Norwich bulletin., 1922-10-13

the sake of his land when. under pres ent conditions, he can't hope even to get his money back. And yet" he says, fit gives one gooseaesh to consider what a 1 large proportion of the national domain 1 is being mined out for present profts' While few farmers here and there 1 are treating their land with intelligence and fairness, tas national enterprise. the enormous crops which we are taking | out of our land from wear to year are 50 many sultractions from our na- l five store of wealth. which is the free gift of nature"
 I Now. if there is ene thing more in lcontrorertibly true than any other t Is 4 that you can't take anything from some thing without lessening that original l something.
 H You can't draW water from barrels spigot day after day unless you keep a fresh stream running in at the bung- hole. You can't draw daily checks against geur bank deposit and expect to have ! them always honered, uness you keep up that deposit by adequate renewals. You can't get eggs from a hen or work from horse unless you feed them both with the materials needed for egg production and Work-output
 You can't take crops, every pound of which contains something which was orig inally in the dirt. forever from any soil without ruining it, unless you put back the elements your crops have taken out | II If you try any of these things you or | your heirs and assigns will certainly l bring up, sooner or later against that ! other undeniable proposition that youA can't take something from nothing. No doubt Dean Davenport is right in | asserting that a vast number of so-called | farmers are trying to do just that thing. | Perhaps the proportion is bigger in the | west than in the east. But it's too big l everywhere. It would be too big if there
 was but one farmer in township do-
 ing 1t. And yet. there Is hardly suricient req
 son to despair utterly, bad as the out look is, and short-sighted as the ayera ge
 man may be. Sometimes the sulky child who will not yield to appeals or exps-
 tuolations has been known to see a new
 light after 9 sufficient spanking. Tn world may come to perilously
 short commons, sometime, if present z practices continue, but it won't let it. : self starve to death without trying al-
 most anything to avoid it.
 What ye diggin' for?" asked the pass
 CT of the small boy
 'fWoodchuck,'' breathlessly responded
 the lad.
 Don't expect to get him with that hoe.
 do ye?'
 Got to; we're out O meat !"
 Eet them hungry enough and even Sir
 Leicester Deadlock and Lady Clara We're
 de We're would dig out potatoes with
 thelr own manicured fingers, rather than
 starve to death. When the world as
 whole gets pushed up to the starvation
 line it will use both it's brains and its
 hands to dig its way back again. It's
 too bad, though, that any such desperate
 state should have to be reached
 Rehecttng thus on Dean Dayenport's luRubriOHS ioo tio1,c T
 cant help turning my minds eye towards
 that live acre field on Storrs hill where
 Prof. Esten is demonstrating the ca
 Liabilities of The New Agriculture When 7 one considers what he has done with that
 unpromising bit of abandoned pasture
 what he is now doing with it, and what
 any other farmer anywhere can do with
 similarly worn-out dirt, one is con.
 Vlnced that there are simply tremendous
 possibilities ahead of the farming world
 He has shown that the everywher, 'es present bacteria, which have been fol 2 untold ages working in an aimless anc Ter desultory way to transform the crude 1ct clements of original soils into plant foods as can De organized and brigaded into dis he eiplned allies. Their hit-or-miss labor oy gan be directed into straight-aime IS lines of productive work. They can b 1al so aligned that their scattering and inef
 fective fire shall become sweeping vol to ley. They can be so controlled as to draz oat from the practically inexhausibIe store am of air and earth at least all the nitro He gen and potash which farm crops mus ods have, but can't forage for themselves. the Really, it isn't so much a problem, ( ma the land as it is a problem of human ir en- telligence. We don't know all or tn ges1 half of what will sometime be know nat about the recuperative and reparatiy so forces of nature. But we know enoug n nTry fA 4x,1-r, nat New England brush land into a lauei ana ing garden of fertile productivity-if we are only use the knowledge at our : con we mand.
 There are millions of acres in Chin ,t where reckless forest cutting and i, if norant soil mismana cement have chan, and eq the landscape to bleak and seemin, ring neReless ugsert. on the other han ling there are millions of acres in Eurol tba+ which have been cropped for two thou .ara and years and are still producing be for ter yields than our much boasted virg
 soils of the west.
 - It isn't the land the climate whi
 IS responsible for these differences, b
 the care which has been given the, Ian
 In other words, it is the human ion
 which IS vital. Energy, industry, thri all these count for much. Intelligenr open-eyed and open-minded, counts f more.
 II me human race ever starves it " not be the lands fault, but the rae, own; It will be because we haven't h. lnteltlgence enough or interest enou in our first business to find out why's and wherefores. It will be becau
 we spend our lives robbing the good di instead of managing and nourishing Just at present things don't look
 cheerful as they might. Too many Ian
 owners are mining their land rather tn farming it. Too many are listless a discouraged and suky. Too many 2
 timid about trying out new ideas. T
 many are dreaming of some easy "
 instead of considering first the right "; But there is a leaven working in |
 lump, even now. Give it time, and wat
 it with hope The dough may not be
 hopeess as it ooks>
 THE FARMER