Norwich bulletin., 1919-09-12

| tab. In my gardens asparagus, green peas, spinach. Lima beans. tomatoes, 1 potatoes and muskmeloris have been l decidedly unprofitable crops this year. i On the other hand. lettuce. cucumbers 1 beets, carrots, onions, summer squash, sweet corn, cabbage and marrow beans l are much above the average. We had ! a poor yield of strawberries and an l unusually biz. one of raspberries; no f entrants or cherries. but plenty of 1 blackberries; tho apple trees are bare of fruit while the pear trees are loaded.
 The wettest and coIdest April and May in my remembrance were follow ed by the hottest and driest June since the great drouth" of 1884 July and August swung back to the wet corner and kept us soaked. My having, usu- ally finished by mid-JuIy. wasn't be- gun till id-August. One of my neigh meadow, to cut over. is still moving. It struck me as rather odd yesterday to see his teams at work raking and drawing in hay while in the very next field his neighbours teams were hauling corn to the silage cutter.
 It seems to me a trifle odd, too, that my sweet corn should have been. if anything, rather better than usual while my small patch Of yellow flint field corn is the poorest I've ever had. By no means an utter failure, but with too many undersized hills and the promise of altogether too much soft
 
 corn on the half of that field which we were able to manure in the hill is markedly poorer than the corn on the half where our supply of hen manure ran out and we were able to offer it no help.
 Perhaps 1 have mentioned it before we old 'uns are apt to repeat the same things-but the longer l last the more l become convinced that there is something intangible and as yet un- n nIyI- .lt cr1T1 oYa uy1fo of fleets crop growth in ways mysterious to us. \ hundred years ago philoso- phers thought they knew all about light, what it was. what it was com posed of and how it acted. Yet they then never suspected it's so-called "actinic' property by which it is abie to print pictures on photographs plate.
 "actinism" in light has now revealed all the functions of light. leaving noth- ing more to be discovered is simply to advertise ones self conceit and ig- ncrance. There may be a hundred other properties in our everyday sun light or in the air at present undream- cd of any one of which may be suffi- cient to account for the difference be- tween a good growth of peas, for in stance. and a poor growth.
 We can't see "actinism," nor hear 1t nor feel it nor taste it nor smell it. But it's there. just the same. and acts Cll IIlG ScIS1LlZcu Dltc plate quickly as lightning. What right have we to deny the possible existence of other properties in light and heat and air and water. properties as yet undis- covered ard unnamed, but a s potential as the ''actinisn'' which was likewise unnamed and undiscovered hundred years ago? Certainly. there are apparent freak satisfa ctoriIy expncable by reference to weather or soil conditions. We farmers can't wholly foresee and con- trol even these latter. How much less can we expect to control wholly hid den forces. if such there be, of whose nature and existence. we are in doubt? It is, to some Of us, the very charm of farming that it keeps us guessing all the time. It is q great game in which the dice fall as they will and the tions. different each time from the last or almost any preceding shuffe. We take things as they come and expect to meet new combination about every time. Whats the lesson from it all? Well l one lesson it teaches is that Of humiI itv. Of all the cattle on a thousand hills deliver me from the bumptious l llnowita1l. "didn't-I-tell-ye-so' farm CT! Such man is out of place on the farm. He ought to have been a sea -cool1-or q walking delegate, The wisest farmer of all is the one who knows that ne doeSn [ know much, and is frank to admit 1t. Another lesson might be that grum- bling about the weather. etc. Is a waste Of time. Ut doesn't do any good; never did and 1iever will. Mrs. Parting ton trying to sweep back an Atlantic tide with No. broom was wisdom personiied in comparison with such q farmer. The thing to do is to take our medicine and look pleasant-at least 1 as pleasant as we can.
 
 There's no law against each ore find ing that which seems best to fit his own case But, whatever the moral drawn. don't forget this essential fact, that the one duty and privilege of the New England farmer is. under all copdi- tions and in face of all circumstances. | to KEEP A STIFF UPPER LIPi Under the bludgeonings of fate his head may be bloody, but let him hold it unbowed,
 THE FARMER