Photograph by Erdelyi 



WAELACHIAN MARKET FOLK 



In the old days of the United States, before the advent of the mower and the reaper, 

 the mountain folk came down into the valleys in the planting and reaping seasons. The 

 Wallachians, to this day, in times of peace go into Hungary by the tens of thousands to help 

 with the sowing and reaping. 



the occasionally maneuvered reserve. 

 During times of peace the ranks were 

 filled in many localities by drawing lots, 

 for army discipline was trying to them 

 after the free and easy life of the peas- 

 ant home, and the young men seldom 

 liked to serve. 



In normal times the receipts and ex- 

 penditures of the government amounted 

 to approximately $120,000,000, or one- 

 eighth as much as our own. The king 

 receives half a million dollars a year, and 

 the heir to the throne $60,000. 



ROUMANIA COMPARED TO HER NEIGHBORS 



One may get a good idea of the rela- 

 tive standing of Roumania and her Bal- 

 kan neighbors from a few statistical 

 comparisons. She has a population of 

 141 per square mile, as compared with 

 Serbia's 137, Greece's 94, and Bulgaria's 

 108. Her imports amount to $15 per 

 capita, as compared to Serbia's $7.50, 

 Greece's $7.80, and Bulgaria's $8.75. 

 Her exports per capita amount to $18.42, 

 as compared with $7.63 in the case of 

 Serbia, $7.21 in the case of Greece, and 

 $7.87 in the case of Bulgaria. She also 

 spends approximately one and a half 

 times as much per capita for govern- 



mental purposes as Greece, Serbia, or 

 Bulgaria in normal times. 



Industrially the country is almost en- 

 tirely given over to agriculture, and, area 

 for area, it produces more cereals than 

 any other great grain-producing nation 

 in the world. Its farm lands are about 

 equally divided between the small farmer 

 and the rich land-owner. There are 

 about a million farms with an average 

 size of eight acres, and then there are 

 4,471 estates with an average size of 

 2,200. acres. 



The result is that one finds the strangest 

 contrasts in farming methods. Here is 

 a big estate, where every sort of farm 

 machinery that the United States has to 

 offer is to be found — the binder, the 

 mower, the steam gang plow, the riding 

 cultivator, the manure spreader, and even 

 the steam header and thresher. And 

 then hard by are a hundred small far- 

 mers who still harvest their grain with 

 the sickle, thresh it with the flail, or tread 

 it out with oxen and winnow it with the 

 home-made fork. They mow their grass 

 with the scythe, rake it with the hand 

 rake, and haul it in with ox-carts. 



But even with the very primitive 

 methods that characterize half of the 



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