998 
'<k RURAL NEW-YORKER 
.7lino 21, 191!) 
■ .Unwise Investments. —This is the 
only paper, as far as I know, that is 
ward, mentor, philosopher and friend 
to its subscribers, that takes the advo¬ 
cacy of their presumptuous or ignor¬ 
ant mistakes, and that looks after 
business unfortunates. In almost every 
issue, during the many years I have 
read it, some loser or losers have been 
calling for help to get money back 
that has been put in wildcat invest¬ 
ments. These fraud concerns are legion 
in cities, and it is a poor town that 
has none of them. Money is a trust, 
a valuable thing, and should he handled 
properly, and no man should buy stock, 
or take any chance paying money to 
strangers under any consideration. Fur¬ 
ther, no farmer should invest in a city 
company, public utility or corporation. 
That looks extreme, but wait. Did you 
ever really know why the boys and girls 
desert the country? Also why the parents 
who stay get the “35-eeut dollar?” Did 
you ever notice that all 
town and city savings and 
profits are invested in 
business there, that the 
merchant and manufac¬ 
turer add it to the plant 
and borrow more to put 
with it? Then did you 
ever think that farmers’ 
savings supply about one- 
half the money borrowed 
by all town enterprises? 
Keeping Money at 
Home. —Urban dwellers 
invest at home, and farm¬ 
ers put all their spare 
money where they can get 
that also. Every reader 
has seen farmers who 
have a “nest egg” in a 
town bank, or have taken 
stock in one, who skinned 
their places to put more 
there, and every one of 
their boys left. You have 
seen men grow wrinkles 
from continued thinking 
about how to get cash to 
invest, in town. Try to 
count the number of town 
men who got wrinkles try¬ 
ing to boost the country. 
No farmer should have 
more than a little work¬ 
ing capital in any bank, 
and it would he still bet¬ 
ter if he borrowed there 
to use in the country, lie 
should have his full capi¬ 
tal working for the farms, 
his own or for others, and 
he makes a mistake to 
take stock in anything. 
We need banks, but only 
to borrow from. Did you 
ever think of what is done 
with bank deposits? A 
bank will be capitalized 
at a few tens of thou¬ 
sands. and have deposits 
of a million or more, and 
every town in the land 
has from thousands to 
millions of farmers’ dol¬ 
lars invested in stocks, 
bonds, corporations, or 
other enterprises. 'With 
this money, and the irri¬ 
gation. “come easy, go 
easy.” the matter of wages 
is of small concern to 
them, and the farmers’ 
boys work for them, at 
more money than it is 
possible to pay in farm¬ 
ing. Farmers contribute 
the money and their boys 
start to get a little of it 
back. 
New England’s Er¬ 
ror.— These facts may 
not strike a responsive 
chord among the finan¬ 
ciers. hut the writer is 
working for the welfare 
of the farn s. which means 
the well-being of the whole 
population. Ilis friendli¬ 
ness to bankers does not 
cloud the knowledge that 
they have used the farm¬ 
ers’ money to build the 
cities, with the help of 
his boys. Theue is no 
faultfinding in this. The 
money was pushed on 
them and business sense told them tot 
take it. and use it. If the New England 
money that built factories, skyscrapers 
and public utilities in the West had stayed 
at home the whole East would be a gar¬ 
den-like Eden of fertility and beauty and 
fltp hills grassed from the trout brooks 
to the summits, and covered with multi¬ 
tudes of well-bred animals. The land¬ 
scape would be dotted with painted build¬ 
ings. and fruitful orchards, and the 
dwellers in the homes the happiest and 
most intelligent people on earth. There 
are enough examples over all parts of it 
now to prove it. examples of people who 
deserve credit for succeeding under the 
handicaps put over them by the multi- 
Why the Boys and Girls Leave the Farms 
Plain Talk About Plain Things 
tudes of deserters. There is no use “lock¬ 
ing the doors” in part of the East now 
because “the horse is stolen,” but a few 
may take on some more horses. I was 
surprised over 30 years ago to see a 
bank, or banks, in every village of West¬ 
ern New York, with a force of experts 
at work, but the same conditions are also 
with us further west now, and the farm¬ 
ers are moving to the towns. They have 
been pushing their productions and their 
monies into the towns until unlimited 
vaults are needed, and now they are 
abandoning their farm homes to get near 
the treasure. They are easy marks for 
and high wages on the other. You can 
see that most of the bright, intelligent 
young fellows on the farms now had dif¬ 
ferent influences from the ones given 
above. I know one family of four chil¬ 
dren, another of five, one of 11 and an¬ 
other of 13. Every boy and girl of those 
four families is living on a farm, doing 
well, right here. None of their parents 
ever invested in anything unless con¬ 
nected with their own farms, and most of 
the time, until old age, they were paying 
interest. Analyze this assertion well, and 
then disagree with it if you can. Not 
one farm dollar should be invested in any 
The Canterbury Bells Respond, to Individual Cart 
any kind of good or wildcat investments, 
as long as they can wring cash from 
their places, and when they die the run¬ 
down holdings will he taken by the 
bankers, and the heirs paid oil' for other 
farmers’ deposits. 
