202 
March 13 
figures are not definite, and I question whether these 
farms will average a hundred acres each. Of the 57 
farms 25 are known to be or to have been for sale 
within the past five years. Fifteen are certainly of¬ 
fered now, and I believe a considerably larger num¬ 
ber would be sold should a fair price be offered. As to 
what is to be understood by a fair price, I can say 
offhand that it is not $10 an acre, at which some- 
farms of the vicinity may be purchased. Perhaps 
from $20 to $40 per acre might better express the 
asking price. Commencing with the farm next to 
my own home there was a time within two years 
when five farms situated so as to touch each other 
were unoccupied, and these are pretty good farms, 
too. Three of them are still vacant. An estimate 
places the number of farms for sale in Chenango 
County at 500, yet it would be difficult to select a 
better locality for dairying in the State than this, 
although it is possible that ‘some residents in other 
counties might take exceptions to this statement. I 
can point out farms that a hundred dollars an acre 
would hardly buy, but from $G to $50 will doubtless 
take most of them. There is small difference 
in the real productive value of these farms, or rather 
not the difference that the variation in price would 
seem to indicate. There is a difference, of course, 
in their location. A farm within 15 minutes’ walk 
of a prosperous village of a thousand or more inhabi¬ 
tants has recently been sold, I am told, for about 
$40 an acre. Another farm situated farther back, 
but which is probably as productive, and presumably 
as good for general farm purposes, is offered, if 
reports are true, for about $6 an acre. Such chances 
are rare; indeed, if a man wishes to buy, it would 
pay him to watch opportunities for a little time or 
have some one do it for him. A friend, residing in 
a city, who recently purchased 200 acres for $2,000, 
says he is looking for a chance to make another 
similar purchase. He believes that these farms that 
have some good wood land and timber are better 
investments than life insurance. For ten years we 
have been looking for land to advance in price, but 
it is probably cheaper to-day than at any previous 
time since permanent settlements with their better¬ 
ments were made. Lands elsewhere are reported to 
be advancing, and they are certain to do so here. It 
would seem that they must do so within a short 
time, unless, possibly, some further depression should 
strike agriculture in general. H. H. lyon. 
THE COST OF RAISING A BOY. 
A Boston Policeman Figures It. 
In 1907 the question of the cost of keeping a boy 
for one year was discussed in The R. N.-Y. I was 
much interested in the different articles, and having 
three boys, decided to keep an account of the cost of 
the keeping of each, for the year 1908. I inclose the 
bill of expenses of each. It may be of some interest 
to give a little history of each boy and an explana¬ 
tion of some of the items in the bills that they may 
be better understood. 
Harry U. Brewer, 15 years old June 6, 1908, entered 
the Thomas N. Hart School at the age of six years 
and four months and graduated last June. He is now 
attending Mechanic Arts High School, this being his 
first year. D. Russell Brewer, 14 years old, October 
12, 190S, entered school at the same time that his 
brother Harry entered, at the age of four years and 
11 months. He never failed to lead his class up to 
the seventh grade, took a double promotion from the 
seventh to the ninth grade, and graduated with high 
honor at the age of 12 years and eight months, in 
June, 1907, standing number five in a class of 78 whose 
average age was about 15 years. This is his second 
year in Mechanic Arts High School. George F. 
Brewer, 12 years old July 29, 1908, is attending the 
grammar school in the seventh grade. He has just 
recovered from a seven-weeks’ siege of typhoid fever. 
In the bills submitted miscellaneous refers mostly 
to car fares, ice cream sodas and expenses incurred in 
excursions to the country and suburbs of Boston, 
which were the principal recreation and delight on 
Sundays during the Summer months. These boys 
have for amusement baseball and bat, football, boxing 
gloves and double-runner, also house games and 
plenty of reading material, of which some includes the 
complete works of the following poets: Burns, Byron, 
Caiey, Holmes, Longfellow, Moore, Tennyson, Trow¬ 
bridge, Scott and Whittier. The great difference in 
the cost of clothing and boots and the small amount in 
the case of George is accounted for, viz, Harry and 
Russell are about the same size, the younger a little 
the larger, and George being the youngest, fell heir 
to all the outgrown clothes of each. 
