598 
The RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
April ltt, 1921 
HOPE FARM NOTES 
I fijid many farmers who are quite a 
little troubled over the figures shown by 
the last census. There were some who 
actually expected a gain in rural popu¬ 
lation, and an increase in the number 
of farms. The facts show a steady de¬ 
cline in rural population and in the num¬ 
ber of farms. Here and there we find a 
county which shows a slight gain in farms 
or population, but in the great majority 
of cases there are fewer farms and fewer 
farmers than there were 10 years ago. 
No use talking, there has been a weeding- 
out process going on, and 1 do not think 
it is ended yet. In many cases, as in this 
locality, the farms have mostly given 
place to small towns—little suburban vil¬ 
lages where commuters live. That is, they 
sleep here and work in the city. That 
change from farm to commuter town is 
going on steadily all over the East. It 
is a part of industrial development, and 
cannot well be prevented. 
The change in what is called the “open 
country”—that is, the true farming sec¬ 
tion back from town—is different and 
more significant. Not so many farms are 
being abandoned as you might think. 
Some of them are no longer occupied, but 
they are usually worked by some near-by 
farmer or used as pasture. Some are 
being planted in great orchards. I think 
that in the future many more will be 
seeded to Sweet clover and used to pas¬ 
ture beef, mutton and pork. We are 
going through a mighty industrial change, 
which was brought to a .climax by the 
Great War. We have not yet been able 
to adjust ourselves to it, and a dozen 
influences, all the way from imagination 
to immigration, have worked to skim the 
cream of farm population and dump it into 
the great city churn. There is nothing 
new in the great desire of bright young 
people to get away from farming. Dur¬ 
ing the past few' years the attractions of 
town life have been printed in italics, 
and red ink at that, but in every gener¬ 
ation since Jamestown and Plymouth 
Rock there have always been boyg and 
girls who were born to do other work 
than farming. Their natural instincts led 
them away from the farm, and it was a 
mistake to try to keep them there. The 
trouble has been that most boys and girls 
were not trained for anything in particu¬ 
lar. They were not taught to see any 
joy or glory in the job of farming. When 
they saw the naturally bright ones going 
to town and doing well, they wanted to 
follow, though they were in no way 
fitted for town life. For instance, some 
boy with a naturally mechanical mind 
goes to work in a garage. He does well 
and invents some new contrivance, and 
coiffes to have a shop of his own. Other 
boys who have no power of invention 
think they can do the same. The result 
is a misfit in the city, who must be pro¬ 
vided for in some way, and the spoiling 
of a good farmer. 
* * * ff ■> 
I think these .are three things we must 
consider in this great change. First is 
the matter of credit or capital. I find 
many farmers who complain because they 
cannot borrow money easily. In many 
such cases these men would be far better 
off without any borrowed capital what¬ 
ever. It takes a good manager t<> handle 
money to advantage. I think that as a 
rule the average farmer would be better 
off if he held right to the limit of his 
own labor and capital, did what he could 
with that, and refused to borrow. Of 
course, he would seem to be doing a very 
small business, and might for a time rank 
as a “piker” or little man. In the end 
he would be better off. The vast num¬ 
ber of mortgages and recorded debts piled 
up against farm property arc chiefly due 
to the desire to work on borrowed cap¬ 
ital, and the failure to make such capital 
earn a fair income. Of course. 1 know 
that, this idea is not popular. The aver¬ 
age man will say he is just as capable of 
handling and working money as anyone. 
As a rule, the less capable the man is 
to do this, the larger his idea of his own 
capacity. I have heard people tell young 
farmers- that a man ought to be ashamed 
of himself not to have a mortgage on his 
property. In some cases that is the most 
dangerous talk you can possibly give a 
young man. Personally. I think more 
fanners are suffering ae the result of for¬ 
mer borrowing than because they cannot 
obtain credit. I think we shall all be 
better off to work away from credit if 
possible, and to operate on such capital 
as we can raise from our own resources. 
Of course, I know this is not popular, 
but the most common observation among 
my own friends convinces me that it is 
tme. 
