Norwich bulletin., 1918-07-12
Schooling and Experience Necessary For Farming

(Written Especially for The Bulletin.) 1 Once in a while some city news paper man actually writes with in- telligence about the country and farming. AS witness the following editorial which I clip, verbatim and entire, from The Toledo Blade: "A city dweller who had responded to the appeal to return to the soil summed up results in the statement: '-T went back to the land and the land proceeded to go back on me-"
 The land is a wonderful mother to those who serve her as dutiful chil- dren. It gives life and comfort and joy a sweetness that is like the morn -ing's breath, a contentment whose price is above rubies. But to those who do not know the land, who e struggle with it's laws blindly, who accept it simply as something with which to do battle, 1t is the harshest of mistresses. It will give neither of its abundance nor its little. It can break mems hearts as swiftly as death.
 - NO city dweller can expect the garth to respond to his demands un- Hess he attempts to understand it. SMany of us think of the farmers
 
 sunthinking drudgery. IL is anything sbut that. It is backed by a schooling sof experience and intelligence. Who rever will not wait on experience, has sno business on a farm. He will do sbest if he dream of going back to the 1and, and let it go at that"
 z 1 know two or three hard working Farmers who have had experience with l'city help" and who will chuckle a little as they read the above. But, sreally it isn't so much for the interest 5pf my fellow farmers that I reprint 1t as for the behoof of some city Friends who think they could do 7better'' or, at least, ''be better off in sthe country than in the city. I trust that some of them will. read it and sgive prayerful thought of it's sug- sgestions.
 7 Why is it that so many otherwise Reasonable city people assume that going back to the land is about equi- -Salent to returning to Eden?
 As a rule, the man who has never had any experience or technical in- struction in carpentry would hesitate to take over a carpenters shop and set out to conduct it. He would hard ly feel willing to mount the cab of fast express and run the train a hun ired miles, if he knew nothing of en- gineering. He would sink into his own boots if set down at the linotype and asked to hurry up a late cable gram in time for the next edition, due on our streets in fifteen minutes.
 But
 2, He too often thinks that all he has to do is to buy an abandoned farm, Abandoned usually because the prev ious occupant didn't make a a living of it, and promptly, almost automati- eally, become a thriving farmer ' Brethren and sisteren, it can't be did!
 vi I have indeed heard and read stories of it's being done. Just as I have heard tales of the pot of gold at the rainbow's end, and read the adventures of the Swiss Family Robinson. And l believe one about as much as the other
 Every single claim to anything of the sort which I have ever been able to rest, when subjected to the simplest cross examination has turned out to be about half self-deCeit, three quarters ccounts-juggling. seven -eighths brag and the rest plain lying.
 ] know of one citv man. summering in the country and playing with an old farm, who has. this very season got on one of his fields the very best acre of potatoes I have seen, thus far The top growth is unusually even the vines have a satisfying solid color: no weeds are visible: the rows are as straight as if ruled on an architects's drawing: the hills when dug. show al ready highly promising crop of young tubers: there is no trace of bug work or blight He is proud of his potatoes and doesn't fail to brag about then to every old hayseed like myself tc whom he gets the chance to exhibit them.
 We'll there's many a slip between the cup and the lip and an old say ing warns us against counting oul chickens before they're matched Those potatoes aren't dug, yet and have usually found it wise not tc boast of any crop till it is harvested.
 He may run into several differen- sorts of hard luck. before fall. Bu- that isn't all there is to be said abou this potato patch.
 From chance remarks of his ov,r and from what his employees have told me, I have gathered a fairly adequate idea of what is the cause fol that acres phenomenal promise.
 To begin with, he took the advise O a practical potato-grower and began getting the land ready three years ago He plowed and narrowed it. one year He seeded it down with clover the mex year using on that clover seedin; forty-f1ve big two-horse loads O rotted stable manure He ne1,ar. drar of pound of the clover hay last sum ner, but left the first cutting as mulch and finally plowed it all unde with the next growth of green stuf late in the fall. This spring h added. as top-dressing, about thre thousand pounds of high price special fertilizer and disked it in. IT bought some Of the extra fanciest see he could of, paying $35o a bushel fo tilt was no small task to nloy forty-five loads of manure in, coverin it well. It was an even more difficuI task to turn under the green clove aftermath, matted in as it was wit inc earlier cutting of dried stuff. Hi foreman told me that it took two me and a team a full week for the tw nlowings. and they had to have tn help of third man part of the tim,
 The estimated value of the cIove he turned under, including seed wa 800: his forty-fve loads of manur were worth s90 more: his fertilize cost him something over $1O0: tn potato seed s35: labor for plowin, narrowing, planting, cultivating. spray ing, etc, at least s60: small inc dentals, such as Bordeaux, Par (NFnnn al at