The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
431 
The Other Fellow. —So many times 
do we farmers leave the price to the other 
fellow instead of setting the price our¬ 
selves, as everyone else does. The Par¬ 
son learned his lesson the other day, and 
it will last him. The next man that 
comes down the hill—an utter stranger— 
and asks the Parson what his price is to 
go off and stay all night and make a big 
speech, gotten up wholly for the occasion, 
will find out mighty quick. This was a 
job for the town, and such a town ! Al¬ 
ways did the handsome thing and more! 
The Parson joked with the man about 
places where he had been roasted. His 
town wasn’t of that class! The Parson 
will not dwell on how much trouble and 
work and worry that trip cost him, nor 
the five cold hours he was on the road 
getting there, nor the 19-hour day he put 
in ; no, nor how “done” he felt the next 
day as he wearied home and hustled into 
his overalls to hurry and make up for the 
lost time. “That’s satisfactory?” Oh, 
yes. perfectly, for it. was worth it to learn 
to put a price on your own goods, as other 
people do. “Experience is a good teacher, 
and fools will learn in no other way.” 
Farmers and Speakers. —After all, it 
is a matter of real interest when a man 
who spends so much time in jumper and 
overalls should go out so much to speak 
as well as preach. Farming gives one lit¬ 
tle time for reading, but much time for 
thinking. Aren’t farmers’ talks apt to be 
mighty practical and get right down to 
the point? A farmer does not like to hoe 
corn all day and not see any difference 
where he has been, nor to saw ice all day 
and not have any in the icehouse at night, 
nor to talk all night and not have said 
anything. A little ruminating and pon¬ 
dering as one goes about watering the 
hens seems often to produce as acceptable 
a hand-out as reading some ponderous vol¬ 
ume and producing a sort of book-review 
essay. Twice this year has the Parson 
spoken at Storrs College; last week he 
preached at a divinity school; next week 
he makes the address, for the third time, 
at the annual ladies’ night of a neighbor¬ 
hood club of a near-by city. Next month 
he speaks and holds a conference at a tri- 
seminary gathering of college men. and, 
most wonderful of all, here comes a re¬ 
far as to figure out the large income to 
each man. woman and child in our coun¬ 
try, as well as the resulting advantage to 
the automobile dealers. 
Now that the Kansas Board of Agri¬ 
culture has given the figures of the wheat 
crop, based upon accomplished fact in¬ 
stead of feverish dream, we learn that 
the crop is the second in size produced by 
the State. But this tells only half the 
story. One must consider the increased 
acreage planted and harvested and still 
more the enormously increased expense of 
planting, harvesting and thrashing. In 
fact, the present situation here in the 
wheat belt is far from what it is com¬ 
monly pictured. The wheat farmer is not 
enjoying great wealth and luxury, as pic¬ 
tured ; on the contrary, his financial posi¬ 
tion is serious. With his credit already 
strained, both with the merchant and the 
banker, due to two and in some cases three 
previous years of crop failure, he has had 
this year to face enormously increased ex¬ 
pense in handling the moderate crop. In¬ 
competent harvest hands this year have 
extorted wages as high as $7 to $10 per 
day, often in addition to their transporta¬ 
tion from the cities. Thrashing which 
formerly cost 0 or 7 cents, has this year 
not uncommonly run as high as 45 cents 
per bushel, and in no case that I know of 
below 20 cents. 
There is always some delay in shipping 
the wheat, but experience of past years 
has established the custom of expecting 
the farmer to meet his obligations to the 
Dank and the merchant soon after Sept. 
1. This year there has been no outlet for 
his crop. All Spring and early Summer 
the side track in our little town was 
crowded with empty box cars, but they 
disappeared as thrashing began and we 
have waited week after week for cars that 
must be provided before normal business 
conditions can be re-established. Wheat 
has been moved somewhat more rapidly 
from points having competitive railroad 
lines. Here, where we are dependent upon 
one line, there has not been to exceed 1 
per cent of a reasonable supply of cars 
furnished. In spite of promises of relief 
from the Railroad Administration, our lit¬ 
tle town, needing four cars daily, has had 
just one car the past month. This car 
came filled with coal; otherwise we might 
The-Parson Starts Out with the Baby Carriage 
quest to give a course of lectures in a di¬ 
vinity school. 
