Norwich bulletin., 1920-09-24
Totals ..: .,........$4.35 $5.7O 1-2

Totals ..,. .........$ $435 S5.1U 1-z l
 This shows a difference of $1.35 be- 1 tween the prices I have been able to get in 1920 and those paid me for the same things in 1904. Reduced to percentages, again, it shows that vegetables I was able to sell Is years ago for a dollar brought | me in $1.35 this present season.
 That is the goods I bought for a dollar l then at the store-four, sugar, kerosene, l coffee, etc, cost me $260 this year, or $1.60 more than 16 years ago, while the produce I sold for a dollar then brought me $1.S5 this year, 35 cents more than Is years ago.
 And I, as greedy, grasping, prOfteer ing farmer" am expected to get rich quick by having my income increased 55 per cent. and my outgo increased 160 per cent.
 I really wish some keen city accountant would show me how I am going to pay $160 more for my sugar, tea, etc, out of my 35 cents added income, and have a surplus left for banking away!
 Mind you, I am not quoting these prices have obtained as illustrations of what city consumers pay for the same vege- tables. I'm quoting them as illustrations of what the farmer gets. And I'm hoping that some few consumers, seeing them, will have the common sense to charge the exorbitantly high cost of living they are compelled 10 pay against somebody else | than the farmer
 They may think the prices I obtained were absurdly low. But I have to dis | tribute my garden produce in competition
 with other local producers, and I charged all l could and hold my trade If I had l asked more, competitors would have un- l derSold me in my local market.
 l l ter. to sell in lump to city wholesalers i One neighbor tried it. He sold 2,000 ears to wholesalers in a nearby city, and the l best he could get was Is cents a dozen
 as compared with my 20 cents, though
 corn was retailing that very day, in that l same city, at 40 cents dozen. Another neighbor tried another city with a small l crop of tomatoes. He was offered 50 l cents bushel for them, delivered, which was just half what I was getting. In despair he offered me all I'd take at 70
 cents bushel. I took 30 bushels and
 sold them for S3O, thus making $9 for
 myself and getting him $6 more than the
 city wholesaler would offer. So you see 1 that lump selling proposition wouldn't | have meant more money to me for my | truck
 Talking about these mythical huge proiits' of the farmer, another recent ad-
 venture of fruit-growing neighbor is
 both amusing and instructive He has
 perhaps 40 or 50 barrels of rather nice
 apples on his trees, and so drove to the
 nearest city the other day to see about
 marketing them. He planned to pick and
 barrel them himself and deliver them in
 the city. First he got the price of barrels empty apple barrels, for packing then in. Two dollars a barrel was the lowest price any city dealer would quote them tc him, and he would haveto come and get , them. Next he tried three big fr71it stores to see what they would offer hin
 for the filled barrels, and $2 a barrel was
 the best anyone would give, barrels
 thrown in,S of course. He figured that i would cost him at least dollar barrel : money -out, to pick, grade, pack and de liver the fruit at the city, 12 miles away
 That meant s barrel cost and s2 a bar , rel income. He has been accustomed tC working for nothing and paying his ow1 ,, H. c. L.. but when it came to giving hi
 apples away and then paying dollar
 barrel to the wholesaler for being goot ? enough to take them, he demurred At last reports he was considerin, the idea of taking a chance with tn
 Volstead law and turning his choice frui into cider. Whether, if he does so. h l will be able to sell barrel of pure eide vinegar for as much as the empty barre will cost him is the problem he's nov j. trying to solve. I hope he'll discove e some way to make a nickel from his or 3 chard. for I've got few nice apples red ] dening up myself, and I should hate t
 have to feed them to the pigs!
 It is apparently a trait of human na
 ture always to blame somebody else fo
 it's misfortunes We shall doubtless hay