Norwich bulletin., 1920-03-05

ties but demands that all the pie be put on his plate, 'henceforth. Even the camps of war are hereafter to be clustered around the ice cream par lors and the chocolate dispensing can dy canteen.
 All of these things are more or less vague generaiizations, but don't touch us farmers where we live. But the contagion is all around us, also. Three quarters-I might say nine-tentAs of all the farming literature poured out, these days, is addressed not to the in crease of farming efficiency. but to the ] lessening of farm laboriouspess; not I to making farm work more produc- l tive. but to making it easier; not to
 making farm life better worth while, but in making it more luxurious; not | to nursing strength and manlinesS
 and virility in farmers, but to tempt l ing them towards softness and sybar- itisn and effeminacy.
 The other day | read an Associated Press dispatch from New York city | perhaps you read it, too-in which an- nouncement was made of the reorgan- | ization of a forward to- the-f farm" movement for city workers during the summer periods when farm labor is | most urgently needed. So far I read it with interest, even if without much | stirring of hope. But it then went on to explain how these workers from
 town were to be treated, They were | to be formed into 'units," housed in large camps centrally located, trans ported to f.Al from work in motors, | have daily access to "attractively equipped social features designed to | combat lonesomeness and discontent." etc., etc. Also, their days work was to be limited to eight hours.
 There you have it. The idea of 1 farm work is to be so sugar-coated
 that it may be made to appeal to a | lot of critters who, by the very fact of their being susceptible to such dos
 age are prime facie unfit for any sort
 of farm work.
 It's enough to make real farmers
 gag. especially such old farmers as you and I, who know that farming
 isn't any vacation amusement for | weddings. l wonder that the organ 1 izer of this movement don't go still further, and promise that their back
 to- the landers' shall be tucked into
 bed every night, and have their grape | fruit and coffee and waffles brought to
 them every morning hot and hot be-
 fore they get up. Also boy furnished each ont to carry his tools to the field
 for him, like a golf caddie. and hold
 an umbrella over his head while working in the hot sun.
 Oh, Molly, Molly Molly Coddle!
 The farmer in such parts of New England as I am acquainted with, is l and must be both worker and fighter | War is he'll according to General Sherman. And New England farming
 is war Don't let that simple truth
 escape you for one minute, while you
 are considering farming problems. | People who look at it through an op- | era-glass may talk all they please
 about "beneficent". Nature. We farm CTS who have to live with Nature know it for an enemy quite as often as an ally. Practically speaking, by
 far the larger part of our energies are
 required to fight off our natural ene- mics.
 l. From the first treacherous smile of spring to the next invasion of winter
 the farmer is and must keep hard at work trying to steer his apple cart in
 the road Nature happens to be taking
 and, at the same time, he is. and must
 forever keep fighting for his very life | against the thousand enemies she
 marshals behind in her progress. He
 must fight weeds-and he must fight worms-and he must fight insects
 and he must fight birds-and he must fight four footed beasts and he must fight molds and mildews and blights
 and fungi and spores and droughts
 and floods and score of other worse
 than Huns; he must light them day
 in and day out, week in and week out all the old ones and, generally, a
 new one or two every season.
 He must, usually, fight alone. He
 feels like it, but when he has to; not
 for eight hours day, but for eighteen
 or twenty. sometimes; not according
 to his ideas of comfort, but accord
 ing to the mandates of stern and wholly unfeeling necessity.
 , He must, usualIq, fight alone. .H,
 must be his own strategist and his
 own commanding officer and his owr high private. It is no tea-fight ht , must engage in; no Marquis of. Queensberry rules, he must fight un-
 der. It is 2 scrap to the finish ant