1332 
November 30, 1918. 
RURAL NEW-YORKER 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
We are, evidently, going to put the 
Kaiser out of business, but the job will 
prove expensive. Tax-paying time is in 
.sight, and it surely is a day of reckoning 
this year. I have my tax bill, and I will 
print the items for comparison: 
Tax on $100. 
State road tax.,$0.10 
State school.207 
County .70 
Disti-ict court.00.3 
Local . 1.138 
Total .$2.21 
In addition I pay a poll tax of one 
dollar. Not having any dog now I escape 
the dog tax. I understand this rate is 
lowfer than in most nearby towns. 
* * 
Our assessment has been raised stead¬ 
ily, although. property here will not sell 
readily in these war times. When I came 
here my taxes were about $79. This year 
we are held up for $300! About four 
times as much as when., we started. The 
assessment on the property has multi¬ 
plied about three times, and • we have 
added to the land and the buildings. 
There is little or no advantage in an in¬ 
creased assessment to those who, like our¬ 
selves, do not want to sell. A good part 
of our local tax is due to improvement 
of roads and we think we get our money’s 
worth. Our township business is handled 
efficiently on a non-partisan basis. The 
town usually votes Republican, while 
the mayor is a Democrat. Our big taxes 
cannot be credited to “graft” or mi.sman- 
agement—they simply represent the more 
liberal or extravagant methods of living 
which have come in with this generation. 
The man who started out to try to reform 
our present methods would get very little 
following. lie would find some people to 
agree with his talk, but when it came to 
standing up and facing the acttial results 
the reformer would find himself very much 
alone. 
* :je 4c 1{C >i< 
I am speaking of New .Jersey, but I 
imagine this would be true of all parts 
of the country. If this system of taxa¬ 
tion keep on as it has in the paf:t 20 
years my children will be driven away 
from this property. That wall be the out¬ 
come unless we can bring ourselves down 
to simpler living or devi.se some fairer 
plan of taxing real estate. Personally, I 
think a single tax on land values or 
rentals, or some modification of it. would 
go a long way toward solving the trouble. 
Some time ago I made a busine.ss of ask¬ 
ing a large number of people what they 
thought of this plan. The great ma.iority 
of them did not know what it was. Some 
of them alluded to it as “the Henry 
George theory,” and they somehow con¬ 
cluded that Henry George was an anar¬ 
chist or advocate of robbery. Most of the 
farmers I have spoken with think this 
single tax would double the hurden_ on 
their land. The owners of high-priced 
land in the city know that it would com¬ 
pel them to pay a fairer share. I find 
many people who own shares of stock or 
bonds of industrial business which might 
be affected by a change in taxation. Such 
people are naturally frightened at a pos¬ 
sible loss of values, and while they will 
admit that the present system is wrong, 
they refuse to take any risk with their 
own property. I think we shall agree 
that perhaps the most cowardly citizen 
we have is the man of middle age who 
has worked out a small competence and 
needs every cent of it to get through. 
Pro.sperity and politics give the average 
man “cold feet.” 
J|< * * * sic 
Thus the man who starts out to do any 
reforming must look for most of his sup¬ 
port to the men who have very little of 
property or political reputation to lose. 
They are generally working people who 
have grown desperate, or old reform vet¬ 
erans who have been through so many 
losing campaigns that they look like a 
promi.se of defeat to start with. There 
will be a good many of the “.safe and 
sane” middie-cla.ss people to start on and 
.stand so long as there is nothing hut talk. 
By and by, in the usual course of all po¬ 
litical reforms, there comes a time w'hen 
the reformer must stand up and be 
counted with a lot of people who “do not 
belong to our set.” They can hardly 
stand a run through the soci.al grader. 
Then some politician gets at them, and 
makes them believe that anvoi " who 
stands for any change in the old v.:-dcr of 
things is, of necessity, unpatriotic or an 
enemy of society. Then our friend the 
reformer finds himself standing alone or 
with a group of people with whom he has 
no natural affinity. What does he do? 
It will depend on what he is made of. A 
good many with a little streak of brass in 
them grow lonely and go back to the old 
crowd. They go through life like a 
spirited horse hitched up with a lot of 
army mules pulling the cannon in a war 
which they know is one of plunder. There 
are a few of pure gold who keep on if it 
need be alone. They have to substitute 
faith for old friendships, and patience for 
political power, but the world finally 
comes their way. Some men go to the 
world and are called great. Others make 
the world come to them and are called 
“cranks.” 
