the other two. 1t softens into a smooth circle , before and behind each other. in mutual help and for mutual advan- tage.
 For the farmer himself. the problem is chiefly concerned with that evasive hired man." If he and the farmer can be brought into complete al1i- Rnce, offensive and defensive, the question of supplying the consumer will, in a measure. settle itself. ( We've all been over the ground. We an know the bottom facts of the
 There isn't help enough to go round
 ports that last spring, summer and fall 1t had applications from would be employers for 1s,894 more 1aborers than 1t could supply. While not all applicants were farmers. a good many
 Now, 1884 men. working last sea- son. could have raised quite a few more potatoes and other farmS truck than were actually raised. They could have done more than a little to fiIi up the. shortage which now ex- ists in several largely used crops. But they simply weren't to be had, either for that or any other purpose.
 That's situation which you and I can't control or modify. Nor, it seems, can the great state of New York There isn't much use discuss ing 1t, for no amount Of discussion will get us any forrarder.
 and taking up the matter Individually, as one just between you and your hired man, me and my hired man, perhaps there Is room for a suggestion.
 Have you ever noticed here and there a farmer who seems to have less trouble getting and keeping help than most Of his neighbors?s Admit ting the general si1ortness of labor supply, is it, nevertheless, perhaps possible that you and I, as individuals and maybe exceptions might, if we knew the trick, be able to get help