78 
January 15, 1921 
<Ibt RURAL NEW-YORKER 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
Now Year’s Day has passed into 
Time’s waste basket, and our ship has 
started for the voyage of 1921. We ex¬ 
pected a cold day with a coating of ice 
all over the hills, but last night a gentle 
rain started, and today there are puddles 
and mud all over the face of Nature. I 
have spent most of the day taking an 
inventory of the goods and stock on hand, 
figuring out the year’s balance and trying 
to plan for the coming campaign. I find 
that we have accumulated somewhat more 
personal property than we had one year 
ago. The year’s business has evidently 
been about a stand-off. That is. our great 
increase of expense for labor and supplies 
has not paid. I estimate that our in¬ 
crease of sales will run about $50 less 
than our increased expense over last 
year. It is rather hard to figure such 
things exactly on a place of this sort, 
where there are many expenses which 
could not fairly be charged to the farm. 
When I speak of $50 difference I refer 
entirely to cash sales and cash expenses. 
As we do a cash business entirely, that 
is the fairest way for us. 
***** 
Should a farmer credit his account 
with house rent and such farm produce 
as he takes from the land for use in the 
family? In my own case I do not know 
where 1 could go in any town and rent 
a house for my big family for less than 
$60 per month—as rents run in our sec¬ 
tion. If we had to buy the poultry, eggs; 
milk, fruit, vegetables and fuel which our 
family consumes at the prices which we 
charge others it would run to at least 
$750 per year. Now shall we add $1,500 
to our income in making up our yearly 
account? That is a hard puzzle for many 
of us. We have surely had the benefit 
from these things, yet it cannot be said 
that they represent clear income. I think 
where a man has an outside job which 
pays for his living, and carries on the 
farm as a side line, he might fairly count 
these things in as farm income, as com¬ 
pared with what he would have to pay 
if he had no farm. ' A good many rich 
men have learned how to make a play¬ 
thing of a farm help reduce their income 
tax. They put an extravagant value on 
their buildings and equipment, and then 
deduct 10 per cent of that valuation each 
year for depreciation. That makes a 
showing which puts the farm heavily in 
debt, and they are able to deduct this 
debt from the tax they pay on their 
other business. In this way, and in no 
other, their “farms” prove a source of 
income. 
* * * * * * 
When it comes to a genuine farmer, 
who has no job or source of income other 
than his farm, I do not think this rent 
or living should be credited; certainly 
not unless the farmer charges his account 
with fair wages for himself, his wife and 
for other members of the family who 
work and earn. It would be an injustice 
to compel a farmer to pay a tax on the 
rent of his own house unless he was 
guaranteed fair wages for his oVn labor. 
The fact. is that under the past system 
of figuring farm accounts and labor costs 
farmers and their families have worked 
for nothing. . The hired man and the 
hired girl (if there be any left) are paid 
in cash, regardless of the way farm busi¬ 
ness goes. The farmer and his wife 
usually work harder than the hired help, 
but . there is no definite wage for them— 
they take what they can get, which is 
usually board and clothes, improvements 
on the place, a family of more or less 
satisfactory children, and perhaps a small 
competence for old age. Many who read 
this will realize that after years of hard 
work they have not even gained these 
things. That being the case, it seems to 
me nonsense and inTistice to compel a 
farmer to figure his income tax by adding 
$600 or more as receipts from rent of 
his own house or produce from his own 
farm—unless, as I have _ said, he also 
charges good wages for himself and his 
wife. 
* * * * * 
Farming will never come to its own un¬ 
til we all recognize this principle and live 
up to it. On this farm every worker ex¬ 
cept. mother, my daughter and I. receive 
cash wages for their labor. I pay the 
children for farm work and they pay 
many of their own expenses. I have felt 
that this is the best system for teaching 
children the value of money.. My own 
services at actual work or in manage¬ 
ment should be worth something, but I 
make no charge for them. Mother and 
my daughter are constantly at work, man¬ 
aging. teaching, cooking, cleaning, mend¬ 
ing. doing the hundred and one things 
which any woman on a busy farm or in a 
big household knows must be done. If 
they went out and did this work for oth¬ 
ers there would be no limit to the money 
they would earn. There are thousands of 
farms in this country of wh ; ch the fol¬ 
lowing may truly be said : Let the farm 
woman—mother of the family—draw in 
wages just what she could earn elsewhere. 
