selves, under our present conditions of marketing. 
I can only see one thing that will bring farm 
wages up to 1 lie level of city wages, and that is for 
the present flow of help to the city to continue until 
production in the country is cut to the point where 
farming again becomes profitable. Eventually we 
will have to have as good returns in the country as 
in the city, or the farmer will follow the dodo and 
become extinct. In the meantime we will have to 
grin and hear the present conditions. For a solu¬ 
tion of the problem of hired help in the country 
(which, by the way. is not acute now because of 
economic conditions in the city) we must offer op¬ 
portunities to married men. We will not. be able to 
continue indefinitely to depend upon the crop of 
farmer boys to keep up the hired help supply. And 
the married hired man is the best, anyway. Besides 
this, we do away with the unpleasant condition of 
having the privacy of the home invaded by an out¬ 
sider. I do not mean to knock the outsider at that, 
but most of us wish to have our home to ourselves. 
But the best hired help, as far as it is 
possible to use it, is—machinery. 
New York. a. h. dE oracf. 
N EVER again do sheepmen expect to feel so 
helpless as a year ago. It is because they quit 
beseeching and turned to educating each other, edu¬ 
cating the public on the worth of wool, and de¬ 
manding duty and truthful fabrics. Consumers are 
inoculated over the whole land on textiles. 
Hear the evidence. No one is telling there is a 
surplus of wool amounting to four billion pounds. 
No buyer is telling his comrades: “All we need to 
do is to sit tight and get all the wool we want h.v 
simply paying the freight.” No woolen rag adver¬ 
tisements are in the textile papers, and the tailors 
cannot sell their clippings, nor the junkmen their 
rags. Then all Government wool, all foreign that 
could be got in, all the held-over 1920 clip, the 
1921 and some growing on the sheep has been 
bought. Other productions may grow in surplus, 
hut not so wool, for a generation at least. A drop 
may come during the next few months to get some 
low. but the public is growing toward 
textiles, and it will he | 
wool-made 
sea rce. 
That means a profitable price, and 
it means that sheep will be the most 
coveted farm animals. Notice the 
crowds about, the sheep pens at a sale 
now, and how the crier perks up when 
lie starts that way. Also see how in¬ 
dependent a holder is when a buyer 
comes about. What a lot more we 
know this time. Formerly wool was 
wool, all the same price. Now watch 
breeding and care for staple and thriv¬ 
ing. See the breeders hobnobbing, con¬ 
spiring to set fierce prices. Personally, 
we must buy, but the prospect war¬ 
rants the figures. 
This will he a better world for the 
sheep industry and the Wearers of 
woolen clothes, and the wool volume 
will start to catch up to par with our 
other productions. We shall then he 
working to the divine natural plan. 
God made wool to clothe humanity, 
but man made rags, and they must go 
for the salvaged refuse they are. and 
then the flocks will “lie down in pas¬ 
tures of greenness, by waters of quiet¬ 
ness.” W. W. REYNOLDS. 
Licking Co., O. 
How I Kill Quack Grass 
how to 
O N page 474 F. 
kill quack grass. You advise 
working the ground thoroughly in the 
Spring with ;i spring-tooth harrow. 
“That will rip out many uf the roots, 
which should be raked and burned.” 
Why rake and burn these roots, when 
we need decayed vegetation in the soil? 
F. N. G. can. in early Spring, give thor¬ 
ough cultivation, and when he has 
formed a good seed bed of three inches 
of loose- mellow soil, then seed to oats 
and peas, and harvest same when oats 
are in the milk. Get them off as soon 
as possible, and plow the ground as 
deep as he can. Harrow immediately 
and most, thoroughly, going over it 
many times, until a smooth surface 
and a fine dust mulch has been se¬ 
cured. 
Ten days later go on,with the disk 
set at as steep an angle as possible, 
and lapping disk half way all the time, 
going hack and forth across the field: 
then go crossways in same manner and 
until every vestige of green has disap¬ 
peared. Repeat this work every 10 
days, wet or dry. until Winter. In 
early Spring repeat the work up to 
May 10. Then plant to corn. Check¬ 
row and give thorough cultivation dur¬ 
ing the season, and you will have a 
clean field and a grand yield of 
corn. 
The heavier your quack grass sod. 
the more cultivation required. Do not 
deviate from this line of cultivation. 
Be persistent and thorough. Pay no 
attention to the roots on the surface. 
They will not grow; it 's those that are 
covered slightly that sprout again, hut 
the frequent disking will put them out 
of commission as often as you disk it. 
