Norwich bulletin., 1922-12-29
Cwritten Specially for The Bulletin)
ere are farmers-and farmers.

made. Ana some or them are about as mean-hearted and ulcerous of soul as that same God suffers to live.
 Some are every whit as brainy, as req sonable, as logical and as foresighted as could be hoped for. And some are mighty near if not quite ''morons," i. e. adult men with the intelligence of ten- year-olds.
 Some are fairly prosperous, in good times or in bad. And some are always wading the Slough of Despond, no mat ter whether times are hard or easy.
 Some of them, as the country saying goes, always fall on their feet, no matter how high they're blown up. While oth- CTS always tumble on their noses, even when they trip over straw.
 In brief, farmers are very much like other folks, a mixture of all sorts, good, bad and indifferent; wise and unwise; thrifty and shifless; niserly and extrav- agant; long-headed and short-sighted.
 One simetImes thinks that the less de- sirable and more -disagreeafbIe ones seem to crowd the center of the state and make the most prominent plays before their audience. It is perfectly self-evi- dent that people usually take this sort as representative of their class. They call em types" and say of some rural skin flint who has cheated them in a butter trade that he IS typical" farmer. Of course this isn't fair. But perhaps it's quite as fair as our own irritated asser- tion, when some city dudelet with a gun has left the woods bars down and shot the family cat thinking it rabbit, that this is jest like city folzs.' It is also quite common for city people when they hear farmers complaining about the raw deals they get in city mar kets, to pass it off with a covert sheer. They're always grumbiing, nothing is ever just right for them" Indeed, 1t seems to be rather common if not prey alent idea in the cities that farmers are born to find fault, as the sparks to fly upwards, though they really aren't any {; worse off than other businesses. There's no use trying to argue with people who have got that bug in their heads. Show them a million bushels of peaches rotting on the ground because the farmer can't sell them for enough to pay wages Of picking and basketing, and 1 they'll shrug their shoulders and say that they guess he could find way IT he wasn't so dunn lazy. Show them ire flta'ble statistics proving that the farmer has to pay an average of s1.77 for things he used to buy before the war for $1,
 
 he used to sell for S1, and they'll retort I that they themselves have to pay double l for rents and fuel and food and clothes. And they'll think this a crushing answer. l They Han't go on and admit that they're being paid double wages to en- able them to meet high prices while the farmer, who has to gain his income from what he sells, is getting practically no increase of income with which to meet his | enlarged eutgo.
 ! It would be amusing if it were not so irritating to hear some of the disputants on both sides, especially those who write to various western papers, setting forth their own complaints and usually pooh poohing those of their antagouIsts That kind of interchange is going on almost all the time in one or another of the news. papers published in such cities as Detroit Chicago, Cincinnati, Toledo, Kansas City etc.
 One farmer 0ut in Michigan, for in. stance, writes to his paper that ss.s1 workers are really much better of, so fal as finances are concerned, than farmers because they're getting about the sarat wages as in 1920, while the purchasing power of their dollar is greater. This, aIt contends, Is exactly the opposite of tht
 
 as much for his crops as in 1920, wlsfl, the purchasing power of his dollar hasn' increased to any pereeptible degree.
 Thereupen a city wage-earnef retort to this farmer that he does not seem tt know what he's talking about that il fact the city mans dollar will purchas ''in food, clothing and rents very iittl If any more than in 1920, with prices go ing up continually"
 E'The trouble with our country broth CTS" he goes on -fs that they think cit, wage workers get much higher wage than they do get. and they have no con ceptisn of how much it costs to live i the cities. They lose sight, too, of th fact that the city wage earner is muc of the time unemployed and that when l. gets few dollars ahead the surplus usually consumed in these periods of non | employment"
 . To fortify this mans contention a da } or two later "A City Housekeeper'' ser the editor her views They were chief contained in a wall about the high rric of potatoes, which she bad to b1y only, peck at a time. For this she didn't hef itate to blame the greedy sarmers. ' TaereupOH farmers wife came bee in short order with an answer to thI City Housekeeper." She reports ths they used to five In Detroit and her hut band worked for the Ford Motor Con pany. But, three years ago. they inveS ed their savings in a farm and have l:V ed on it and worked it sver since. s she thinks she knows both sides of tl problem from personai experience. Tal ing up the matter of potatoes, just as lsample, she asks f "City Heusekeepel
 knows that the farmer has Io buy cert Q fed seed at high prices, pay sxorbifal wages to pnstSflled labor, blow, plaI a cultivate, spray, harvest his potatoes. ha them to market and ssh them for 2s cen
 a bushel?
 2 Does City Housekesper" know , sl wonders, that other Michigan farme
 picked, sorted end hauled their be
 winter apples to market and had to s,
 them for 50 cents barrel?
 Does eGity Housekeeperp know, S
 goes on, that other farmers let unto
 loads of fruit rot on the trees or und
 them, met fer lack of desire to sell the
 but because 1t would have cost more
 hire men to pick and truck them to Loa , than thSy Epald have sold for there
 '"The average farmer" she adds poll -tedly. sis not rich enough to bring
 product to the marketable stage a
 then let it rot just for spite"
 And go the time goes on, day after d
 in first one paper and then enother. T pot seems real yexed to see how black 1 P kettle Is, and the kettle Is sure the ] ,e needs good seraping outside and insi
 The most notable thing sbout the | sA pnte. as 1t sqaabbles along In tn = western papers end as you and hear
 viva yocs, in our own neighborheods,
 that pot and kettle should both try ttake 1t out in pumping each other, s
 neither should ever stop to swear at smoking stove which biackens them be
 impaFt4ally.