14 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
“Como, now. let us reason together!” 
If there ever was a time when farmers 
should get together with reasonable rea¬ 
son and not rashness it is now, as the 
good year 1920 passes out. Pull up your 
chair by the fire. Help yourself to an 
apple. I shall put this big apple chunk 
on the tire. It did well until some man 
years ago tried to improve its shape by 
cutting off a limb. lie was afraid to cut 
close, so he left a long stub. You can see 
what is left of it now in that dead wood. 
It could not heal over. The wood died, 
and slowly death crept along the stub 
and into the tree itself. I think a nest 
of squirrels got in and helped make the 
cavity larger. Water came in and the 
wood rotted until the trunk was a mere 
shell. Then came that high wind, and 
the tree went doAvn. Now, as you see, 
the flames are beginning to roar through 
that hole. If that farmer back in the 
years had done his work properly and 
cut close to the trunk the wound would 
have healed and the tree would be thrifty 
today. Well, at any rate, the old tree is 
passing off happily—doing some good in 
the world instead of going sour and hate¬ 
ful to the end. If the children were here 
they would think that blaze is likely to 
last forever. We are old enough to know 
that before we leave it that big chunk 
will be only a little pile of ashes. That 
tree seems to me something like farming. 
We have not pruned it properly in the 
past. We would not cut down to the 
quick—where there is ever new growth. 
This great war came like the big storm 
and found us with too much dead wood 
and too little new growth. We are not 
going to the fire, but we are going to 
prune up and get rid of those dead stubs 
before they send de#th down into the 
trunk. 
* * * * * 
You see, I am doing most of the talk¬ 
ing. That is one of the tricks of the 
trade of being hard of hearing. You get 
in a word or two now and then, and since 
you belong to a younger generation you 
want to know a few things. 
1. IIow did the toAvn or city ever come 
to get the advantage of the country in 
business? 
2. If you face the situation fairly, as 
it stands today, does not the future indi¬ 
cate that farming is to be the business of 
an inferior type of men and women? 
Will there be anything in food production 
to attract our most intelligent people? 
3. What are you going to do about it? 
Well, that is what you may call a head¬ 
ful of thought. If every farmers’ meeting 
this Winter would take these questions 
up and discuss them plainly they would do 
something. I cannot answer them fully. 
I will, hoAvever, try to start something, 
and perhaps others will carry it through. 
From earliest times when men and women 
began to congregate in villages the “town” 
has possessed certain advantages over the 
open country. That advantage came 
through association or co-operation. AA hen 
people remained separated they could not 
form the habit of working or moving to¬ 
gether In the town people form this 
habit. Take the great crowds in the New 
York subways or railroad stations. They 
usually move in orderly way. because 
habit has taught them what to do in a 
crowd. Take an equal number of farm¬ 
ers. all living in isolated homes, and with¬ 
out experience in a crowd, and there 
would most likely be a panic until they 
learned by experience that the. difference 
between a mob and an army is the per¬ 
sonal relation between individuals. In 
early American history the Iroquois In¬ 
dians dominated other tribes largely be¬ 
cause of their habit of living in com¬ 
munity houses, where they learned disci¬ 
pline and comradeship. From the earliest 
times the advantage of the town over the 
open country has been one of power 
through organization. I can imagine that 
back in the days of the cave men—when 
humans were first experimenting with fire 
—families were solitary—each living by 
itself. I can conceive that a group of the 
more intelligent of these families might 
get together for mutual comfort or de¬ 
fense. and occupy a large cave or hut. 
Naturally they would talk things over, 
and from that discussion Avould come new 
uses for fire. They Avould evolve some¬ 
thing like a chimney to carry off smoke 
and give draught. They would slowly 
produce something like a torch or lamp, 
and these Avould lead to other improve¬ 
ments which would be much slower in 
reaching the solitary families, and thus 
give an advantage to the larger group, or 
“town.” Thus from this damp cave to 
the great modern city of New York the 
business or trade advantage has gone to 
the group of people who, by combining 
their thought and labor, have gained a 
power much greater than the total sum of 
industrial poAver merely added together. 
