THIRTY-THIRD BlENNIAR SESSION 
223 
something. The question arises whether you need laws or not. Do you need 
a law to carry this out — will a law do it? I may be permitted, as long as 
I am speaking to those who are farmers or interested in farm activities, to 
quote a little verse I heard not long ago concerning the desirability of laws 
in agriculture. So many people want a law for everything. This little 
verse goes on about th© city resident who found the cost of living very high, 
and he kept a hen. He tells his troubles in this way: Said he, 
“I have a large buff cochin hen, 
And I keep her in a gaudy pen ; 
There she loafs around all day, 
And never takes the time to lay. 
Now in times when eggs are cheap 
She really lays eggs in her sleep. 
****** 
But now that winter moans and groans, 
And eggs are scarce as precious stones, 
That hen just loafs around all day 
And never makes a sign to lay." 
Now that is the point; in the farmer’s business the hens in the winter 
time may lie down and sleep. What is he going to do about it? He dis- 
cusses it and says the hen that lays is profitable and must be kept; and so 
he takes one thing up and another and solves as best he can each of these 
problems as they come along. The hen what will lay in the winter time 
instead of only in the summer when eggs are cheap will make more money 
of course for the farmer, but will cost more money to properly treat her for 
producing winter eggs— to properly care for and feed her. 
That is not an extreme case; there are many others just as suggestive — 
so many that one would almost hesitate to bring them up and expatiate on 
them more or less with suggestions. But I believe that it is essential in 
this country to have some legal enactment whereby a system of credit in- 
stitutions to take care of this long-time land mortgage credit may be created. 
There must be authorization for land banks of some kind, if there are to 
be land banks or farm mortgage banks or land mortgage banks of some 
kind. They have every sort and every name in Europe, but we have nothing. 
Shall These Institutions Be State or National. 
Now we must have some such institutions; whether they are state or 
national is a debatable question, it is a matter of individual judgment. The 
main thing is to have such as the situation demands; but the situation en- 
joins a proper degree of haste, and this is the thing, it needs to cover it all — 
because of course we have our American ideas of land titles, of exorbi- 
tance, of farming expenses, etc. On that I think it is probable, however, 
that the best arrangement we could get would be for one law rather than 
forty-eight laws in the United States, because if it is left for the states to do 
you have forty-eight bodies, each two-headed (the house and the senate). 