He If: 4c 4c l|c 
I was led to think of this by reading 
“Farmington” by Clai’ence Darrow. It 
is the very successful effort of a gray¬ 
haired man to go back to his boyhood 
and attemj)t to analyze the thoughts of 
youth. Darrow speaks of his father, a 
man whose mind was up among the clouds 
of literature, while his hands were chained 
to the task of trying to support a large 
family by plain; humble toil, for which he 
was not well fitted. In these roi:gh out¬ 
line sketches of his father Darrow puts 
before us ,a noble picture of the true re¬ 
former who never lives to see his dreams 
come true. I wish every one of you 
could read the chapter on “How I Failed,” 
and realize just what it mean.s. It seemed 
as if every reformer and “crank,” every 
man^who could stand up and face public 
opinion, was attracted to the Harrow 
home. As Darrow says: 
“They were always poor, often ragged, 
and a far-off look seemed to haunt their 
eyes, as if gazing into space at something 
beyond the stars.” 
Of course you have noticed, if you have 
reached mature years, that whenever you 
hear “the voice of one crying in the 
wilderness” you never find prosperous, 
well-fed or “cultured” people, but poor 
and shabby folks who are not wanted in 
good society. Prosperity and what we 
call culture are man-made. They depend 
upon modern society for their strength 
and growth, and the reformer knows that 
justice demands this same modern society 
be changed. 
4i 4: 4< 4i 4i 
It is probable that few if any of these 
“cranks” and reformers would or could 
change their ways, and I have heard in¬ 
telligent people wonder wdiy. In this 
book, “Farmington,” Darrow puts it very 
well: 
“After all. I am glad that my father 
and his footsore companions dreamed their 
dreams. I am glad they really lived above 
the sordid world, in that ethereal realm 
which none but the blindly devoted ever 
see: for I know that these visions raised 
my father from the narrow valley, the 
du.sty mill, the small life of common¬ 
place, to the great, broad heights where 
he really lived and died.” 
I wish more of us could live up there, 
especially when age and failing powers 
may come, demanding the heaviest taxes 
on life. For that is what life really is— 
one long round of taxes—physical, ma¬ 
terial, moral, spiritual and mental. We 
get nothing free in this world, no matter 
how we may boast of our wealth of free¬ 
dom. We must pay our taxes not only ■ 
to'society, but to life. Men may be taxed' 
into slaverj' or into freedom, depending 
on what is "done with the money raised by 
taxation. Here at the close of this ter¬ 
rible war taxes will come upon us like 
wild beasts to tear our property away 
from us. I think the future of this great 
Republic will be decided pretty much by 
the form of taxation adopted for raising 
money to pay the public expenses and 
debt. It must not be saddled upon one 
class and then let the other class hold the 
line of the bridle. You may put me in 
the ranks of the “wild-eyed reformers.” 
if you please, but I think the world wdll 
have to come sooner or later to the single 
tax on land value. 
As I go over my figures I find that 
this increase in taxation is not as great 
proportionately as the increase in prices 
for what we must buy. The other day the 
boys sold one of the little pigs for .$8. It 
was of mixed breed and just weaned. I 
told a city man about it and he said I 
was a profiteer. This man figured as fol¬ 
lows : “One sow will rai.se at least 25 
pigs per year. At $8 each that makes 
$200 income per sow. You can keep five 
sows on an acre. M’Jiy don’t you put 20 
acres into pigs and make $20,000? The 
little pigs cost nothing while they are 
nursing!” 
I find it no use telling this man that 
there were only seven pigs in this litter 
and that some sows raise only three pigs! 
He vnll not believe that a sow nursing a 
good-sized litter must have extra food, and 
when I show him the figures on feed and 
labor and taxes he waves them aside. Be¬ 
cause for one year in 20 I have had fair 
prices for farm produce I am a profiteer, 
it seems, I do not feel like one when I 
pay my bills, but the city man says I 
must be because I charged $8 for a small 
pig. The buyer paid the price willingly 
and says he can make money feeding it, 
and it will take nearly 40 of these pigs to 
eat up my tax bill. I often wonder if 
s./me of these city men do not expect us 
cheerfully to stand an increase of all our 
expenses and then charge less for what 
we sell! 
