Norwich bulletin., 1919-08-01

When uncle ReuDen goes to tOWn
 the city folks are often polite enough to his face, but behind his back they smile, more or less cOndescendingly at his awkward manners. his ''gawky' curiosity, his ready-m and style less clothes. He is not of their kind and they sometimes make no bones of letting him know it.
 When they. in their turn. come into the country. the farmer folk try to be good fellows with them and not show too much amusement over their colos- sal ignorance of rural matters. But it is sometimes q hard job to keep ones face straight.
 What do you suppose the old hay seed said-cr thought-when the 1 gushing young thing from the city, 1 coming to her first country supper of l hot biscuits and honey. cried out: ''Oh. I see you keep a bee? ?'
 l Or the rdairyman who was asked soberly how he could tell which kind l of a COW would give butter and which 1 cheese?
 ] Or the farm boy who was raising
 an orphaned lamb on the bottle when
 the city woman solemnly warned him not to hold the nursing bottle with the nipple down. or the lamb would l choke to death? She had never seen thought she knew more about it than 1 the boy to whom it was every spring commonplace.
 i Perhaps it is not true that some 1 city people think q COW is rnilked by working her tail up and down like. a 1 pump handle But l once had one ask me why I plowed and narrowed and smoothed and marked and fur rowed my potato ground. Wouldn't it do quite as well and. save a lot of work, he asked. if I just dug small holes in the turf. the right distance apart. and dropped the seed into them?
 One of my customers, who is very fond of young bunch onions. the smaller the better. when I explained one day that my onions had now got so big I couldn't find any more real tiny ones. asked impatiently why I did~t pull two or three hundred buncI = when they were just the right size. pile them up somewhere where
 they will keep freSh." and so have
 them on hand all summer and fall. I
 tried to explain that I knew of no
 possible way to keep them fresh"
 like that But it was no use. If
 didn't know any way. now, it was my
 business to find one out
 Another customer. who wants head
 lettuce in August, is sure that only
 my own laziness or incompetence pre-
 vents me from raising it. I have tried
 it. over and over again. under all
 imaginable outdoor conditions With
 my soil and my climate. the thing is
 as impossible as the ripening of oranges in Holland county. But she remembers that her brother-in-law's sisters uncle who lives somewhere in Jersey or California or Samareand-- I've forgotten which-once brought her a "b-e-w -tiful" cabbagy head in midsummer. Therefore she knows I could raise 'em in August on Hard scrabble Hill., if l only had the gumption.
 So it goes: and so it is. City people and country people live and move and have their Being under such widely different conditions that they might almost as well speak differing lan- guages, so far as understanding each other i- concerned. The things they think and the things they do and the things they talk about are as widely separate as the heavens and the earth. Of course. being both hu man beings, they have some things in common. But, as a rule, the rural visitor in town has small conception of and less interest in the conditions under which city people are struggling to make both ends meet And; also as rule, the city visitor on the farm is denSely ignorant of nearly all the farmers handicaps What is every day knowledge to one is { hidden mystery to the other.
 Is it any wonder that they some times get impatient with Zach other? That they too often look down on each other? That they tend to grow suspicious of each other? That some of them are always on the verge of calling names and throwing stones?
 It is too bad. but it is no wonder, at all.
 The very worst feature of it. how ever, is when. one side happening to be in power, it undertakes to con- trol by ~islation or otherwise the functions Of the other.
 Half the cities of the land are con- stantly clamoring for nome rule" as- serting that they are oppressed by the laws or charters passed by country Legislatures" What do those hay seeds know about our wants or our needs or our capacities ?" is their cry. "Why should the farmers presume to tell us how we shall govern our selves, when they don't know anything ] about city life?'
 I, for one. won't deny that there is | justice in this claim. Personally, am | in favor of allowing every | community to govern itself and let i other communities alone, so far as | such a turgescence of the democratic l idea is practicable.
 But, really, it doesn't befit the pot l to call the kettle black If country i pumpkins are to be forbidden interfer- | ence with city affairs, may we of the l back roads not ask that city theorists, | etc, keep their hands off country 1 matters?
 Poultney BigeIow is quoted as saw l ing in a recent book that f'The depl t- ] able condition of country life in Ame- ] rica may be largely traced to more l than hall century or IeSlSlaIlon by | town bred lawyers. reformerS from 1 the big cities and agents of railroads l and factories.
 That is. a set of men who don't l know anything. practically. about i life and country, difficulties l and country possibilities. have for half | a century assumed to know more | about them than country people them l selves, and have legislated according l ly.
 Is this true?
 If it is true. who is to blame for l it except the voting majorities who | deliberately put these 'town-bred | lawyers and reformers from the big 1 cities" into power? i
 Chew that cud minute, fellow cit ! izen, if you please. Under our system | of elections. the people can have just | want-if they will only use the power they have in their hands. If they pre- | fer to let the bosses select their rul-