RURAL NEW-YORKER 
' nci TT • I H/KIVC.SS lyj 
A Sensible Optimist on the Farmers’ Future 
Can you help me out? I am in debt about as much 
as I am worth, am 32 years old. times are hard, and I 
am afraid I shall go broke. Would I better unload 
everything at anything I can get? Will farming ever 
pay? n. e. 
Pennsylvania. 
D O not unload anything. Hang on “like a pup to 
a root” and grab more. “Better bear the ills 
you have than flee to others” that will surely get 
you. This condition affects everyone, but least of 
all the farmers. Only 50,000 auto workers at De¬ 
troit, instead of 300,000. Census of Akron now, 100,- 
000; was 200,000. Farmers have only lost $5,000,- 
Making Rows for Sowing Seed. Fig. 78 
(See Page 188) 
000,000, but have stamina 3 ’et to kick like everything. 
Try that kind of a loss on any other industry, try it 
on any two, and they will be dead as Balaam’s mule. 
Look at the merchants praying for customers, living 
like coons and bears on the fat they acquired the 
past few years, tremblingly fearing their Winter 
will last too long. Notice the increasing number of 
financial deaths, not among farmers. Dun lists 8,881 
in 1920. 
“N. R.,” how much meat have you walking or 
snoozing about your place? What stocks of wheat 
and corn have you to draw on for food? Run down 
cellar and invoice the potatoes, apples, onions, etc., 
especially your wife’s canned stuff. What’s the mat¬ 
ter with you, anyhow? Who cares about your debt? 
Every young man should be in, because it is an evi¬ 
dence of prosperity. I formerly owed nearly every 
man r met, and was glad to see him. You should be 
proud anyone would trust you with his money. When 
I was 10 years old. with my father in a store on 
Harrison street. New York. I heard a man say: 
“Every young man should go in debt and then work 
to get out.” 
On the other hand, men’s hearts are failing them, 
but the farmer who is hopeless is also foolish. He 
should be thankful he is a farmer, even if he has no 
farm, but knows how and likes it. The writer has 
done about as much farm work as any are ever priv- 
ileged to do, and keeps on because it is fun. The 
farmer was caught out in the financial storm, but is 
less injured than anyone. lie deserved a lesson, be¬ 
cause he was plunging aftei-all the dollars he could 
dream of, like others. He plunged after maximum 
production on maximum acreage, regardless of ex¬ 
pense; even plunged after “wildcat” stuff. He nearly 
broke his own and his wife’s neck to follow that “two 
blade” heresy, and when he got them they made him 
sick. Everyone except the farmer knows that max¬ 
imum production means minimum prices, and now he 
may not forget it. 
He has nothing yet, by comparison, to complain of. 
No boss can order him out or in, or fire him. and no 
landlord can raise his rent nor set him out in the 
street. Look at his table at mealtime. His dog is 
better off than some folks. No 30-cent potatoes with 
hollow hearts for him. and no pair of eggs (one 
tainted) for 50 cents. Watch his good wife select 
the largest, nicest-loo.king, to cook for him. From 
stinginess or carelessness he has stood alone the 
prey of every organized interest, and if farming 
was not the safest and surest snap for mankind he 
would have been devoured. The Creator knew the 
best avocation when He started our first parents in 
horticulture and general farming. Then he walked 
into any kind of traps set in plain view for him, 
“free demonstrations” caught him. Anything, re¬ 
gardless of cost to help him turn his soil plant food 
into grains. 
His only trouble now is that he cannot sell his 
stuff at what it cost him because he paid too much. 
He also grew so much lie could not care for it, and 
now a lot of his corn is rotting in the fields because 
he will not pay 15 to 20 cents a bushel to buskers 
who run a bright chance of going hungry before 
Spring. He should have learned something from 
manufacturers, who never overload the market, but 
make only enough to sell readily, at their price. He 
is learning though, and now only buys what he 
needs and “passes it up” if the seller wants to gouge 
him. He sees disgusting war-made millionaires no 
better than burglars or highwaymen, and what or¬ 
ganization has done to him, and is doing a little on 
his own account. lie reads a headline in the Janu- 
uary 4 papers. “Congressional action today demon¬ 
strated the force of farmer pressure.” That is the 
first time printers’ ink was ever used for a like ex¬ 
pression. 