* -•!< * * * 
Ate a matter of plain business, why 
should we complain because the propor¬ 
tion of farms to population is growing 
smaller? In Dakota there is less than 
one consumer for each farm, while in 
Rhode Island there are nearly 150. All 
over the Atlantic slope the proportion of 
people who must be fed to each farm or 
farm acre grows larger and larger. To 
me this is a great industrial advantage 
if we handle it wisely. Suppose the man- 
faoturers found population growing rap¬ 
idly while the number of factories was 
steadily diminishing. That would mean 
an increased demand for their goods with 
less and less competition and more and 
more of a monopoly. Suppose the labor 
unions found that the number of skilled 
workmen was growing smaller, while the 
demand for skilled labor was increasing. 
They would not regard that as a calamity, 
but, on the other hand, as an advantage, 
because it would give them something of 
a monopoly in the labor market, and a 
chance to obtain high wages. In much 
the same way this decrease in the number 
of farms is not entirely an evil if you 
look at it in a large way. It means loss 
and trouble in many small sections or 
neighborhoods, but in a large way it is 
part of the great adjustment now going 
on all over the world, and in the end 
many farmers will be better off as a re¬ 
sult. Even now we are producing too 
much food for our present methods of 
distribution. If we were to double the 
number of food producers we would be 
worse off industrially than we are now, 
for who does, not know that farmers are 
better off in years of small crop produc¬ 
tion? .Many of us are still producing the 
wrong crops. By that I mean crops not 
best adapted to our soil or our markets. 
We have got to change that, and cut 
out. the crops that, are not suited. It 
will not pay any of ns to stick to any 
losing proposition just because we and 
other farmers in our locality have always 
followed it. My father's old garden in 
New England has raised crops continu¬ 
ously for more than 300 years. It was 
a garden before the white man came, 
and the soil is stronger and more pro¬ 
ductive now than ever before. When I 
was a boy my uncle cleared a piece 
of land of pine trees. It was poor 
soil, not fitted for crop raising, but the 
old gentleman kept at it, raising puny 
crops for years at a loss. If he had 
planted it in pine trees and let it alone 
for oO years, it would now be producing 
lumber enought to support me! While 
socially the loss of farm population is 
bad, as a matter of industry, it will prove 
an advantage. The great demand for 
tariffs on farm products has come up 
suddenly as a result of thinking this thing 
out. Of course, our people see that as 
farm population grows smaller in its 
proportion to consumers farm crops will 
be diminished with a larger share and 
a fairer price going to each farm. That 
will mean an advantage to farming, if 
farmers are able to have at least some 
control over prices and distribution. The 
manufacturer must have cheap food for 
his workmen, while the farmer must have 
a fair price or he cannot endure. As 
American production falls off tin' manu¬ 
facturer will endeavor to import cheap 
food from any corner of the world. The 
farm leaders see that, and thus they are 
moving to secure tariffs which they think 
will equalize and maintain prices. 
* * $ tf 
And personally I think a readjustment 
of rural population will not be so bad 
as many think. We do not need any 
more unsatisfied and complaining people 
in the country. When a man must live 
on a farm because he thinks he has to, 
lie becomes a slave, living without joy or 
hope. He does farming no good whatever, 
and as a rule his children miss the real 
pleasure of farm life. I think we should 
be honest about it, and admit that when 
a farm family must live a lifelong round 
of bitter disappointment and complaint, 
against conditions, it would be better for 
all if they could leave the farm for a 
time and try some other life. In many 
cases 1 think they would, after an experi¬ 
ence in town, gladly go back and try it 
over. But when these hopeless and em¬ 
bittered people leave the farm, I cannot 
honestly think that farming has sustained 
any great loss. For farming is different 
from any other line of business. No ex¬ 
perienced farmer goes into the business 
expecting to make a great fortune. In 
some few exceptional cases men have made 
some money at plain crop production, 
hue he who goes into the business simply 
for the money there may be in it will 
fail to be satisfied. My idea of farming 
is that the farm may offer the best living 
that a man can find anywhere. There is 
no more satisfying life in the world than 
that of the man on a reasonable farm 
living simply within his income, close to 
the soil and with nothing between him 
and the sky. A man to feel that way 
must be a natural farmer, well content to 
live simply and earnestly. 
