Norwich bulletin., 1922-10-06

too me. NO manller man ever honQred America by his life than Theodore Roose- welt, offspring of New York city. And yet, every one of his numerous hiograph- CTS lays stress on the handieaps which he, later, oyereame. The point is that they were real haadicaps and hindrances which not even city gymnasiuns and college athletics were able to Reutralize, and which finally drove him to ranch mans life in the widest west in his search for their mastery. reckon among my dearest and most admired friends men city-born and city-bred. My type writer shall break it's back and dislocate all it's seventy-twe type-bars before it shall be allowed to pound out line or word in derogation of these glorious fel- lows.
 But the fact remains that country life is peculiarly congenial environment for the production and nurture of men. Its very hardships tend towards sturdiness The oak which meets and defeats the stormzblast is a much more worthwhile 1 timber than the bittersweet vine which ciings around it and couldn't hold up it's head without support It is the blows of the forging hammer which tougher the iron they smite and maltreat. The very difficulty of wringing an existence rom the hostile forces of an inimical | 1NoSoAC ChlOICtS ulSClpi1le ana 1Inper- atively requires an initiative such as | comes only from battle,-seldom from the amenities of a sheltered life.
 Furthermore, the constant combat with infrequently understood but al- ways tremendously active natural op- ponents breeds in their antagonist not only toughness of fibre but a certain stubbornness of soul, which refuses 10 surrender and is never willing to admit that it is beaten. This may not be an altogether agreeable character istlc in the drawing-room, but it is a sAiuapie asset In the arena of struggle. | country-bred men are sometimes charged with being uncouth As com pared with the carefully groomed product of the city's sartorial parlors they are indeed apt to be that So is shaggy old katahdin uncouth beside the trinly laid masonry of the Woolworth building. But tskatahdin will still be there lording ii over the Maine pines when the Weolwortf tower shall have toppled to ruin and dust Urbanity is admittedly one of the graces of life and a valuable lubricant in social affairs. But it is strength and power and l stubborn refusal to accept defeat which the world must tie up to in a storm There is no better training-seheol in these qualities than life on the oper farm.
 Only the other day read with mucI interest vigorous complaint from 2 promiEent western business man that the rural districts were not keeping up theil supply of city material ''Why.' he sai( Tn effect, hitherto we've always reliet 1 upon fresh blood from the country ts keep the cities from going stale It ism, coming any longer as it used to. Some thing will have to be done about it." = This suggests new angle from which tc commend it to city readers If they car l view the farm situation. I especially only be made to comprehend that theil own continued existence depends on tht back-roads sources being kept open, they may come to regard the farm problem with a little keener interest. Whats the good of a complete water-system witt pipes extending to every house in town If the reservoir back in the hills is empty and there is no more water flowing intt it?
 It won't do to minimize the irnportanc, Of the beef and the flour and the pota, toes which the farms produce. They ar, the fuel. But even mountain of fue will do no effective work without engine, for it to- drive and engineers to contro the engines. While the so-called farm crops bulk inte many millions bushel and their value into billions of dollars the chief crop of the country still is wha it always has been.-men.
 The two boys with whose story ", started off worked ten years digging on stumps, blasting out boulders, fencin, and fertilizing and blowing and hoeing All they got out of their ten years worl Tn crops and money and improved lant 4 value striking railroad shopmen wouIs have sneered at as insufficient for on, years wages. But they seem to hay, produced something rather more yalu able than anything that can be garn cred in granary or reckoned in Z bank deposit. The three acres had mad, two men, out of what was at the out set, mighty unpromising material.
 An, dear fellow farmer, is your wor, hard? Is it unproftable in money re turn? Does it weary you sometimes lik, a hopeless treadnill of unappreciatet and unremunerative toll? Does it seen to take all the income from one year, crop just to make another next year Are your potatoes rotting? Did the her sistent rains prevent your saving you, hay? We'll, there's one crop you can al ways fall back on, which neither fresh cts nor potate-rot can utterly ruin.
 And it's the most important crop n all. Don't neglect it.
 THE FARMER.