Norwich bulletin., 1917-12-21

I I don't understand. One of them, which bulxs large against the horizon cust at this juncture, Is the relation of food and other shortages to the i farms of the country
 l According to the latest crop reports issued by the government, the farms of the United States produced last season almost 800, 0,00O, ,000- bushels more of corn than ever before; about 100, ,O00,- ever before, and larger crops than ever before of oats, rye. sweet pota- toes, beans, onions, cabbage and to- 1 bacco. This, in spite of an extraor- dinarily late spring, and also in spite of unusually early fall frosts, which | damaged corn to the amount of 32, ,00O,- coo bushels and took million bales out of the last preceding cotton esti- mate.
 Only wheat of all the food crops is a trif1e short. Still, there are 650.- | 100000 bushels of that or about six bushels and a half to every mtn, woman and baby in the country. The | corn crop gives over thirty-one bush els and the potato crop about four and a half bushels per head. to say ] nothing about six quarts of beans, 1 half peck of onions, half a barrel each of apples and peaches, fifteen bushels of oats, ten pounds of cabbage and eleven pounds of tobacco.
 l Assistant Secretary Vrooman Of the department of agriculture is very much pleased and highly elated over | all this In a recent number of the Review of Reviews he jubilant1y de- clares that There is enough food in sight to sv7n the war enough food in sight to feed the world While our army in the trenches has not yet | gone into action, the army in the fUrrows has already drawn blood, has | won the first battle" He goes on: i "A O iS nf IT. gency war work of American farmers Tn response to the appeal of the presi- dent and the department of agricul- ture. It has been no make, believe, but real war for them-al1 but the physical danger. The army in the furrows has known hard toll. suffer | ing, inconvenience, the upsetting of the normal manner of life and the risk of financial disaster.
 | There was never another fight like | it in the world In the spring of 1917 the vulture of famine lowered low on the skyline of every nation in Europe. life and death struggle of liberty against absolutism, came America. .. America rampant-but America unready. The way was long, A year must elapSe before an adequate army for the trenches could be trained and transported. Meanwhile there was barely enough food in existence to keep the world scantily fed until har- I conflict, quietly and without the beat | ing of drums, steadfastly and with the will to win, Americas matchless army of patriotic planters"
 All of which, when I read it, grade me feel sorter good. It was great to know that the farmers of the country had risen to their opportunity and had accomplished their duty. 1 It was especially pleasant to know I n6 N6rT r1n4 I,f Ios- working ranks, but a keen observer, appreciated what they had done, and was willing to say so, without any | ifs" or any "buts."
 l Also, as I recalled my own steady | fight within my own small limits to grow a little more corn and a few more potatoes and trif1e more on- ions and beans and cabbages, etc.-as recalled how the backward spring had slapped me on one cheek and the premature fall freeze had punched me on the other, while exceptionally vo- racio1hs bugs and unusually prolific
 weeds and more than average de- structive blights had biff-banged me recalled all this in view of Secretary Vrooman's words, there came a little 1 jingle of real joy in the thought that, even if I did have to confine myself to very few acres, at least I was present, as big and as busy as cir I cumstances permitted. I added a few
 bushels to that record crop of corn, and a few to the potato triumph as well as a few more to the victory of the onion beds, the cabbage patches and the bean fields
 Come, now, brother farmer, don't you admit that, when you've really done good thing in your line, you | also rather like to have somebody notice it and say so? Self-approval is perhaps the most satisfactory in one sense; But, after all. it helps whole lot of us to have someone ese ap-
 prove, too. Even a smile and nod of understanding appreciation is bet ter than a sheer. An occasional well done, old chap,'' is a durned sight more
 invlgorating and inspiriting than a whole chapter of nagging and fault finding because you didn't do more or better.
 It especially did me good to be as sured on so high authority as that of an assistant secretary of the national department of agriculture, not only that we had done so much, but that
 we had made good" We had brought war" That was certainly making good if anything ever was.
 But there seems to be something the
 matter with all this 'rosiness. Accord
 ing to MT. Hoover it isn't a bit rosy, after all He has been sounding
 warnings' for a long time. Within a
 week he has come out with even a
 louder and more insistent blast. He
 lnt1mates that we are going to. be
 called on to sacrifice much more than
 was first thought necessary if @star- vatlon on an unparalleled scale" is to be avoided abroad. Harvests in the
 allied countries have proved less than
 was anticipated, while shortage oi
 shipping makes it impracticabIe to
 bring supplies from more distant
 tralia-
 l Mir. Hoover declares that cit is a
 matter for the conscientious consid-
 eration of every individual that he or
 she should eat only that which is ne-
 cessary to maintain bodily health and
 strength and unselfshly to select
 those foodstuffs, the use of which re- Heves international necessities Tn
 this winter of 1918 lies the period
 ---<sk S<7F fr~F H