Staying by the Farm.— There is an¬ 
other reason. The farmers who are grow¬ 
ing wrinkles studying to put the money 
into towns not only lose their own boys, 
but seldom can get others. Who is going 
to stay on a place where there are no 
conveniences about the home, where the 
barn roof is failing, fences getting shaky 
and the soil becoming poorer? It works 
both ways to drive the young away ; mea¬ 
ger wages and desolation on one hand 
town, or tywu enterprise, 
home there, or to be used 
any purpose there. 
Measuring Prosperity. —The maxi¬ 
mum prosperity of a country depends on 
the maximum condition of the prosperity 
of the farms, and the highest welfare of 
a country depends on a light burning 
every evening on the farm, in the homes 
of resident land owners. There is no 
education so valuable as that gotten by 
the boys and girls there, with their books, 
papers, music and pure enjoyment. Farm 
work for good thinking during the day, 
and the gentle influence of the farm home 
afterwards to fasten it. Then take a 
lesson from the town man. Whether he 
owns anything or not, he is a town 
booster and can give the census and worth 
of the place, always exaggerated, and 
about all the farmers about it are like 
the townsman, while neither of them cares 
10 cents about the farms. Every man is 
a patriot in regard to everything in the 
whole land, except the farms, and when 
the town gets up a pumpkin show, jolli¬ 
fication or some buffoonery to draw the 
farmers in, they all fall for it. The town 
can insult them with impunity and they 
take it as a favor. 
Interesting the Children. —Every 
farm dollar should he invested in the 
home farm to make it more valuable, more 
comfortable, more fertile and more beau¬ 
tiful, to buy land for the children, or to 
lend to worthy young folks to build happy 
country homes. Quite a little should be 
lent, given to, or invested for children 
to start them on a love of the farm en¬ 
deavors, and build them up in a farm 
education. They should have animals of 
their own, or a share in 
them, or some crops, so 
they would feel they had 
a proprietorship in the 
farm. Suppose a man 
would call up his children 
for advice about those 
“100 trees on every farm” 
and let them choose them, 
then pick the place for 
them, with the help of 
his judgment, and then he 
would tell them to go 
ahead and plant them, and 
care for them right, and 
they could have all they 
ever made out of them. 
Suppose then they had an 
interest in some of the 
farm •animals, or got a 
pointer from him to put 
their savings in some, and 
to rent some land to grow 
feed for them, would they, 
after studying farm pa¬ 
pers and bulletins on their 
interests, after talking 
and showing to neighbors, 
would they now, would 
they ever leave that farm, 
except for another? 
Fa m it, y R es po n si hi li- 
TIES.— The father, him¬ 
self, brought up in the 
old way, wasted 10 years 
learning what those 
youngsters gather in one. 
They acquire a business 
education also of value to 
the father, and become 
“trusties.” The greatest 
joy a parent can have is 
when he can shove off re¬ 
sponsibility on them, or 
when they take it off his 
hands like as if it were 
their own. While every¬ 
thing in “his” it is his, 
but when it is “ours” they 
go after it working and 
learning with the impet¬ 
uosity of youth. Do you be¬ 
lieve children carried along 
that way pine to leave the 
home farm ? The proper 
place for all farm money 
is to build up the family 
and the farm, to bring 
substantial worth there, 
beside which the artificial 
glitter of town will pale, 
and now let me illustrate 
with something personal. 
I think I am a pretty fair 
farmer, but sometimes 
have my vanity hurt, and 
again can walk off and 
leave all responsibility on 
my 20-year-old. The 
worst jar I got, after a 
willingness to take “the 
heavy end” with others 
all my life, was when he 
took it away from me, 
but I am used to it now. 
and he can have it, in 
muscle as well as farm 
skill. lie has 301 sheep, 
probably the only bunch 
in the world all healthy, 
and is a better shepherd 
than ever I was. lie has 
learned more in 10 years 
than I did in 40, because 
he started 20 years 
younger with “our" sheep, 
writes how she started in 
Sticking in the country did 
not seem to impair her intellect or use¬ 
fulness. She says in a letter: “I forgot 
to put in that article-that I had $165 at 
once, from the sale of part of my sheep, 
when I was just a youngster. Maybe 
that would induce some parents to start 
their children in sheep.” And now, after 
my former strong statements, all of which 
will bear the strictest criticism. I will 
only add that the parent who does not 
plan a chance for the children to acquire 
education, and handle 
be loth to leave, cheats 
birthright. 
W. W. REYNOLDS. 
One farm girl 
sheep when 15. 
a thorough farm 
them so they will 
them out of their 
Ohio. 
