Tie RURAL NEW-YORKER 
79 
Things To Think About 
The object of this deportment is to give readers a chance to express themselves on farm 
matters. Not long; articles can be used—just short, pointed opinions or suggestions. 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER does not always endorse what is printed here. You might 
call this a mental safety valve 
The Agricultural College and the Rich 
What help do the Slate colleges give 
to the farmer by encouraging the city and 
town man to have a home garden, fur¬ 
nishing everything possible to that end? 
Again, what help do they give to the 
farmer’s wife by Using all means to en¬ 
courage the city and town and rich men 
to go into the poultry business? I have 
absolutely no objection to anyone getting 
his living from that business, but why 
encourage those who have other means of 
getting a good living to take away the 
farm wife's income? MRS. c. P. L. 
Massachusetts. 
We like to feel that any question of 
this sort may be honestly discussed in 
The R. N.-Y. There is no good reason 
why they should not lie asked. Is it true 
that the State colleges specially encour¬ 
age city men to make gardens, or rich 
farmers to put up poultry plants? Yon 
might have some difficulty iu proving 
that. These colleges are supposed to rep¬ 
resent all classes of society—since they 
arc supported by the general government. 
As all pay taxes to support them, all are 
entitled to any benefits which they have 
to offer. That, at least, is the theory. 
In jact, these colleges are supposed to 
benefit the entire country indirectly by 
helping the farmers directly, and we 
think that is their true function. As a 
matter of fact, iu many of these institu¬ 
tions the majority of the students do not 
come front the farm at all. Many of 
them are town and city boys who never 
lived on a farm, and have little thought 
of ever owning one. They go to the agri¬ 
cultural college because it. offers free 
tuition in a sensible and strong course of 
study. In some cases there arc so many 
of such students that they influence the 
character and point of view of the col¬ 
lege, and it could hardly be otherwise 
when we consider human nature. It has 
not been our observation that these col¬ 
leges cater particularly to town people 
or rich men. They issue bulletins and 
other forms of information, and it is true 
that in some cases the city people or the 
rich are first to make practical use of it. 
The college cauuot be blamed for that. 
It may perhaps be criticized for uot gain¬ 
ing the confidence and support of the less 
intelligent or slow-thinking people, but 
can we fairly criticize it because any cer¬ 
tain class is able to use its information 
quickly? How could it prevent the town 
people or the rich from making gardens 
or poultry houses? 
The Railroad Man's Wages 
On page 1458 Edward .T. Brunelle has 
a defence of the railroad man's wages. 
On the face of it his letter is perfectly 
fair, and he makes out Ills case. On the 
other hand, wo know that freight rates 
are now double what they were iu 1915, 
and we also know that the railroads are 
not making any money. There seems to 
be a nigger in the fence somewhere. The 
average man would not say that $5.84 
per day was much too high a wage if 
the worker gives value received. If the 
railroad man works a day and gets this 
amount, and if he really only receives 
$40.88 a week, he is not receiving too 
much, even though he is receiving two 
and a half times what the farm laborer 
is. The fact is that farm labor is receiv¬ 
ing too little. 
Let us, however, examine the claims 
of the railroad worker before giving him 
a clean bill. Is he paid by the day or by 
the run? Many of them are paid by the 
run. and if a train has passed the limits 
of the yard and is called back to pick up 
another car or so of perishable freight. 
i 1 vomit* us two days' work, writ thouyh 
the whole run Is made ir less than eight 
hoars. In many kinds of railroad work 
the working of even five minutes after 
the regular day’s work is finished en¬ 
titles the man to five hours' pay. Wreck¬ 
ing crews receive time and a Half, and 
double lime for sleeping at night when 
on n wrecking job. It Hikes tnen from 
three unions to do a job that one boy 
ought to be able to do tit a third the 
wages iu half the time in the shops. 
When the farmer works longer hours 
than bis regular day. that is. when he 
works 18 or 14 hours instead of 10 to 
I'd, he gets less for it. lie certainly 
never gets a higher rate per hour. I, 
for one. am unable to see why the hour 
after the eight-hour or the seven-hour 
tlttv should be so much more valuable 
than the hour just before it. 
The railroad man will tell about how 
arduous his toll is, and that he should 
receive a higher rate of pay and should 
have his hours of labor shortened. This 
is the veriest bull. The writer has two 
good friends who uever worked a day on 
a railroad iu their lives aud who never 
worked much at anything else, who 
helped work their way through college 
by braking on the New York Central out 
of Syracuse in the Hummer of 1920. 