Let her enforce payment the same as she 
would in an office or factory; that is, if 
the farm could not pay her in cash, let 
her demand notes secured by mortgage. 
At the end of 10 or 15 years she would 
own the farm—and T think it would, in 
most cases, justly belong to her. Now 
this is no fancy or freak of the imagina¬ 
tion. Just take an evening with your 
wife and figure it out and see if I am not 
right. I have not estimated or counted 
the value of your own services as worker 
and manager. I assume that you are 
fully able to take care of yourself in such 
matter. It often happens that mother 
cannot do that so well. 
***** 
Now I think we should all begin this 
year with our farm bookkeeping and 
charge our account each week with fair 
wages for all family workers. You should 
be worth more than the hired man, and 
mother is worth far more than any hired 
girl ever can be. Just put down $50 or 
more per month for each of you and keep 
up the account right through the year. 
Then one year from today figure it all up, 
as we do now when we figure the cost of 
hired labor. 
"It would show a big loss!” 
Of course it would, and that is just 
what I want the world to understand. 
So long as we are willing to work for 
nothing except our board and clothes, the 
rest of the world will hold us right up to 
it. They will prove by your own figures 
that the cost of production in farm pro¬ 
duce is low, and they will hand us out no 
pi ore than a bare chance to live and pay 
the hired help. At the same time the 
other interests who manufacture goods 
which we must buy, charge in every item 
of salary and service at high values, and 
then demand a good profit on top of that. 
The manufacturers and the handlers fig¬ 
ure out an “overhead” charge which pays 
them good interest and seems to carry 
wings which lift the business up. So loug 
as the farmer and his wife will continue 
to work for nothing, the “overhead” on 
prices for the value which they have cre¬ 
ated. I will not discuss that now, but 
here is the point. If I sold this land at 
a great increase of price and invested the 
money in 6 per cent government securi¬ 
ties, I would get far more income than I 
now do from the farm. Should I there¬ 
fore, charge this probable income up 
against the farm and expect it to pay as 
much as Uncle Sam would pay for the‘in¬ 
creased or selling value? 
* * * £ 
Many of these problems come up to¬ 
night as I sit before the fire with an apple 
in hand. I do not quite know about this 
coming year. I think it will be a time 
for very cautious investment. I think 
the swing to better prices will come, but 
we cannot expect to reach the war-time 
levels. Labor will evidently be easier and 
cheaper. Supplies are high, and we must 
find some way of getting through without 
them, for if they do not come down we 
have all got to overhaul our crops and our 
work and cut out the things which have 
not paid. We have several acres of wet 
land on the lower part of our farm which 
will neve" produce good crops until it is 
well drained. I have figured it carefully 
and find that at present prices it will 
cost about twice the value of the land to 
put in a full drainage system. That is 
about twice what it would have cost be¬ 
fore the war. With present prices the 
work will not pay. We have a good flock 
of geese, and we learned last year that 
our geese paid better, proportionately, 
than anything else on the farm. So I 
propose to put a wire fence around these 
wet fields, plant them in rape or oat seed, 
hatch every gosling we can get out of the 
several cars which ran as nice as one 
could wish for. but the people in Water- 
bury are always calling for natives, and 
most of them are willing to pay a little 
more for them. 