The two older boys work in a provision store every 
Saturday and have for the past two years. Sometimes 
they work after school and on holidays when the store 
is open. Harry worked during the school vacation of 
THE RURAE NEW-YORKER 
3907 and both through the vacation of 1908. These 
boys were not forced to look for work. They secured 
their positions and then asked my permission. Their 
employer called to see me on the same errand that day. 
These boys have paid for part of their clothes and 
nearly all their other expenses excepting their board, 
have deposited $25 each in the bank this year and 
have made each other, their mother and myself 
presents on our birthdays and at Christmas time to 
the amount of not less than $20 each. George has 
done considerable work and little jobs and has saved 
up several dollars. 
Some may say these boys work too hard; that they 
ought to have their vacation to play, etc. Just a few 
words on that subject. I was born in Franklin County, 
Vermont, on a farm in the shadows of the Green 
Mountains, of poor parents. I worked before and 
after school until I was 10 years old and from that 
time on I worked nine months of the year and went 
to school three months in the Winter until I was 15 
years old. I have worked ever since. Contrast that 
with the work of these boys, nine months out of 12 
at school, unless a little rain or snow flurry causes 
the “no school” bell to ring. I grant that I lost in 
education, but the work never hurt me. 1 have been 
in Boston for 25 years, an officer of the police force 
for 20 years, and my observation convinces me more 
strongly each year that the boys who have nothing to 
do until 15 or 18 years of age feel “too big” to work 
and rarely amount to much. I have seen young men, 
ages ranging from 16 to 25 years, spending their 
time at the playground this past Summer, day after 
day, too lazy to work or look for work, some with 
old rags for clothes, toes protruding from their shoes, 
and later begging for an ice cream horn or a glass of 
A BRIEF STOP FOR LUNCH. Fig. 108. 
soda from some of the numerous fountains at City 
Point, which is an act that would make my youngest 
son blush for shame. I have always tried to instill 
into the minds of my boys the spirit of independence, 
and the necessity of saving. 
In years past it has been my practice to give my 
boys a note with interest at six per cent as soon as 
they could save up and bring me a dollar, and at the 
end of the year we all get together and figure up the 
interest due each one, and they were always paid on 
New Year’s Day. It caused much rivalry between 
the boys to see who could save the most and thus 
get the most interest. This has been the means of 
their saving considerable money, and not long since, 
when I purchased a farm of 70 acres in Vermont, 
where they have been spending their Summers for 
the past 10 years up to 1908, they all went partners 
with me, the older boys $200 each and the youngest 
$100. These boys like the farm very much and are 
now saving money to carry them through Amherst 
Agricultural College, where they intend to go when 
they graduate from Mechanic Arts High School if 
“kindly stars their influence shower” and they escape 
the ill winds of misfortune and adversity. 
Harry 
D. Russell 
George 
15 vears. 
14 vears. 
12 vears. 
Board, 50 weeks . 
, .$125.00 
$130.00 
$130.00 
Year’s clothing . 
. 32.10 
31.06 
3.23 
Year’s boots . 
11.35 
12.15 
8.55 
Carfare to school . 
% > 
8.65 
.55 
Class picture and frame. . 
4.62 
4.07 
.... 
Spring vacation . 
11.32 
'2.50 
.... 
Pair skates .. . . . . 
1.50 
.... 
Hair cutting. 
.90 
.90 
.90 
Entertainments . 
3.58 
2.63 
Doctor and liniment for kneel 3.1V) 
.... 
30.00 
Class ring . 
5.50 
.... 
.... 
Rooks . 
3.00 
3.00 
3.00 
Sundries . 
5.12 
1.54 
Setting broken glass. 
.75 
.70 
$208.36 
$201.78 
$181.10 
GEORGE E. BREWER. 
R. N.-Y.—It will be seen that board for three boys 
in figured at $2.50 per week. One of the boys 
was away for two weeks at the farm in Vermont. 
We have been told by a number of city men that 
they cannot raise a boy to the age when he ought 
to support himself for less than $25,000. We should 
regard such a boy as a very expensive luxury. It 
is a great blessing to the three boys named above 
that they do not have one of these $25,000 fathers. 
When these boys load up with an agricultural educa¬ 
tion and move into the bashful State—Vermont—you 
will hear from them. 
“NO PLACE LIKE HOME.” 