St. Valentine's Day. —As the Parson 
sits down to close this letter, started a 
week ago, it has got to be St. Valentine’s 
Day. It is a perfect Winter day at that, 
and many of the roads are still, impass¬ 
able from snow. The boys are trying to 
draw out some manure from the pigpen, 
and they have to pick it up with an adz 
it is so frozen. Mamma is upstairs clean¬ 
ing, declaring, as the Parson suggests a 
sleigh ride, that “the house looks like a 
pigjpen. Clossie and Sit are supposed to 
be : peeling potatoes in the kitchen, but 
Sit has just come in weeping, because she 
sa.Vs Flossie spilled water on the floor 
and laid it to her, and that he also “threw 
a wet potato peeling at her, and hit her 
on the nose.” The red pig is taking a sun 
bath on the south side of the barn, not 
caring whether school keeps or not. 
not have lin'd that. Some wheat has been 
hauled from here to a competitive point, 
25 miles away, by motor truck at a ruin¬ 
ous cost of 25 cents per bushel. As the 
last day for paying taxes drew near, far¬ 
mers have even made this long haul by 
wagon over very bad roads. This condi¬ 
tion is not purely local, but extends 
through a large part of the wheat belt. 
It is difficult to give an adequate idea 
of what it means to a community for the 
farmers to be unable to pay their obliga¬ 
tions to each other, or their debts to the 
merchants and the bankers. One merchant 
owning a series of stores in the wheat 
belt tells me has has never experienced 
such a critical financial condition. Since 
the middle of October he has had $40,000 
worth of goods out, for which he can col¬ 
lect nothing. In many instances farmers 
with hundreds of bushels of wheat in their 
granaries have been unable even to bor¬ 
row the money needed to meet interest on 
their mortgages or even to pay their taxes. 
A Kansas Woman on the Situation 
The following letter was written by 
Mabel S. Cone of Rozel, Kansas, to the 
Christian Science Monitor of Boston, 
Mass. It is a clear and forcible state¬ 
ment of conditions existing in many parts 
of the West. These farmers have the 
wheat, but through the failure of the 
railroads to handle it. have been unable 
to obtain the money with which to meet 
their obligations. The It. N.-Y. will do 
all it can to see that the truth about farm 
life is put before the public. It has both 
light and shade. We should take the hope 
of the bright side to meet the trouble in 
the shade. 
For several years I have been living on 
a ranch in the Kansas wheat belt: I am, 
therefore, interested in the published news 
concerning wheat. Last Spring our hopes 
ran high, and they were reflected in glow¬ 
ing, exaggerated newspaper accounts. Af¬ 
ter the disappointment of the harvest was 
known a popular Eastern weekly pub¬ 
lished a long illustrated article making it 
appear that the high hopes of early Spring 
had actually been fulfilled. It went so 
Chilblain Remedies 
Reading the article on chilblains in¬ 
terested me to send an easy remedy. 
Bathe swollen, itching flesh in cider vine¬ 
gar: once is usually enough. j. e. h. 
Massachusetts. 
Take water as hot as can be endured, 
which will not be very warm if the parts 
applied are very tender. Place the foot 
in the hot water and add more hot water 
as soon as patient can stand it and keep 
up the treatment until the itching stops 
Repeat the treatment twice daily until 
the parts affected become normal, taking 
care the feet do not get chilled again, 
which is the sole cause of the trouble. 
A few applications will effect a cure, but 
the trouble will return if the feet are not 
kept warm. I always'suffer every Fall 
with chilblains, by wearing light shoes 
and socks too late in the season. This 
may help someone who is spending good 
money on fake remedies. J. T. L. 
New York. 
Get some alder, peel the bark off, and 
Steep it till strong. Wash feet in this, 
and I think it will cure chilblains. 
Maine. c. rr; n. 
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THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
333 W 30th Street New York City 
THE Outside Toilet is the greatest menace to 
health in rural and unsewered districts today. 
In the winter on account of exposure and cold 
and intestinal and stomach disorders created 
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In the summer from the death dealing disease 
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“No Sewers - No Water Necessary ’* 
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When you write advertisers mention The R. N.-Y. and you'll get a 
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