Farmers are more numerous than any class, have 
more financial, moral, industrial and intellectual 
worth, and they can get all they deserve. They have 
been a sleeping giant, but the lazy old thing has 
awakened enough to “demonstrate pressure,” and 
good days will come when he gets his eyes wide open, 
when he becomes an optimist and compels optimism. 
Listen to the present-day optimists who have been 
profiteering so faithfully. An automobile maker 
says: “We are looking for a good year in 1921.” A 
motor man, “Most of the people have a mild form of 
panic and are worse scared than hurt.” A builder, 
“The corpse of public credit will spring to its feet.” 
A textile maker, “It is reasonable to assume with the 
low price of wool and cotton that confidence of the 
public will soon be established,” and a rubber man 
remarks, “With the advent of Spring there will be a 
demand for all rubber’goods that will surprise the 
most pessimistic.” They are a fine bunch of opti¬ 
mists. If they had left a forest and returned to find 
it all removed they would disregard acorns, nuts and 
seeds, as well as soil chemicals, and expect it to re¬ 
turn over night. They take the farmer for granted, 
so listen to one on sensible optimism. 
Prosperity will come when the farmer gets profit¬ 
able prices for his yields and buys things. The al¬ 
leged enormous crops will prove mythical, and they 
will hasten the day they can buy things if they will 
take advice like we read for polecat hunters. No¬ 
tice it. “Many dealers are urging trappers to take a 
vacation until the supply of raw furs on hand is 
somewhat cut down.” Farmers must plan for the 
good of the public. They must get money and spend 
it so the laboring man can get work. Whether w< 
grow much or little food or clothing material, he 
must pay high prices. Large yields injure both him 
and us. With all our exploited food. 50.000.00o 
people in China are dying of starvation, hundreds of 
millions are famishing in many countries, and our 
wage earners are working in that direction. Our 
planting this year must be done temperately, with an 
eye to maximum yield on minimum acreage. Cows, 
gilts and ewes will be held to supply a sensible mar 
Watering a Seed Box. Fig. 80. (Sec Page 188) 
ket next Fall, when we are going to put money in 
circulation again. Now, brace up, “N. R.,” and 
everybody. w. w. Reynolds. 
Ohio. ____ 
Idaho Silo and Irrigating Ditch 
IG. 77 reproduces a photograph of the first 
concrete silo built in South Idaho. It has been 
in use 10 years; size 10x30 ft., G ft. in the ground 
24 ft. above. It used G2 sacks of cement. Three and 
one-half acres of corn filled it; variety of corn. Min¬ 
nesota No. 13. When it was filled the first Fall there 
was not a silage cutter in the county to be had. We 
used a small size (11-in. knives) hay chopper, run 
by a three horsepower gas engine. One man shov¬ 
eled from cutter into silo. When it was as high as he 
could shovel a platform was erected to throw on, 
and a second man shoveled in silo, and this relay 
system worked nicely, with two men inside. W(j 
had a fine quality of choice feed for balancing our 
Alfalfa for our Jersey dairy cows. Our books show 
we have never filled it any cheaper than that first 
year. Now we use a blower. This silo is two miles 
south and east of Nampa, in the Boise-Payette irri¬ 
gation project. All our crops are (and have to he) 
grown by irrigation. You will notice near silo the 
water lateral that we can use for our crops. Yet 
this water has never bothered in the silo. I have 
traveled up and down Idaho talking growing corn 
by irrigation and carrying a miniature silo form to 
show interested farmers how to go about to build 
one, and most of the time at my own expense. Now 
there are over 200 silos, one co-operative creamery, 
one private creamery, and the Carnation Company 
has a large condensery, all in Canyon County, and 
the latest machinery in their plants at Nampa, 
fdaho. <T. S. STINSON. 
A. Roadside Stand in New England. Fig. 79. (See l‘age 188) 
A Market Gardener’s Hotbeds. Fig. 81. (See Page 18S) 