I have recently returned from a trip through the South, 
and found all of my papers carefully saved for me to look 
over. I have often thought that the southern farmer had 
much the best of us, but feeling that I did not like to 
leave the cares of the farm to outside help, I had never 
been south of Washington until last Fall I decided to 
trust the outdoor management entirely to hired help for a 
time, while I went among some of the farmers of the 
South to compare their advantages with those of the 
North. Here the ground is sometimes frozen three or 
four months during the Winter, and we are often both¬ 
ered with mud after it thaws out in the Spring. There 
is some very poor land in this (Saratoga) county that 
people hardly think worth living on, and much of the 
land I passed through in the South had a similar appear¬ 
ance to this land. After I reached Virginia, and south 
of there, I did not find any cellars tilled with fruits and 
vegetables that will keep all Winter like the farmers have 
here. The farm buildings along the roads I went in 
Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia are not to be com¬ 
pared with those of the North at all. They tell me they 
do not need buildings there like we do in the North, but 
I think more buildings, more hay and grain, more stock 
and more manure for their land would he a great help to 
the farmers of the South as well as here. I traveled 
considerably in Florida, but so much of the land is flat 
and sandy that it has a similar appearance, except where 
the fruit and gardening is more developed than in other 
places. In some parts of Florida there was a large crop 
of oranges, and in other parts even farther south the crop 
was almost a failure, though they had been to a large 
expense for fertilizer and labor. I saw men in Florida 
that use 10 times as much fertilizer to the acre as is 
used here when we think it is being applied very liberally, 
and they were sending their produce a long distance to 
market, too. It is good for them that their produce is 
shipped when it brings a fancy price, for I think a low 
price would cause a great loss to them. 
On my return I came from New York to Albany on the 
West Shore railroad, and the beautiful scenery, fine or¬ 
chards and buildings made me think that we have little 
to regret if we do live in a cold country. The New York 
Stale farmer can have some kind of fresh fruit, and fine- 
flavored fruit, too, every day in the year. Wo have had 
the baked apple habit here so long that it looks as 
though it would never wear out. It is not a small dish 
of apples, but all we can eat three times a day, and raw 
apples between meals, and each night before going to bed. 
We can grow corn and grain that will keep for years 
without being destroyed with weevils or insects of any 
kind. There are large cities in every direction that give 
us the best of markets, and we have a fairly fertile soil. 
It is possible so to heat our houses, and to have fur 
clothing, that we can keep fully as comfortable in the 
coldest as we can during the warmest weather. I have 
been on the fertile prairies of the West, and surely the 
farmer there lias some advantages but not all of them, so 
taking it all in all I believe the man who is best off is the 
man who is the most contented, and makes most of his 
surrounding conditions. ji. f. 
Waterford. N. Y. 
The great city dailies seem to have combined in an 
effort to show that American farmers have no just 
cause for complaint. They take Secretary Wilson’s 
statement that American farm crops were worth 
over $7,000,000,000 last year, and argue from it that 
farmers must all be getting rich. Now that the 
Country Life Commission has suggested that the 
business system of the country is against the farmer 
these papers start up again. This comes from the 
Chicago Inter Ocean: 
The report of the President’s Country Life Commission 
mentions as one of the disadvantages of agriculture “the 
handicap of the farmer as against the established business 
systems and interests, preventing him from securing an 
adequate return for his products.’’ Is this true? Are 
the farmer’s products remorselessly kept down below a 
price which will yield an adequate return, while other 
commodities soar continually upward as a result of the 
friendly operations of “established business systems and 
interests’’? If so, the fact has escaped the attention of 
everybody except the President’s Country Life Commis¬ 
sion. 
It is true, and the Inter Ocean probably demon¬ 
strates it every day that it prints retail and whole¬ 
sale prices for food. It has been shown again and 
again that on the average the farmer gets about 
35 cents of the consumer’s dollar. The remaining 
65 cents go to the various handlers who stand be¬ 
tween the farmer and the consumer. The Inter 
Ocean represents a class of people who have for 
years been arguing with their eyes shut while, right 
under their noses, this unequal division of the con¬ 
sumer’s dollar has been going on.* The farmers 
might increase their year’s output to $ 10 , 000 , 000 , 000 , 
but how much better off would they be while they 
continue to pay 65 cents of the dollar to handlers? 
The call for an investigation of the difference be¬ 
tween farm and consumer’s prices is the best evidence 
of waking up that we have heard yet. 
