Norwich bulletin., 1918-01-11

(Written Specially for The Bulletin.)
 "Se many farmers content them selves with discontent."
 That was the sentence which flashed out on me, the other day. from an edi- toriai in Q western farm paper. The rest of the article was about what is to be expected. Practical, matter-of- fact. earnest enough, but without any l other trace of a spark from the fires of what I can't help calling genius. Then, right in the midst of this every day farm talk. suddenly came that vivid, illuminating, tersely true sen- tence-
 "So many farmers content them
 selves with discontent."
 1 Practically all of US farmers arumhIe,
 more or less. We grumble at the weather, first of all: we grumble at the selectmen and at the assessors: we
 grurnble at the school-maam: we
 grumbis at the storekeeper when he
 buys our eggs, still more when he sells us our. sugar. We're like some of l those geysers out in Yellowstone Park l-all the while in a state of growing 1 grurnblenent which keeps the ground constantly quivering around us, oven between the irregular intervals of our | | after muttering and growing for a
 while, according to it's size and vigor either spits out or spurts out a. few tubs full of hot water, and then re- sumes its normal state of unhappy un- rest In like manner many farmers
 stew and grunt and croak for long in- l tefyals: finally breaking out into some sort of actually furious below for a few minutes. After which they dror
 back into the chronic state of whine
 whimper- -grumple again. c ls In some sort of internal seismometel with an outside dial could be rigged or to us, I suspect a great lot of us would be found in state of earthauake-1 inside commotion most of the time
 constantly on the verge of an eruption land-which is the worst of K it--re.
 maining about so all our lives. IT
 other words content with our own dis content.
 Now, there are two sorts of diseon.
 tent. There is this sort which take:
 it out in faulthnding and kicking. =
 and stops with that: never carries it
 self into action or eveh into effort fol
 correction and remedy
 There is also the sort which sorn'
 one has aptly called divine discon tent;;" the dislike of existing abuse , and the dissatisfaction with extstin, advantages which lead their possesso . to jealous work towards abolishing tn abuse and enlarging the advantage. That is the sort of discomfort whicl gets somewhere and takes it's owne . along with it. The other sort neve , gets anywhere, nor helps anybody els . to do so.
 The one is active; the other i
 passive. The one is a manly charac
 teristic; the other 8 clam like attri bute. The one pulls, pushes, drives
 impels the world forward from bad t
 better: the other doesn't move any
 thing,-just makes the axles creak. The article in which l found my tex was devoted to plea for better think ing and wiser action in dairying mat ters. Its point was that dairyme who spend their lives grumbling be r cause the market won't pay them f profit on a 150-pounds- Of butter co' might find it willing to pay at least l hutter-cow which a little more fore sight and thought would substitute fo the scrub.
 : To say tlslt it is 'just as easy'' [
 have the 5G0 pound COW as the Is
 pound. COW would not probably be tru
 You can't buy a good new shovel fe
 the price of scrap-iron. Nor will 70 ' long keep your shovel 8 good one I you don't give it better care than tn
 pile of serap-iron out back of the barr 6 exposed to all weathers and slowl T rusting itself back into its origins
 oxides. Moreover, if a man is conter f with a 150 pound COW that settles s Why should he try for g. better?
 But, on the other hand, if he is nc ' 1 content with that scrub critter, if | is thoroughly and wnoleheartedly dis centented with her, if he is so discor tented with her performance that | is forever grumbling about the return s ' he gets from her,-then why in tn name of efficiency and common sens , doesn't he at least try to remove tn
 cause of his discontent?
 !, When a locomotive has full. steai ' up in it's boiler, what's the econom . of keeping it for days anH weeks an ! years standing still on the tracl
 wheezing and puffing and snorting an forever blowing off steam. instead ( I turning that steam into the cylinder y and letting it accomplish something si Whats the use Of a man havin g steam in his boiler if it is never use
 to get him anywhere? If it is a a spent in blowing off?
 What is true of dairyins is true ( z every other form of farm actiVitie