Many of the farmers raise large quan¬ 
tities of apples, for which they received 
75c to 80c per basket, wholesale, for very 
best grades. Very few apples are sold 
by barrel around this section at the pres¬ 
ent time, as baskets are plentiful, and 
many times are returned to the farmer 
for refilling. The storekeepers' at Water- 
bury have charged for these same apples 
35c for three quarts. There is a great 
demand for McIntosh, which sold at the 
stores for $2 per basket, which brought 
the farmer $1.50. Thousands of bushels 
of apples were left rotting on the ground 
throughout the county, and thousands of 
bushels more of good apples went into 
cider. On my farm, we put the poorest 
apples into 10 barrels of cider, and sold 
the best apples at the houses in Water- 
bury for 50c per peck. 
There are also quite a number of 
farmers who raise a large number of 
chickens and have eggs for sale, for 
which, at the present time, the farmers 
receive 90c per dozen and the storekeep¬ 
ers from $1 to $1.15. 
We are all trying to keep things going 
without hired help until the price of labor 
drops and the right kind of a fellow 
comes along, who wants to work, not fool 
around and loaf on his job, but work. 
For my own part, my son and myself do 
the work on the farm, with now and then 
the help of a neighbor for a day or so 
during planting and harvest. The pres¬ 
ent year we cut 40 tons of hay, 100 bu. 
of oats, 20 cords of wood ; set an orchard 
to pear trees, raised two large gardens, 
a large field of sweet corn, a field of po¬ 
tatoes, and we are planning to do the 
same in the season coming, which experi¬ 
ence would apply to most of the farmers 
here who are not in the milk business. 
Grain has dropped about. $1 per bag. 
Cracked corn is selling at the grain stores 
in Waterbury for $2.40 per 100 lbs., at 
Thomaston for $2.70. Wheat is $3.50 
per 100 lbs. ; bran, $2 50 ; cottonseed meal, 
$2.90; middlings, $2.50; gluten, $3; 
scratch feed. $3.05; cornmeal, $2.30. 
meat scrap, $5.25; linseed meal, $2.90; 
oats, $1.90; ground oats, $3. If required 
to hire a man and team for extra work 
we pay $3 0 to $12 per day. F. E. s. 
Litchfield, Conn. 
The Worst Cherry Thieves 
I liave just read that statement of 
yours of recent date, and what the Kansas 
Agricultural College says about the birds 
and a crop of fruit, cherries and straw¬ 
berries. You are both away off for a 
real big crop of cherries. Just let some 
city woman and children spy your cher¬ 
ries about the time they are ripe, as they 
did mine. I was in the truck patch one 
day when the cherries were ripe. I heard 
some queer sounds and began to think 
that the Tower of Babel was near by. 
and on looking around I saw something 
in my cherry trees and went to investi¬ 
gate. When I got near I saw the sight 
of my life. Two middle-aged women and 
a number of girls and boys were up the 
trees. They had a great many of the tree 
limbs broken off and piled up to cart 
away, and most of the remaining cherries 
stripped off in baskets. About that time 
the old woman saw me and she said: 
“Mister, you don’t care if I ta 1 '*' a fe’v 
cherries to my old man and the kiddies?” 
And the other woman began to bawl out 
to me to “shust go ’way.” while she slid 
down out of the tree. Well, now if you 
have ever known robins or song birds 
to steal our fruit, and then dishorn and 
destroy the trees, why then you have a 
perfect right to believe that birds are the 
worst thieves. Perhaps you included 
jailbirds, too. Well, how about that for 
brazen effrontery and audacious thievery? 
You are right about stopping certain 
kinds of emigrants; that should be chased 
out of our country. There is no reason 
why our farmers should work like slaves 
and then be robbed. 
New Jersey. george g. swain. 
Bad Well Water 
I have a well that has not been used 
for four years. It has been cleaned out 
and pumped out. and still the water 
smells. What will cure it? J. w. p. 
New Hampshire. 
