Norwich bulletin., 1922-05-19
THE FARMER CAN DO IT IF HE WILL.

for just as truly as he owed for the car rots and cabbages themselves.
 Therefore, as a simple matter of fact, it isn't quite true that those vegetables were worth" either 12 francs or SG7 sous. They were really worth some intermediate price between the two, The consumer paid a good deal more than this moral worth while the producing -farmer got a good deal less. Both wers mulcted of their fair dues by the smooth-talking, quick fingered, middle man who stood between them and profit eered off both.
 If you are not familiar with French money, perhaps I should have explaineda before this, that a franc is equal, under normal conditions of exchange, to about twenty cents, and that 1t takes twenty sous to make a franc. So I'll do it now. Better late than never. There was a second thought suggested to me by that comment The man with the hoe doesn't have to pay for lis daily vegetables anything lilze what the city consumer has to pay for D like suL- 1 ply Even on the ratio assumed by this Paris quotation, they stand IiE1 in only | one-third as much. He can sell them for 80 sous, to be sure. Or he can consume them at home and hug himself | good dinner at net cost of 80 sous IS his city neighbor has to pay 12 francs for.
 1 Right there, it seems to me, is one of the great advantages which farm life offers. It is a wonder that this advantage isn't more universally appre- ciated and more generally availed of.
 When my grandfather's grandfather broke over the hills to the eastward and took up a farm in this valley. he brought with him certain amount of supplies enough to last only till he should have established himself and his big family on a self-supporting basis. And it wasn't year before that farm of his was sup plying that family with practically all it's needs Its field were growing all tue potatoes and corn and wheat and oats and barley and buckwheat and hay and garden vegetables for which farm needs call. Its pastures fed the cattle, the horses, t,,e sheep and the swine which were needtd for meat, or for service, or i for milk, butter and cheese. Its woods furnished timber and fuel and in the I spring, an adequate supply of maple sugar of syrup. And so on, and so on.
 To which you succinctly if somewhat : slangily retort, Q, yes, but them days is gone forever !''
 And I counter with pointed. 'FWho told you so?'s
 Some of the crudities and also some of the opportunities of those days, may in ldeed, be gone forever. But, with the change in tools and machines from the crude to the capable have come even greater opportunities, such as the old veterans never dreamed of as possible. What man has done man can do. To say that much is merely to parrot Q trite truism. It is nearer the truth to say that what man did hundred and fifty years ago, man today can beat all hol- low-if he has only as much energy and gumption as his forbears. The farms which supported old-fashioned families of dozen or twenty, five generations back. can certainly support modern families of three or four today. Sup port them just as completely and as ad- equately. It's all matter of the will to do 1t.
 The farmer-even the New EnglaHd farmer on his few and thin-soiled acres can, if he puts his mind and body both to the task, declare and maintain his own independence of trusts and market fixers and prohteers. His ancestors die it because they had to- They would have starved if they hadn't. He can dc it, if he thinks it worth while and vii take the trouble
 Certainly, so far as the ordinary farm and garden products are concerned, SC far as cow and horse and pig and chick en feed and cereal or vegetable supplie: go, he can raise on his own farm. : large part of what farm consumption calls for. He can raise a much larger part than he does. If he were pushed tt the wall by stern necessity, such al confronted his ancestors, he would do t as they did. If too hard pressed by mar ket injustice and profiteering specula tion, today, he can still do 1t. And why in the name of cOmmon-senst st . and self-defense he doesnt. do it t an extent far beyond any present prac tices is one of the mysteries of our in comprehensive human nature.
 . He can, if he will live5 on an 80 3sol basis. while the non-farmer is compelle, . to live on a 12 franc basis He has th, cool end of the poker, every time. 5 While he is thinking of his man. l troubles, he might enlarge his smile g little by thinking also of this advantage THE FARMER