$ * * * * 
I have a homely illustration which may 
make this clear. Some years ago I knew 
a family in which there. Avere tAVO boys. 
One was right off a hill farm—strong, 
bright and willing, but with limited ex¬ 
perience and reading. The other was a 
bright city boy who had always lived m 
town among working people. The woman 
of the house thoroughly believed in the old 
adage about Satan and idle hands. She 
put these boys at work Avashing windows 
in two large houses, and promised them 
oc per window for the washing. Of course 
she expected that this work would be 
done in the old-fashioned way of scrub¬ 
bing each pane of glass with a cloth 
It* RURAL. N 
dipped in warm water. That was the 
way it had always been done in her neigh¬ 
borhood, and it meant a certain amount 
of hard work. Now the country boy had 
never seen windows washed in any other 
way. So he took a pail of warm, soapy 
water and laboriously washed every bit 
of the glass. That suited the woman, 
since" it meant work. The city boy had 
seen the work done in other ways. He 
got some cheap chemicals and dissolved 
them in hot soapy water. Then he bor¬ 
rowed a small hand pump with hose and 
nozzle and sprayed those windows. On 
the average, including a little hand work, 
he did three to the other boy’s one, and 
thus earned 15c while the hand washer 
earned 5c. The woman was forced to 
admit that the windows were clean, but 
she refused to pay full price because she 
said it was understood that she paid for 
work —though her bargain Avas made for 
windows. On the previous Sunday the 
lesson in Sunday school -was about the 
man who hired the various servants at 
different times during the day and paid 
them all the same price. Then those who 
had done most work “murmured against 
the good man of the house.” They 
claimed, and with some justice, that they 
had “borne the burden and heat of the 
day.” The master, or as we would call 
him, “the boss,” had a convincing ansiver. 
“Didst thou not agree with me for a pen¬ 
ny?” That was long before the day of 
“open shop.” but the Sunday school argu¬ 
ment Avas that a contract must be respect¬ 
ed. AVhen the boy quoted that the woman 
had to admit that the proposition was 
Now I have always thought that in a 
Avay this illustrates something of what 
has happened to city and country labor. 
It would naturally happen that in a town 
Avhere people are croAvded together and 
where competition is severe, new and 
quicker methods of doing AA'ork would be 
thought out and adopted long before they 
could be evolved on a farm, or before they 
would be thought necessary there. Thus 
through the aid of machinery, chemistry 
EW-YORKER 
or other helps, the city man might be able 
to accomplish more or turn out a larger 
product. Then he will come and claim 
increased pay, as the boy did for work 
with the force pump. That is one reason 
why such a large proportion of the re¬ 
turns from labor have gone to the city. 
It also explains Avhy so many boys and 
girls have followed the dollar. Naturally 
they Av r anted to go where science and skill 
were appreciated and utilized, and not 
laughed at or condemned. And then, 
along Avith that, came the tribute which 
we all pay to “fashion,” or the habit of 
trying to do what others practice. When 
I was a boy some relative came back to 
the farm for a visit. He had been a shoe¬ 
maker in our little village, and was a 
good workman. He said he grew tired of 
cobbling cowhide boots and cheap shoes 
and then haggling over the price to be 
paid in eggs or turnips or other produce. 
So he moved to the big shoe town and 
went to Avork in a factory. He tended a 
machine, and as he worked thought out a 
new device for making the machine more 
efficient. He had it patented, and the 
royalty had made him rich. He came 
back largely to parade his riches. 
