Norwich bulletin., 1920-06-04


 so profitable as the profteering he had found rife in cities of that state.
 A metropolitan paper devoted mainly to business topics recently asked its readers, in referring to the food prob lem, if they knew that
 One day of unusual heat at the criti- cal time may reduce the yield of an oat i field 25 per cent.
 "A few hours of rain can half ruin a crop of wheat. Potato yield may be reduced from 25 to 50 per cent. by a short dry spell.
 One cold rain can ruin an apple crop. "one hot, mugy day may entirely spoil crop of beans'
 The editor might have added several items to this list He might have asked his city readers if they knew that one mornings work of flock of crows might destroy an entire corn crop: or that one | nights unchecked chewing of cutworms | might end a promising cabbage field; or that one hour of a grasshopper invasion might clean up all the green crops in l their route; or that a, six, weeks drench- | ing in spring might reduce all hope of farm production by from fifteen to fifty per cent; or that a months drouth in July might kill half the crops depend ent on rain for their very lives? Etc, etc. | One of the chief papers in what is known as upstate" New York recent ly remarked sententiously that "Farms ing, as a matter of fact, is about as risky as speculation in oil stocks"
 This recalls George Hulls famous re- mark, which I have quoted once before, that he was opposed to all legisla tion against gambling because, if gambling were forbidden, it would knock every farmer in the country out of business. The same paper refers to certain re- cent decreases in the price of food pro- ducts which are being hailed with pleas |. ure by consumers and remarks that, if . they mean only a reduction in middle mems profits there might be cause fo1 joy, but, if they are to mean lessened ' production with famine prices later or when supplies grow scanty. they are 7 hardly comforting" It adds:
 , Young men and women are drifting : by thousands from the farms to the cit ies thousands of soldiers who went iron the farms to the war have not gone back. High wages and short hours art multiplying the consumers and decreas ing the producers everywhere. and the ! older men and women are simply una | ble to keep up farm production at tn,  turns from their crops are to be GU U down so that there is no incentive to pro duce, they will have to limit themselve = to their own requirements. This is tn ; biggest problem before the country to day. Cut off the nations food and wha !. do you think will happen?"
 Well, what do you think will happen : It is to that exact end of scanted sup ' | fo tI,o+ ' dominant forces If the country ar driving or dragging us The combina U tion of profiteering greed on the part o | both big business and organized labor of mollycoddleisn sapping the vita , forces of all industry-of a clam-lik U indisposition for anything but the "sof u job and the easy snap"-and of simply amazing governmental incapacit to see straight or act right-how ca fareseeing men fail to expect the worst We are puttering about leagues ( nations, and growing excited over poss ble presidential candidates, and whee2 ing about prohibition woman suffrag or other comparatively unimportant maj ters. Nero sat on neighboring hill an fiddled while Rome burned.
 There are too durn many fiddIers this country, today! We could afford | swap off about steen million of thel for an equal number of draft horses C milch COWS! Or for a couple of hundre real men! Men with eyes in their face and brains in their heads and an 1T domitable determination for justice i their hearts!
 We may pull out of it, somehow b some miracle of good luck or some undt served interposition of beneficer Providence. As l think I have remarke hofa shown a very kindly regard for the we fare of children, fools-and the Unite States. It may continue to do so Bl when a man in boat without any oal is sweeping steadily nearer to the brin \ of Niagara, he might naturally be e2 pected to show some signs of life H hair ought to stand on end. anyway When whole people is drifting tt wards what has all the threatening al pearance of disaster, it would seem as
 it was time to make some attempt :
 safety. It is absolutely true that u
 biggest problem before the country t
 day is what we are going to eat wes
 and keep warm with next winter; ar
 where we are going to get the money
 do it with. But more people are gettir
 hot over presidential conventions
 daylight-saving or some other popycot
 than over the really sinister econom N situation. And altogether too many a wasting otherwise useful energies in q
 nouncing farmers for what they are n to blame for and cannot help.
 By and by, when the of the ca
 aract wakes us from our snooze, and t
 spray gets into our noses so as to pr vent us from criticizing and snarlng, Y
 shall, perhaps, regret that we didn't u
 our opportunities, when we had them, make a safe landing.
 And, perhaps, even then. the Prov
 dence we have ignored and sneered may leave us a lifeline and pull
 back from the very crest of the la leaping wave above the fall.
 We can always hope, up to the fin plunging catastrophe. But neither m nor people, neglectful of opportuniti for self-saving, have any right to e \ pect some outside power to save the from themselves. Hope is all that-is lt
 after reasonable expectations have go by the board. It is the last chance
 And it is strange folly to abandon other means of salvation in slothful l liance upon hope alone.
 THE FARMER.