Norwich bulletin., 1918-12-06
THE FARMERS TALK TO FARMERS
NEIeBoRLY COOPERATION THAN COMPETITION

CWritten Specially for The Bulletin.) I had a, queer dream the other day. 'Eh? What? The other night, you mean" No, I don't mean the other night" I mean the other day. It 1 wasn't a nightmare; it was a day. dream; a sort of waking vision, 8 trance, perhaps.
 dreamed that the farmers of our school district got together. Unler- stand that? GOT TOGETHER! ] Got together at the old little red schoolhouse,' which, by the way, isn't red any more. Since we had woman l trustee, a few years ago, it has been | white, with green shutters and green l iatticework between the windows for ] flowers to climb on
 According to my dream, some of 1 them brought apples and some nuts 1 and some sweet cider and one of the 1 two farmerettes brought teapot in 1 dled roaring fire in the big stove, she 1 proceeded to brew some of her favor 1 ite Pekoe,
 There were eleven of us, including l the two farmerettes. And nine had l hornily calloused palms, gifts of the ] blow and hoe handles. And seven had l on their overalls. And eight wore
 more or less scraggly boards. And most of the faces wore wrinkles. from 1 long pondering over the universal farm 1 problem of how to make 8 farm pay | by selling crops which cost hundred dollars to raise for about eighty seven | dollars and half.
 We were just-barring the two farm 1 erettes-a bunch of old haySeeds, such as might have foregathered at almost any district Schoo1house in any part of
 rural New England.
 l But-according to that drean1-the
 whole ecaboodle had become thorough 1 ly sick of working for just board and 1 lodging-and to pay for somebody eIse's limousine. They were ready to l the last man and woman to try what l the application of little horse sense would do for farming in this particular
 school district.
 1 They cracked nuts and "chanlzed" 1 apples and swigged sweet cider and slipped tea and, at the invitation of the I farmerettes, several brought out their pipes and puffed at them. Meanwhile i they talked things over. They turned
 the problem upside down and inside i out and 'tother end to. They exam l ined it and re-examined it from all ] discoverable angles. Then, without bothering to form any red-tapish or ganizaton, they agreed to q set of reso- lutions about like the following:
 "Whereas, We farmers of the Nintf school district have been pullin' and
 haulin for some time without gettin | anywhere, therefore
 Resolved: First That, instead O continuing to cut each others throats
 by underseHing, etc.. we'll try the ex-
 pertinent of sticking together ant backing each other up
 "Second, That we'll bunch our brain!
 and see if it is really true that clever
 heads are better than one.
 l Third, That we'll henceforth worl
 together as allies, instead of separate ly as independent bucaneers.'
 Having adopted which somewhat CT
 ratio bill of rights, they proceeded {, work out details in accordance there
 with.
 To begin with, they agreed that al
 most every 1arm was overstocked wit tools and teams. Investigation showe' that only about 110 acres in the. distric were usually plowed, of T season. Yol see, we are all small farmers. I, fo one, was a little surprised to find tha we averaged so much as ten acre
 apiece of blowing. But, to handle tha
 ten acres, each one had to have tear ! and at least two blows and two har rows and those who plowed more tha 3 the average had to have seed drill
 and planters, etc. So far as the sprin work was concerned they didn't aver
 age ten days work for the teams o
 any of the tools. The tools. especially lay idle all the rest of the year, eatin : away what might have been farr profits in rust and rot.
 So they decided to have distric 5 tractor with set of gang blow!