* * * * * 
Now the most absurd and pitiful thing 
I know of is a man or woman who tries 
to break completely away from the living 
habits formed during the first 25 years of 
their lives. As a plain, honest cobbler, 
this man was a success. Had he accepted 
his station and put his money in his cob¬ 
bler’s bench he would have gone through 
life with dignity and character. He tried 
to buy the “style” and culture which can 
only come through generations of breed¬ 
ing and a gentle early life, and he made 
a bad mess of it. His “culture” fitted 
him about as his expensive clothing fit¬ 
ted the atmosphere AA T hen it was hung on 
the clothes line to air. When he was a 
plain man he Avas well content to go doAvn 
to the pond on Saturday afternoon and 
take a bath by going in swimming. That 
royalty on his patent had made him try 
to imitate royalty by taking a cool bath 
January 1, 1921 
each morning. There wasn’t a bathtub 
within 10 miles of our farm, but the folks 
Avere depending on this man to take the 
mortgage, so the farmer sawed a whisky 
barrel in two, cleaned it up and put a soft 
cushion around the edge! That served for 
a tub in the small room upstairs, and it 
was a job for the boy to pump water and 
fill it each morning, and then empty it 
about noon. It was far more expensive 
than going down to the pond for a swim, 
but if that was what city folks did the 
young folks felt that they were entitled 
to a few extras. And clothes! Our folks 
usually bought cloth at some sort of bar¬ 
gain and twice a year a woman came to 
the house and made up our clothing. It 
was “fearfully and wonderfully made,” I 
will grant, but it kept us warm, and as 
most of the boys and girls were dressed 
in much the same style, it was satisfac¬ 
tory. But now came this man and others, 
laughing at our clothing. He had an ex¬ 
pert tailor make his clothes, or else 
bought them at a store. He actually wore 
a linen collar every day, and could boast 
that his coat was cut from a pattern ap¬ 
proved by the Prince of Wales and other 
gentry. A pair of overalls and a blouse 
would keep us warm and able to do our 
work, but that mysterious thing which 
they called “style” (and which no one has 
been able to explain) brought discontent 
and rebellion to our hearts. All these 
things cost money, and as city people 
adopted them faster than country people 
did, naturally the city folks needed more 
and more money to keep alive and keep 
up appearances. The city has been far 
ahead of the country in relating the cost 
of living to the rate of wages, especially 
in trades or occupations which are con¬ 
trolled by labor unions. All the extra 
conveniences of city living and all the 
cost of expensive habits came originally 
out of the land—taken as part of the final 
conumers’ price. The vast rents paid for 
land occupation, the costs of public ser¬ 
vice, the huge wastes of extravagant liv¬ 
ing, are all taken from what we call the 
“consumer’s dollar.” The city, through 
its concentration of power, and through 
“This Little Pig Went to Market” 
T HE New York Central Lines 
serve the stock producing and 
finishing territory of Michigan, Illi¬ 
nois, Indiana, Ohio and New York, 
and feed into* the great stock yard 
market centers of Buffalo, Detroit, 
Chicago, Indianapolis, St. Louis, 
Cleveland, and numerous other 
points. 
The serving of these large and in¬ 
dependent markets has carried with 
it an obligation. It has meant a 
special livestock study. A system 
known as the “livestock pick-up ser¬ 
vice” was designed to dispense with 
feeding in transit, and save excess 
shrinkage and extra feeding charges. 
Shipments made under this service 
are closely checked by agents of the 
Agricultural Department of the 
Lines, who use every effort to remove 
causes of delay or unsatisfactory 
handling in transit. Suggestions 
made regarding livestock shipments 
are reducing the shippers’ losses. 
The object of raising livestock and 
food crops is to deliver them to con¬ 
suming centers and the seaboard for 
shipment abroad. 
The world is still looking to us for 
its food. There must be no crops 
unshipped and undelivered. 
The New York Central Lines have 
set themselves to this task. To do so, 
they have adopted as their guiding 
principle, “With, and not for, the 
farmer .” 
It is not enough that production 
be increased. It must be increased 
at profit and permanent value to 
the farmer. 
The Agricultural Department will 
help you to ship “the little pig to 
market.” 
THE NEW YORK C ENTRAL LINES 
MICHIGAN CENTRAL - BIG FOUR ^ LAKE ERIE tr WESTERN* 
BOSTON & ALBANY - TOLEDO & OHIO CENTRAL - PITTSBURGH &IAKE ERIE 
NEW YORK CENTRAL - A ND - SUBSIDIARY^ LINES 
New York Central Station AGRICULTURAL DEPARTMENT La SaUe Street Station 
Rochester, N. Y. Grand Central Terminal, New York City Chicago, 
