Norwich bulletin., 1920-01-23

which roll in the awful distances be- yond the faintest nebulae of the Milky Way
 But that doesn't prevent us from seeing a potato bug eating our pota- toes nor from acting on the extremely probable assurance, derived from long experience, that a dose of Paris green will put a stop to his damage. And we are so used to applying the word know to this latter sort of obser- yation that it is pardonable, whether strictly exact or not.
 The most marked characteristic of the human mind is that it really wants to know. The most convincing ar gument for it's immortality is that it can attain Serfect knowledge only in another life and on a higher. plane than this In the meantime, shall finite brains cease to function because, in their finite surroundings, they are estopped from infinite possibilities?
 That would be sorry conclusion.
 You and don't know what matter is-what plain, every day dirt is. They used to think that it was a something composed of atoms. And that atoms were ultimate, indivisible particles" Now, they think that atoms may be divided into lions" or "e1ectrons." By and by, they will divide "electrons' into something still smaller. And so on and on, and minimum. It will still re- main true. when one century's last 'indivisible" point has become the next century's further "divisible" mass, that not even then will we know what matter really is.
 But, without waiting for that time or any other time. We have prac- T4r- l. .I-I forms of matter act and what they can do, or can be made to do.
 can go out into my garden and pick up a lump of .earth-any lump. And not all the saints and sages from Adam to the present time can tell me what it is
 Nor isA it essential that should know. The experience. not necessarily of saints and sages, but of countless millions of simple farmers for thous- ands of years has established a work ing probability as to what that soil will do under certain conditions This | is not absolute knowledge, but it is 1 the form of knowledge which comes within our reach. By its use we can raise crops. By painfully sought ad- age to raise constantly better crops Practically. that is our business-oul duty and our privilege, as well.
 Imagine perfect, complete, infallible knowledge as a. core of precious metal at the very center of the earth. We cant get to it. noE; perhaps we never can. But that doesn't prevent us from studying the surface and so far down as we can profitably work. We must do without that core of precious metal True; but we can dig out whole lot of coal and iron and salt and .sil- i yer and such things from the d6tei layers, and get a good deal of use 1 from them.
 Shall we refuse all bread because we can't have the whole loaf and ! i'eat 1t all at one gulp7
 Please. therefore, gentle critics, b, l easy with the talkatife farmer. Kind I ly rem ember that, sometimes, he say, t! know" when he refers to absolute l certainty and, sometimes, when he re fers rather to the probabilities ant likelihoods of common life. Let thu i context indicate in which sense it i | used.
 Do you churn butter? If you dc you're up against two eonundrums every time. To begin with the eas
 fest: Why does butter come" afte i churning? I have asked that questio
 of eleven different buttermakers with out getting the right answer fror one. Yet that answer is capable 0 being found out In the cows mill
 mixed up with water and various oth
 CT things are tiny specks of fat, eac one inclosed in an exceedingly thi
 sac which keeps it isolated till tn
 sac is broken. Being lighter thai