Therefore, it is up to you to keep the 
men, are the cheapest in the end. I try to hire the green down, as above stated. I have cleaned many 
best men 1 can get and pay them as much or a little fields, and know whereof I speak. p. b. c. 
more than they can get elsewhere. The result is Oxford, N. Y. 
that they are satisfied, and a good man will do good 
work. You can leave him and the work will go on. 
What he does he does well, while the low-priced 
man will loaf and shirk and slight what he does, 
unless watched. A man of this type is expensive at 
any price. 
There are those who knock our American brand 
of hired help. When 1 compare what the hired man 
on the farm does with what the city worker does, 
the hours and the sort of work, I think that we 
ought to give the hired man a rising vote of thanks, 
lie works longer hours than any city man except a 
very few steel workers. His wages, for what I call a 
highly skilled calling, are lower than what most of 
the unskilled labor gets in the city. Ho does not 
even have his Sundays free, and his living condi¬ 
tions are distinctly lower than many of those in 
the city. 
of course, those conditions are not the fault of 
the farmer. The average hired man makes nearlv 
as much as the average farmer, and the living con¬ 
ditions of four-fifths of the hired hands are the 
same as those of four-fifths of the farmers thom- 
Ttie accompanying picture shows a labor-saving device used on one of (he neigh¬ 
boring farms. The implement consists of a fertilizer sower and an old cultivator. 
The machine drops the fertilizer, and then the small cultivator tooth comes along 
and loosens up the soil and mixes the fertilizer and soil. It is used mostly for 
setting out cabbage and cauliflower and the like. 
T HE time Is once more here when 
we must look up our help for the ^ 
year. A few hints, garnered through ^ 
long experience, may he worth while: % 
City help is usually not worth two 
whoops. They usually want the top 
price and the bottom hours. They lack _ x 
experience, and frequently know it all. 4 p/ c 
Foreign help is usually faithful and 
industrious, hut very ignorant of our 
^ _ 
ways of doing things. Foreigners are -§ 
likely to he poor horsemen, though ^ 
there are exceptions to this rule, as to ^ ^ 
all others. They are good at hand ± * - 
work, as that is what they have had • 
to do in the old country. 
Boy help generally is not worth a 
cent more than you pay for it. You get cheap help 
because it is cheap in quality. On the other hand, 
you can sometimes get boys of 10 or so who have 
been brought up on a farm and who are superior to 
most adult help. 
Unmarried men are usually not so good as mar¬ 
ried men. They have to he on the road more, and 
are far more likely to get mad over nothing and 
quit than married help. 1 do not know whether the 
wife tames the husband, or whether the married 
man dreads to move, but I have never had a married 
man quit me, whereas T have had plenty of the un¬ 
married ones. A man is loss valuable the year be¬ 
fore he marries than before that, and he is still less 
valuable the year after he becomes one-half. 
The married man is usually the host, one to hire 
if there is a tenant-house on the place. He is likely 
to he contented if he receives fair treatment and he 
is living at home. If he Inis any kick on the grub, 
ho knows just who to kick to. It. is either the man 
who provides this chow, or it is the man's wife who 
cooked said oats. In either case the employer lias 
one cause of misunderstanding removed. Of course 
if the wife happens to lie a trouble-maker, it may 
he bad, but I have had by far the most satisfactory 
results with the married man. 
Plank floor 
Millet 
as Green Manurial Crop 
TThere are many farmers who do not fully realize 
the value of millet as a farm crop. It will make a 
quick aud strong growth at any time from May to 
September. It gives a coarse fodder, very good as a 
soiling or green crop for cows when the pastures are 
dry. < >r it will make a good hay for cattle, though not 
suitable for horses. Within hue years it has been suc¬ 
cessfully used in the silo. When cut fine and well 
packed it makes good silage. As compared with corn, 
it saves tabor.' The millet can he seeded broadcast and 
cut with a hinder, so that the bundles are hauled right 
to the silo for cutting. Last year we began to hoar of 
millet as a cover or manurial crop. The following note 
from Mr. Gladwin tells the story] : 
W E have used Golden millet for the past sev¬ 
eral years as a green manure crop in the 
experiment vineyards. I much prefer it to any of 
the so-called lion-nitrogenous crops that we have used, 
which are rape, •barley, rye. oats, wheat, Cow-liarn 
turnips and buckwheat. The germination of the seed 
we have had has been very high, so that a thick seed¬ 
ing has resulted. The young millet plants seem to 
endure drought remarkably well, and even though 
the soil lias been considerably compacted before the 
