Norwich bulletin., 1919-10-24
WHO SAVE AND WHO DO NOT!

(Written Specially For The Bulletin.)
 A certain New England farmer, find
 ing that the retailers in his nearest market town were charging their GUS
 toners s3.5O and $4 bushel for po-
 tatoes, loaded up some and took them
 in- When the first grocer to whom he
 offered them made a bid of S2 a bushel
 for them. he laughed light-heartedly,
 gathered up his reins and drove on
 to the next That next one also of fered him g bushel. So did a third and fourth. And all the rest.
 At the end of a morning vainly de- voted to efforts to get more than this apparently stereotyped bid from any retailer, MT. Farmer began to see a light. He thoughtfully drove home, taking his unsold potatoes with him. Arrived there. he set the bags upon and around his milk platform at the side of the road stuck up a hastily crayoned sign. and proceeded to sell his potatoes to passers- by at the same price he had been offered in town, not only had sold all that first load but all that he had to sell from his cellar. People came in autos and with teams. sometimes from ten miles away to buy his cheap potatoes.
 You see. he figured that, if he couldn't get more than s a bushel for them after hauling them to town. it saved him the time and cost of haul age to sell them at the same price at his own door. In addition to which personal saving for himself he had the satisfaction of helping the long suffering and much complaining con- sumner by $1.50 $2 a bushel. Hav- ing cleaned up his potato crop in this manner, he wrote and told his farm paper how he did it. Which is how I came to know about it.
 The first thought that came to me as I read the yarn, was that this par Az zl-r1 spunk in refusing to sell potatoes to profiteers who planned to make hundred per cent profit on them. If all farmers would show as much spirit and much common sense. prohteer- ing in farm produce would come to a sudden and complete finish.
 The second thought was that his busines judgment was poor. He left his nat,.raI anger at the profiteers and his equally natural sympathy for the consumer get the better of his busi ness sense. He could undoubtedly have sold just many potatoes to just as many consumers at S2.50 a bushel as he sold at s2. That would have been a saving to them of from 5 Il to $1.50 a bushel. and would have given him enough extra money to buy a ton or two more of fertilizer next spring, to raise more potatoes with. next year. He would still have helped the consumer appreciabiy. helped him self good deal more, and hit the profiteerS just hard.
 But we can't all think alike about such matters nor see things in exact Iy the same light. Nor do we any of us know how an experiment will turn out when we undertake it. as well as '~o do after we have gone through with it.
 yer. the thing which struck me l with most force in reading about .his Ut direct to- the consumer | leal WIS a chance remark by the po- tato-s selling farmer that it wasn't the poor people who took adva antage of | his low priced fcod but the rich. This i seemed to him a queer thing. That | people who could afford to pay S4 for l potatoes without really feeling the ! price should nevertheless be the very i ones to seize avidly upon the chance l To buy them for less. while people to |