Norwich bulletin., 1918-05-31
WHAT HAS BEEN DONE, MAY BE DONE

cramped by sumptuary legislation and limited by food regulations when we i are still further being called on to ! produce more and consume less for the sake of the needy overseas: when the urgency of thrift is being forced home l to all of us; when we find we must save the driblets and guard the cents; i why wouldn't it be simple common sense for us to hark back, so far as changed conditions will permit, to the thrifty practices of our ancestors and try to make our farms; if not wholly, at least much more generously self supporting?
 Wheat flour we can buy only in in sufficient quantity: wheat bran CT middlings and corn meal only at pro- hibitive prices. Well, why not this year raise our own wheat and corn, and let our own fields supply all our own needs for flour and bran and meal
 Nine farmers out of ten can do it. if they really want to or think they have to-
 We can make our own farms pro- duce the oats. barley, buckwheat, etc, which we shall need to feed our stock with. Perhaps not in every case but, i again, in nine eases out of ten. Some of us could have made maple sugar and maple syrup enough to effect a great saving, if we had the sumption two months ago. It's too late now. Not too late to SOW a few 1 rows of sugar .beets, and last year eX- periments showed that a fairly usable syrup for home consumption can be made by any farmer from the juice of sugar beets. The process is very sim l pie, is fully explained in a Farmers Bulletin, sent free by government to any applicant. The product is de- ] scribed as too dark for sale, but i 'palatable," and perfectly satisfactory for many domestic uses.
 We can't york the shad saIting i scheme of hundred years ago, be- cause there aren't shad enough and l they cost too much. Many of us find ; butchers meat also beyond our reach,
 except as a rare luxury on high oc- | caSiOn, Out west a number of farm ing comm '1nities have developed a meat-sharing. scheme by which they 1 produce their own beef and yet have
 it fresh the whole season through. It's just as simple as rolling off log tco. In one case the club consists of ! twenty farmers. Each one agrees to fatten one beef during the season. The order in which the animals are to be taken is determined by tot. A small
 central slaughter house is built Each Monday afternoon the farmer whose
 turn it is delivers his steer there. It is slaughtered that evening by the
 local butcher, who takes the hide and
 tallow for pay. He also cuts up the
 carcass in such a way that each fam
 fly gets a roast, boiling piece and
 a steak. Tuesday morning the mem
 bers come and get their shares. The
 farmer who builds the little slaughter house gets the offal for his hogs and :! hens. as pay for that slight eX- penditure. At the end of the season if one family has received more pounds of meat than it furnished, it pays the difference, and any family which has
 received less than it furnished is re
 paid the balance due. One hand, thus
 washes the other
 Assuming twenty families in suci a club, and assuming 800 pounds as
 the average weight of each carcass it will be seen that each family get. an average of 25 pounds of fresh beef , every week, which it would seem ough , to satisfy even a western family, witt f hired men and hungry boys growing
 up.
 There are good many of us in thu
 east who would think we were rathe lucky if we could be sure of twt pounds and a half a week,-at the cos of raising and fattening, with m packers or butchers profits to pa,
 and no freight to make up!
 ? These are simply illustrations ant 5 suggestions of changes which w might economically make in many O F our farming practices.
 The old-time farmers made thei
 farms self-supporting and self-suffi : cient because they had to- They'c f have starved to death if they hadn't Now I maintain that anything whicl , a man can do under the stimulus O , duty and at the call of conscience. I he can't, then he's not a free ma1 but, a slave-the slave of his owl
 weaknesses.
 r The forethought and the self denia and the sacrifice which our father ! found not only practicable in order t
 sustain their own lives and suppor
 their families we their descendants B can, if we will. exercise for the saliva 7 tion of a world menaced by a wors 1 foe than they ever faced. If we can $ or won't then we're not as good mel