Only personal inspection can determine 
the source of trouble with this well. There 
are a number of possible ones. If the 
water was formerly sweet and now re¬ 
mains foul after thorough cleaning and 
pumping out, it is evident that there is 
some undiscovered source of pollution. 
a: d it may be a distant one. So -page 
from cesspools, sink holes, etc., may reach 
a well after a time and pollute the water 
and underground channels, particularly 
in limestone soils, may form and carry 
pollution for great distances. Surface 
water frequently finds its way just be¬ 
neath the surface of the ground into wells 
and) may be seen trickling down the curb¬ 
ing after a heavy rain. There are wells, 
too, the water of which has a noticeable 
odor or taste from mineral matters dis¬ 
solved trom the rocks in which th° water 
lies. These may be entirely wholesome, 
though disagreeable. Possible sources of 
pollution in more or less distant privy 
vaults, cesspools, barnyards, etc., should 
be looked for, and the opportunities for 
surface water to get into the well should 
be investigated. ii. B. D. 
'lie It Ever So Humble, There's No Place Like Home ” 
Up in the Country Where the Balloon Came to Earth 
that farm will be true to its name—liable 
at any time to cave in and crush out the 
home. We have simply got to show the 
world that the farpier and his wife must 
in the future receive fair wages—or they 
will not work ! The most convincing 
way to present this argument is to tell it 
in figures. Make the world understand 
that Mr. and Mrs. Farmer will no longer 
be classed with convicts and slaves or 
those who are not entitled to fair and 
regular wages. The first step toward reg¬ 
ular wages, as I see it, is to make it clear 
that such wages are just and that the 
price paid for farm products must cover 
them. 
***** 
Another thing that puzzles me some¬ 
what is how to figure values of farm prop¬ 
erty in making out the year’s accounts. 
For example, I paid $50 an acre for this 
farm 20 years ago. It is probably worth 
over $350 per acre now. The first year I 
came here my taxes were about $S7. Last 
year they were $375. Now, as a farming 
or orcharding proposition, should I ex¬ 
pect the place to pay interest on what I 
paid for the farm, or what it would bring 
if I sold it? That is, I have a certain 
amount of money invested in this farm. 
It is represented by what I have put into 
it. Should I be satisfied if I can get a 
small interest on what I have put in? 
On the other hand, the land would no 
doubt sell for far more than I have put 
into it. This is not because of anything 
I have done, but because population is 
moving this way and will no doubt come 
much faster after the tunnels under the 
Hudson are finished. My single tax friend 
tells me that I have no right to share or 
take this increased value. He says I have 
not earned it, but that the increased value 
is made by others who come in to occupy 
land and "are penalized through increased 
eggs, and let them take care of our wet 
spot! This is a sample of what we hope 
to do this year. Formerly we sold our 
hogs to the' dealers, but we are tired of 
paying retail prices and so we have about 
250 lbs. of pork sausage, ham and bacon, 
laid away for supplies. But here come 
the children—the best farm crop. They 
will give us a little New Year’s music to 
see how Cherrytop gets on with his violin. 
I wish you could be here to listen. 
H. w. C. 
Farm Conditions in Connecticut 
The chief product of 50 per cent of the 
farms is the dairy business. A large 
number of them retail milk at 36c per 
qt.. and many who wholesale their milk 
to the retailers receive 9c per qt. In 
some towns of the county these prices 
vary a trifle. In a near-by town, three 
miles south of my place, a milkman hauls 
300 qts. of milk to Waterbury, Conn., a 
distance of six miles, for which he re¬ 
ceives 20c per qt. The milk bottles are 
capped with the regular cap and then on 
top of this is a paper cover or seal printed 
with the proprietor’s name and address. 
His wagons are all painted white, and 
his men wear all-white suits. The milk 
is no better than anybody’s else, so with 
the Waterbury price at 17c he gets 3c for 
his style, and the people like it and think 
it great, and are willing to pay for it. 
Waterbury, Conn., is a fine market for 
farm products, and many of the farmers 
hereabouts go there with very many loads 
of produce each week. Nearly all of the 
farmers here raise large crops of pota¬ 
toes. for which they reecived this season 
$1.50 per bu.. and some as higli as $2.per 
bu. The markets in Waterbury are gen¬ 
erally supplied with Maine potatoes, and 
as a rule are poor, and yet I have seen 
