198 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



will also help. I believe that we are making progress in the 

 country life movement, and one of the evidences of it is the 

 change of sentiment in regard to the country and also in regard 

 to farmers and farming as a business. 



Farming used to be looked upon as rather a poor business, 

 and it is not any too good yet, in spite of the period of the high 

 cost of living which we are passing through, in spite of the fact 

 that a good many people think that the farmer is above the 

 bondholder — that he is "in clover." 



We heard a good deal in times past of the farmers in the 

 light of "buckwheat" and "corn cracker" and ground "hopper" 

 and "hayseed," and the like of that; I have been called all of 

 those beautiful names, until the word country has become in 

 past days — not so much now — a synonym for awkwardness and 

 rudeness. It used to be, if we saw anything in the newspapers 

 or magazines about the country folk or about the farmers, it was 

 either in the funny column or in the cartoon. We all recall the 

 pictures of a farmer as portrayed by the cartoonist. He was 

 always the man with the overalls or cotton jeans, rawhide boots 

 and pants inside of his boots, and whiskers and broad-brimmed 

 hat and long hair, and I presume you will recall instances in the 

 funny column of the newspaper. I recall one just now that was 

 a type of what we have often heard which I read not very long 

 ago. 



A farmer of this type came to town one day on business and 

 was spied by a town boy who thought that it was an opportunity 

 to have some fun at the farmer's expense. So he stepped up to 

 him and he said, "Hello, Mister; what time is it?" The farmer 

 pulled his watch out of his pocket and said, "Ten minutes to. 

 nine, my lad." The boy says, "When it comes nine o'clock you 

 go into the barber shop and get your hair cut." Of course, that 

 made the farmer angry and he took after the lad as fast as he 

 could run. The boy turned the first street corner he came to 

 and, in the farmer's efforts to turn the corner, he ran into a 

 policeman, and the policeman grabbed hold of him and asked 

 him, "What's up?" And he said all this that I have said about 

 the boy. Well, the farmer said, "I saw a town boy up the street 

 here and he asked me the time of day, and I told him ten minutes 

 to nine, and then he had the impudence to tell me when it came 

 nine o'clock I should go into a barber shop and get my hair 

 cut." The policeman said, "What you running for? You got 

 eight minutes yet." 



