Norwich bulletin., 1920-06-25
Cwritten Specially for The Bulletin.)

tWritten Specidlly TOT The bulletAn'J | Take it altogether and all the year round, there's a good deal of talk in farm and other papers about farm credits" There is manifest a disposition on the part of not few self-appointed doctors of farming. in their search for the causes - of farm troubles, to fall back on this as one of the chief If farmers were ex- tended as wide and as easy credits at the banks" they say, "as are given to men in other forms of business, farming would at once take a big jump forward.
 But would it?
 As Sandy the Scotchman once remarked when told that hell was full of infants only span long. Perhaps, but hae me doots." '. Tn recent list of explanations of cur - rant farm failures prepared by prac- | tical farmer, one chief reason given for ] the larger number of actual cases was the unbusinesslike system of borrowing 1 ahead Co produce a crop" This was de- clared to be a gamble, pure and simple, 1 with too many chances of turning out badly. Any real farmer here in the east will agree with this. All our farming opera tions are in effect a gamble against ut- terly unpredctable chances. We never can tell. when planting a crop. whether
 
 or deadly to it. We use our best judg- ment. ]. e.. we make our shrewdest guess for it is really nothing mOre-and take our chances. Sometimes We get there and sometimes We get nowhere. It is bad enough to be compelled to invest our time and our labor and our manure and our seeds on this sort of best. We always stand q chance to lose them, all or partly. Now, if to that chance is added the fur HT4r~ gfFg s.f q with 9 mortgage foreclosure looming up behind it. like black thunderhead over the west in haying-time-why it's fool hardy. to say the least.
 confess to being quite oId-fashioned in some of my habits of mind. For one thing, I don't believe that the way for a farmer to make money is to go in debt as a starter Of course, l understand that as the professional economists say, most business is founded on credit Per haps, parenthetically speaking, that may be one trouble with business. Did you ever stop 10 think of that? But farming founded on credit is a somewhat different proposition.
 To begin with. debt is about the most costly sort of investment a man can make. Our laws which are slack and limpsy in their guardianship of life and limb. are sternly Draconian in their pro- lection of property. As q prominent lawyer has shown by many instances, it is much less dangerous to knock a mans teeth down his throat than to steal a set of false teeth from a dentist; much less seriously regarded by the law to run over a man with a racing automobile and break his bones than to break into his mouse and steal a spoon. And debt is property-the property of the lender. He is protected on all sides and from all d- rections. Protected against you, the hor- rower. That debt must be paid in fuli, on time, or your last inch of land taken 10 partly recomperse if. Moreover it must not only be paid in full. but with interest added Which interest is grow ing every day. and every hour of the day, whether your crops grow or die. Even as things are with farmers. it is measure ably easier for one of them 10 borrow s1,0o0 than it is to pay back $1.0S0.
 T know of country town, a farming town. nine-tenths Of whose inhabitants live on farns. which fifty years ago borrowed s1o00o0 10 secure the building of a railroad through it. It has reduced the principal little hy little. as it could and has refunded the balance at lower rates of interest. twice. But that pooI little town has already paid back over S20000O on that borrowed S1000 900. and still has more than s20.000 10 pay on tht principal For fifty years it has groane6 under heavy taxation-the highest as sessed rate of any town in it's county and must continue to do so for some years to come. When the debt is wipet out, if that time ever cou1cs. it will hay, paid more than three dollars for every dollar it borrowed, the larger part of i having been confscated from the farms
 And yet. with that experience right be fore their eyes. and that taN-grabbin, hand constantly in their pockets. I haw heard people in that town depore tn difficulty farmers find in borrowing none, 10 use on propositions every whit a chance-y as a new railroad from on country village to another!
 Other forms of business are more 0 less uncert1.ta someone says, and ye practically all Of them. except farnine are conducted on credit | e, on borrow cd money Wen not deny it. The re taller borrows money 10 lay in stock c goods. paying interest there He sell some of those goods on credit to custom, ers who never pay for what they buy. A the end of the year he has paid 6 pc cent or more for his borrowed capita and has lost another per cent if nc more. from bad debts" And we WI buy from him, and who do pay our bill have paid that 12 or more per cent, I addition to a full price and a fair prof on our purchases.
 That's business as she is conducted Perhaps it's a good thing for somebot else besides the money-lender. But can't quite see it. Can you?
 Of course. this is old-fashioned tai and will stamp me in the minds of son as unprogressive and old-fogyish. Fort nately. I can manage to endure such col demnation without turning hair
 Indeed. if economy and prudence al honesty are marks of old-fogydom sir ply because they were classed as virtu by our grandfathers, quite a few of