He shall he like a tree planted hy the 
rivers of water! 
I do not think the world would greatly 
suffer if most of the “misfits” and un¬ 
natural farmers finally leave the rural dis¬ 
tricts. There are plenty of natural farm¬ 
ers who love the soil and are fairly 
planted in it. I think the weeding-out 
process will be likely to go on until more 
and more of the unhappy workers are 
taken out. Those who survive will be 
literally “the salt of the earth.” They 
will hold their homes and their places, 
and I think they will be in the future 
the finest and most influential class of 
all our Americans. As I write this the 
sky is clear, the grass on the lawn is 
green, and the apple trees are beginning 
to push out their buds. Spring is coming 
with a rush. There may be some sharp 
frost lying in ambush for us, but I hope 
not. On a day like this somehow we for¬ 
get the old farm troubles and disappoint¬ 
ments, and face the job once more with 
courage. The children are playing ball 
on the lawn—before dinner. I’m going 
out to run off the last of this grippe de¬ 
pression. . ii. w. C. 
from the disturbances which 
often follow tea and coffee 
drinking"- by a change to 
Instant 
POSTUM 
*jfhis delicious cereal beverage of 
coffee-like flavor is prepared 
instantly in the cup to suit your 
taste-free from any harmful 
element— economical- satisfying 
“Theres a Reason for Postum 
SOLD BY GROCERS 
EVERYWHERE! 
Made by 
Postum Cereal Company, Inc 
Battle Creek,Michigan.. 
rm 
LUj 
nccru’ii ii 111 ii ii 111 mi i ii 
A 
Instant 
® POSTUM 
A BEVERAGE 
•*ade of different pert* of Wheat 
• smell portion of Mol#i* e * 
Postum Cereal Company. 
BaTTIC C*(C«. HiCm.USA. # 
NCT WtlGMT CIGMT 0UMCC9. 
--^diTH S 
BANNER* 
Compressed Am Sprayk 
Whitewashing 
poultry-houses 
SPRAYING 
TREES 
BRASS 
CASTINGS 
AUTOMATIC 
BRASS 
NOZZLE 
THROWS 
LONG 
DISTANCE 
FINE MIST 
OR COARSE 
SPRAY 
Sprays trees, shrubs, .potatoes and field crops 
for insects and fungus; sprays stables, pig 
and poultry pens and barn yards for lice, ver¬ 
min and for disinfecting 
Also useful for whitewashing stables, poultry 
houses and fences. 
It’s handy too, for washing windows, buggies 
and for spraying stock. 
SMITH 
N2 22. 
COMPRESSED AIR SPRAYER 
Banner 
Heavy, 4-gallon galvanized steel or brass 
tank, strongly made. Easy to fill—by 
detaching pump. Pump is seamless brass, 
2 inches in diameter; nothing to rust, cor¬ 
rode or wear out. 
Handle easily locks into pump. A few strokes 
of pump and tank is filled with compressed 
air. Automatic, Brass, Non-cloggable Noz¬ 
zle throws long, fine mist or coarse spray. No 
waste. Easily operated by man, woman or 
child. 
This No. 22 Banner is built to stand rough, 
hard service. Be sure and ask for it by name. 
If your dealer cannot supply you, write 
D. B. SMITH & CO., Manufacturers 
50 Genesee St., UTICA, N. Y. 
On sale in New York City at No. 98 Chambers St. 
We make 50 different tyles and sizes of spray¬ 
ers. If you are intere. ed in smaller or larger 
sprayers send for catalog. 
SPRAYING VEGETABLES OlSINFECTINC STABLES 
When you write advertisers mention The R. N.-Y. and you’ll get a 
quick reply and a “square deal.” See guarantee editorial page. 
