The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1920-04-03

the year and the springtime of life are periods of planning for the fu- ture.
 The farmer that has no fixed plan of crop rotation, no plan of planting, no plan of harvesting or of selling deserves just about what he g@s, which is usually, in debt, failure, all muscle and no brain work. If he lives in a section of the country where most farmers specialize in one | kind of crop he must study condi- 1 tions which make for the success of l that crop and not only study but ap- l ply them and if he wants to make his own family secure against failure | he will arrange for sufficient crops 1 of another kind and of such a na- | ture that the elements of failure for | the main crop would tend to increase | the value of the others. He will ar | range for such other crops as will not conflict with the care of the main 1 crop.
 From the time of planting wheat until it's harvest there is but little if 1 anything can be done for it and yet have had many letters from people | who tell me with great bitterness l that their wheat crop for that special l year was a failure and they had nothing to sell, not even a garden. Sometimes they tell me they planted a garden but got nothing out of it. l The land was not suitable and would not grow anything but wheat. The l practical and efficient man knows | that there is no such thing as poor | land, poor soil, or worn out soil. It is all a. question of brain work direct 1 ing the hand or muscle work. l was called to see a sick woman l in Florida and while there I talked 1 with a native preacher. There were nine children, several dogs, and a few ] hogs about the place. They had what | was considered a large farm, but it was planted year after year to cot ] ton, a few acres of corn and a half acre of sugar cane. They told me the land was so poor that it would only grow cotton. They could keep only 1 one mule, one COW and few chick ems because feed was too expensive. In walking around the place l l found growing the finest and largest wild grapes that I have ever seen. l saw trees loaded down with wild per simmons, pecan nut trees with abund- l ant crops of large fine nuts and upon | inquiry I learned that they frequent ly secured as high as two hundred 1 gallons of the best table syrup from the half acre of sugar cane. I also found fig trees growing in a very thrifty condition in fence coroners
 camphor trees used for shade in the yard and a tangerine orange tree
 with it's luscious fruit ready for your l mouth.
 I asked the man why he did not
 plant acres of sugar cane which he had never known to fail, instead ot
 so much cotton. He had no answer l asked him why he did not plant
 an acre of figs, an acre of japanese perslmmons, one acre of budded pc
 cans and an acre of early table
 grapes. He had never thought about
 the matter.
 The Allwise Creator had placed
 object lessons all around him but he was blind to all of this. I asked him
 It anyone had ever tried to grow
 such things in a commercial way and he admitted that a place 30 mile. } away there were many hundreds O.
 acres of oceans that were valued al
 $1,0O0, per acre, about the same dist ance in another direction an earls | variety of table grapes were grow1
 and shipped north by the car loat
 and that they were said to yield iron
 $500 to $4OO, per acre.
 I found that all of the fruit.
 spoken of were very proftabIy growr
 at various points nearby, but thi
 man and his neighbors had alway. grown cotton and they could not b, aroused to greater efficiency. All land is good land. Its sirnpl, a question of finding out what it : good qualities are and use it for tha purpose.
 I have not yet seen a place where
 one could not grow a garden and have traveled over a large portion . of the U. S. and Canada
 It is the same way with mankind
 There are both men and women tha
 are failures simply because they ar, not growing the crop for which na ture intended them.
 About 20 years ago a tall, pale , slender boy was living on a smal
 farm near a village in Texas. He wa
 abused because he was considered O
 no account by his parents and thei
 neigh3ors.
 He liked to keep his room neat ant 7 his toys and especially his books il
 order. He wanted to read and study
 There was no appeal to him from tn s soil, the crops or the cattle an, n horses.
 e One day he wrote to me, a beauti n full letter for a boy, well worded an l 1 photograph of himself and said tha . he had been studying and practicin : the lessons of Dynamic Magnitism i
 my Home Health Club book volum d two and that while his people wer e poor he had determined to go to e city and enter a business college s work his way through and use tn y knowledge he would gain of short 0 hand and typewriting as a means, c U stepping stone to a business career an $ wanted to know if I would give hi1 6 a job after he graduated.
 studied the boy and wrote hi1 y my conclusions. I kept in close touc c with him for several years by cores d pondence.
 Il The last I knew of him was jus u before the European war started,
 that time he was travelling over th
 country in a private car one of th
 executive heads of a great railwa
 system. One of the most compete1
 and efficient men in it's service. Ha
 he staid on the farm he would haI
 been one of the ordinary failure