ELEVENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART XI 697 



with strict reference to comfort, common sense and economy, but accord- 

 ing to the dictates of perverted fashion. If the people were to save only 

 $20 per year on food and clothes it would mean that the country would 

 benefit to the extent of one billion dollars a year, which amount has to 

 be added to the productive acres, and is largely paid by those least able 

 to bear the burden. 



Another remedy might be found in applying business methods to the 

 conduct of farming. A farm should be run on the same business basis 

 as a factory. The only way to teach this is through personal contact. 

 The national department of agriculture is lending valuable assistance 

 along this line, and it is at present being carried on more extensively 

 in the south than in any other section. The department has organized 

 a department for the instruction of boys, and has an enrollment of more 

 than forty-six thousand. It has a representative in every district and 

 has organized girls' clubs, where the proper methods of canning farm 

 products are taught, and boys' clubs, where advanced methods of agri- 

 culture are taught. When these boys and girls arrive and take their 

 places among the active workers they will be equipped in a way that 

 will stand for something practical in reducing the cost of living, and 

 in adding to the productiveness of the soil. 



If I were to say that gardens — or the lack of them — are at the very 

 bottom of the high cost of living, I have no doubt but that you would 

 smile and say, "that's all he knows about it." It is a fact, nevertheless. 

 There are thousands and thousands of acres that produce nothing but 

 noxious weeds, and almost as many thousands of idle girls and boys 

 during the summer season that should be made to produce something. 

 These acres and children might be producers if they were only taught 

 to properly till a garden. There are boys and girls right here in Deep 

 River who are confirmed nuisances all summer, idling away their precious 

 moments, who should be producing something for the family support. 

 Here is a source of loss, and a cause for high prices that is seldom 

 taken into the account. These children could raise enough to support 

 whole neighborhoods on the uncultivated acres of they were taught habits 

 of industry and thrift. Turn the twenty-five million idle children in 

 America into producing something from the billion idle acres and the 

 cost of high living will disappear as if by magic. 



Wastefulness on the farm and in the home is responsible for much 

 of the high cost of living. There is waste land enough in Iowa to feed 

 the population a whole year. This land is found in fence rows, vacant 

 lots, barn yards twice the size they should *be, highways so wide they 

 afford a. breeding place for weeds and give in return nothing of value, 

 unfilled sloughs that are non-productive, driveways and neglected corners 

 galore all serve as reminders of shiftlessness that must be remedied 

 sooner or later. In years of a productive fruit crop in Iowa enough 

 fruit rots under the trees to supply every family in the state with a fair 

 stock for the winter. Last spring I was in a potato cave in Colorado 

 that contained potatoes enough to supply every family in Poweshiek 

 county with ten or fifteen bushels, and at the same time potatoes were 