They told me that they had a picnic. 
They lived in the caboose, one of the 
brake men doing the cooking for the 
bunch while on the job, hence had small 
expenses, and they made—not $0.48 a 
day, which Mr. Brunelle says he received 
at that time, but an average of $75 a 
week. One week their wages dropped to 
only $40, and they were going to quit 
right there, but they picked up again the 
uexf week. 
Now these men would have been able 
to really earn about $40 a month on a 
farm, aud possibly would have been aide 
to get $00. As it was, they got. over 
$800. The farmers who were raising 
crops that Hummer got—let’s see—what 
did they get? Oh, yes, I remember what 
they got. They got stung good and 
plenty. Perhaps if Mr. Brunelle will 
look over fanning conditions, and con¬ 
ditions on the railroad for this time, he 
will be able to see why the farmers are 
kicking. 
The railroad labor board lias done 
away with a lot of the foolish regula¬ 
tions. and let us hope they will do away 
with a lot more. Wages are coining down 
a little. We do not want wages too low 
in the city, for the prosperity of the 
country as a whole depends upon the 
farmer being able to sell to the city man 
ns well as upon his being able to buy 
from him, but when the farmer gets noth¬ 
ing, while the city man’s wages remain at 
*200 per cent of the pre-war normal, it is 
a little out of line. a. h. degkaek. 
That “White Elephant" Horse 
[We do not, as a rule, print discussions 
of personal matters in Tine R. N.-Y. 
Having given one side of this horse case, 
on page 1471, it is no more than fair to 
let the other party tell Ids story. This 
ends the discussion, and there will be no 
more like it. 1 
I noted in Tiif. R. N.-Y. a piece under 
the caption *‘A Horse Becomes a White 
Elephant.” I plead guilty of being the 
seller. Now for my side: 
Previous to the buying of this horse 
bv the father I loaned him $150. took 
chattel mortgage on some cows, lie has 
sold some of the cows and kept the 
money, and every year I have been going 
myself and getting mortgage renewed, he 
paving no attention to it. Ho bought the 
horse on trial, lie says, to use a few 
days, but it was a few mouths, long 
enough to do all his Fall harvesting, his 
Fall sowing of wheat aud all other Fall 
work that goes with farming, and in the 
meantime his soil used the liorse nights. 
One day I received a letter from the 
father that he did not want the horse, 
and that he would take horse to one of 
my pastures. He never asked how much 
I wanted for the use of the horse. A few 
weeks later his son came to me and 
wanted to buy the horse, and I said to 
son : “Your father does not seem to 
want the horse.” but son told me that he 
was buying the horse for himself, and 
that he would cut me 25 cords of wood. 
T told son that he would better cut the 
wood before he took the horse, but he 
went ami took the horse home. He used 
it, and his father used it- The son finally 
cut 10 cords of wood in the block and 
then let it lie on the ground until it 
nearly rotted, and when I saw that he 
did not attend to it I went and piled it 
and found 10 cords. Finally son went to 
neighboring Htnte and married. 
In Fall of 1920. when it was nearly 
Winter, and when one cannot give second- 
eluss horses away, the father offered me 
the liorse. but I did not want it. Ho he 
kept the horse through Winter and 
through the Hummer, and I have seen 
them use the horse. In the Fall, 1921, 
he came to me again, when I cannot dis¬ 
pose of it, and offered rne the horse. Dur¬ 
ing all Ibis time 1 have not tried to col¬ 
lect on the horse or charge him for the 
use of same, and during all this time the 
'•battel mortgage remains unpaid. I told 
him that if lie would offer me the horse 
in the Spring I would gladly take him. 
so he finally asked me wliat I would take 
to settle, and I told him $15. I would 
rather lose any time than to be involved 
in litigation. william l. rollman. 
Justice to the Weak 
After having read the article by Jituzo 
Kishi I cannot resist the temptation to 
auswer him and tell him that 1 perfectly 
agree with him. Tic may not be a Christian 
in our sense of the word, yet his motto 
seems to be, “Do unto others as you 
would have them do unto you.” To those 
people who doubt his statement that the 
most tnerciless exploiters of weak peoples 
have come from the European, tile Chris¬ 
tian countries. T would advise those to 
read ttie book “Why War?”, by Frederick 
Howe. It will give them a very dear idea 
why the newspapers in this country are 
driving the public into such intense hatred 
ot the Japanese. It is high time that the 
less intelligent of this nation shall wake 
up and open their eyes to a few things 
which are going on at the present time. 
New York. mrs. v. w. 
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