Norwich bulletin., 1922-05-12


 change. In those boyhood days the only laIips we knew of were such as burned sperm oil and give light hardly bright CT than firehys, or such as burned ''camphene" and were about as likely to blow up as to Durn out quietly. We used candles. in the main, and lighted them with wisns of paper or splinters of pine at the kitchen stove, because slucifer" matches, which had just been invented, were too expensive for any but emergen- cy use.
 All these changes within the easy memory of seventy years Not only all these, but scores of others which l 1 haven't the time or you the patience for | recalling. And today the airship, the wireless radio service, the farm tractor stand in about the same relation to the funotionings of daily life which the au- tomohile. the telephone and the silo held a quarter of a century ago.
 | What will they be doing for the woria l a quarter of a century hence2 What will they be doing for the farms? i I hear farmers on all sides Hay that tractors can never displaee horses for many forms of farm work. Perhaps not. But it isn't twenty-five years since the same farmers were asserting with equal conviction that automobiles would never displace horses for road work. I was one who had that belief, so I knowl 1t has taken but a little over two decades Ito prove that we were wrong. then. I'm not so sure but that the coming two de eades will show an improvement in trac- tors equal to that of similar period ir the past with autos.
 | We read of frequent fatal accidents with airships and most of us are in. irlin nod f0 <ass. means of transportation. But severa lines have been in regular operation fol
 more than year, now, in England and France, for the carrying of passengers and freight, and statistics show tha, they have been as safe as railroads or automobiles. Moreover, they are being improved. all the time. They are stead lily growing faster and safer, as well. The fatal accidents of which we read are usually incurred in experimental flights I trying out some new device or attempt l ing some spectacular stunt"
 l It may sound absurd to some, but for one. should not dare call it impossi ble that, twenty-five years hence, the Eairship may be as common and as ser. lviceableSas the automobile Is now twen 1 ty-five years after it was first manufac tured
 We old fellows have got used to tho world, as it was We're not wholly com 1 fortable with it as 1t Is, because it is SC different, already. But we want to gt mighty slow in saying what things art impossible in the nearby future. We'v. seen so many changes in the recent pas that our experience should keep us hum bly silent as to coming possibilities. T Of course, we can't any of us tell. Int world may be going to the deyil-or i may not be. I know some old fellow who thought twenty-five years ago, tAa 1t was heading in that direction, then But 1t hasn't arrived. yet. despite thei dolefu1 prognostications. While there life, there's hope. Looking back iron our present standpoint, we can see tha
 the forebedings of the past were not war
 ranted. while that same past's wildes imaginings in the fields of discovery an invention were far shert of the aetuality
 I'm inclined to think that. as 1t ha been, so 1t will he. The wisest thing fo Us old chaps to do is to keep our mouth shut and our eyes open.
 By that conduct, judiciously perse vered in, we may, if we live long enough see a good many surprises-and b spared the necessity of apologizing fo having ever denied their possibility
 THE FARMER.