3(C * ^ ^ 
On November 10 the nasturtiums by 
the side of the house were still green. 
The Lima beans were killed November 4. 
T\’’e have never before had such a mild, 
open Fall, and I hope it means a mild 
Winter. This open weather has been 
favorable to turnips and cabbage. The 
white turnips seeded after early corn 
have made a good crop and sell at $1 per 
bushel. The yellow turnips, after peas, 
require more time, but are coming on 
w’ell. We cannot brag about our cabbage 
crop, as too many of the heads are soft. 
They all make good feed for the pigs, or 
they could be sold to poultrymen. What 
with cabbage and pumpkins, cull apples 
and nubbins of sweet corn, we have thus 
far been able to keep the pigs going with 
but a small amount of purchased grain. 
No man knows until he is compelled to 
buy it, how much pork he can make out 
of farm wastes. As you work into the 
pig business you find yourself planning 
more and more for catch crops which will 
give cheap pig feed without interfering 
with the regular farm crops. This warm 
Fall is playing havoc with the cellar- 
stored api)les. We hear many complaints 
of early rotting. Our plan is to get rid of 
the fruit in October if it is possible to 
obtain any fair price. We still have a 
supply of Ben Davis on hand, but they 
are going out freely at about .$4 per bar¬ 
rel. My advice about holding apples 
would be don’t do it. unless you can put 
them into regular cold storage. H. w. c. 
Chicory as a Substitute for Coffee 
The suggestion on page 1272 that peo¬ 
ple economize in the use of coffee seems 
to be peculiarly appropriate in more ways 
than one. During the fiscal year of 1917. 
we imported, in round numbers. 680,000 
tons of coffee. This is an average of 
approximately 14 pounds per capita—a 
good deal more than the requirements of 
civilization call for. Despite the odium 
cast upon it by the promoters of the coffee 
industry, chicory forms the best substi¬ 
tute for coffee that has yet been produced. 
Although certain coffee merchants assert 
that it is an unhealthy mineral substance 
derived from coal tar, it is a biennial 
vegetable somewhat resembling the par¬ 
snip. Its cultural requireir^nts are pre¬ 
cisely the same, and its yield per given 
area is approximately the same, and a 
package of seed, costing but five cents, 
will furnish an average family with all 
the coffee needed for a year’s supply. 
Formerly it was grown, commercially, 
much more extensively than at present, 
for the pure food law gave the chicory 
industry a tremendously heavy body blow, 
and it is still most spitefully hammering 
away. The present location of the in¬ 
dustry is in Michigan, where, according 
to the la.st census, 1,584 acres w'ere grown, 
as against five acres in all the remainder 
of the United States, That the industry 
is rapidly declining is shown by the re¬ 
port of the previous census, which allows 
an acreage of 2,82.3 acres to Michigan, 
and 246 acres to all other States. Yet, 
in spite of a de(*rease of 50 per cent in 
acreage, there was a decrease of but 
$.3,000 in value of the crop. 
The foliage of chicory is used in its 
natural state as a pot-herb, and. when 
more or less blanched, in a great variety 
of salads and under various names. The 
root itself is sometimes cooked and eaten, 
but its bitter principle is a little too 
strongly developed for most appetites. 
But the plant is known chiefly as an 
adulterant of or substitute for coffee. For 
this purpose the roots are dug, preferably 
in the Fall, washed clean, blanched for 
a_ moment in hot water, to loosen the out- 
.side skin, and then scraped clean. Then 
they are sliced, thoroughly dried, and 
afterwards carefully browned, placed in 
airtight containers, and stored in a dry 
place. This last is a necessity, for other¬ 
wise they will absorb moisture from the 
atmosi)here and lose flavor. Then wanted 
for use, the dried product is steeped simi¬ 
larly as coffee is steeped, either alone or 
mixed in any desired proportion Avith 
genuine coffee. For a good many years 
chicory has been sensed at my own table, 
mixed with an equal portion of coffee, and 
no i)erson ever yet sat at my table who 
even mistrusted, unless told, that he was 
being served with other than a pure, high- 
grade brand of coffee. And the best of 
it is that, when so mixed, the saccharine 
qualities of the chicory are such that less 
than half the usual amount of sugar is 
necessary to make the beverage palatable. 
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