Norwich bulletin., 1919-05-02

ment for the risk he takeS-a rlsk i which he must bear alone and against ] which he can secure no insurance. i Moreover, there are some of us faral 1 CTS so steeped in greed that we act ually dare to think he ought to get, 1 still further, wages for his own work, i whether of hands or of head! Indeed, l I think most copsumers would admit as much-if only they would stop long enough to think about it.
 A whole lot of non farmers seem to hold the idea that all there is to farming is blowing the land and sell ing the crop. Flow over a few acres chuck on some seed; then go fishing or picnicking or gol1ng till it comes times to pass over the crop and collar the consumers coin. That seems, say, to be the idea of q good many. And it's about as near the real truth as Hartford is to Honlulu.
 That real truth is that there is no business or trade followed by men whose successful management re quires such constant care; such un- remitting toil; such prudent planning; 1 sucn long hours; and involves the i taking Of so much risk as crop rais- ing. 1 don't care whether it's the raising of corn in Illinois, or of onions l i'll New Jersey, or of tobacco in Con- necticut-Whether it's spread over | thousands of acres or is confined to a
 hve-acre garden; in every case the situation is about the same in princi- pie.
 | A city born and bred woman who has been watching the spring work on my little place, this season, remarked
 the other day, with note of surprise in her voice: What an interminable 1 task it is to get the ground ready" 1 Last year I made d certain small sum in profit off my gardens. This spring, before 1 get a single penny back in returns from the 1919 crops, i [ shall have blown in more than half
 of all that d-by profit in payment for labor and seeds and fertilizers. If I had paid myself wages, the same that other workingmen get, there
 wouldn't be anything left but de- felt. Yet last year was the best l have ever had. I face the coming
 summer with no hope that it will do as well, and with good chance that it may not do half as we'll. Probably my experience is about on par with
 that of other gardeners and farmers. | l have never heard more than one farmer who made as much as a mill lion dollars by straight farming. He picked whole country of the best | SO rich with it's accumulated and hither- to uncropped fertility that it needed no maturing, and farmed on such a
 scale that it took 40 mule teams to cultivate his corn; that he could buy his clover seed by the carload and sell his fat beeves and hogs by the
 train-l load. He's the only farmer l ever heard of who can be proved to have made clear million by farm ing.
 l But only the other day l read of a man who had made $55, 900, 900 by sell cheap knick- knacks to bargain hunt
 CTS of the cities. A man who had been almost a failure the first thirty years of his life, and who used to
 laugh. in his latter days. over his own
 grocery clerks job when he was a
 youth.
 When Iheard of a farmer making
 one-tenth that sum--or one hundredth
 of it-in twenty-five years from sell
 ing farm products, I shall be willing
 to admit that there may be some
 foundation for suspicion of pro
 teering!"
 For the present, please take notice l that it is the very same city con-
 sumers who paid MT. Woolworth $55,- VUO,VVV p1OIil, GdIlu '" llO lIlOuS1l llISS
 were getting his stuff mighty cheap,
 who are the honest and the most de-
 nunciatory in their abuse of the farm
 CTS because the farmers "are trying to get rich quick off them.
 You see, whats sauce for the goose is not always sauce for the gander
 Likewise, it does make a difference
 whose OK is gored.
 Do not misunderstood me. as criti- cizing the Five and Ten Cent
 stores. Nor as denouncing MT. Wool
 worth for getting rich through them I He had the wit to hear and appreciate a public demand and to turn it's grati-
 cation to his own profit. He neveI pretended to sell his knick- -knacks for less than they cost, or that they were worth as much as better goods. He , simply sold what a huge army of con sumers wanted somebody to sell them at prices which they were perfectly : willing to pay. But his list didn't , include Waltham watches, being more : and must bring more, because it costs - more to make them.
 To pretend that the average farmer
 doesn't want all he can get for his produce-and perhaps a little more
 would be a false pretence. There's
 just as much human nature on the
 Dack hllI roads as on the avenues. Ht
 would like to get rich, if he could and know how
 But he is not doing it. For the las two years he has been putting all hi energy and all his labor to the tasl
 of filling the worlds empty mouth r with very little resultant gain to hi own surplus. He had to raise hi prices, for the simple reason tha 3 everybody else has raised prices t, : him. But he has not raised them il . any. just proportion Even the foot 6 administration formally reported, a f the close of last season, that price . paid to farmers for foodstuffs through out the entire United States hat
 risen during 1918 only three and half per cent. over 1917 rates. Wa e there any other line, outside of tn c few governmentally restricted, whicl ? didn't climb more than that durin d the year?
 n class expected to go without profit ; Why should farmers be the onl ' or even days wages to show thei - patriotism when business won't an u labor won't and transportation won't