£06 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
May 24, 1924 
stroy the economic balance and threaten grave dan¬ 
gers to the social structure. 
Americans not long past middle life can recall a 
time when the census figures showed the population 
of the United States two-thirds rural and one-third 
urban. The census of 1920 disclosed the startling 
fact that more than half of the inhabitants of the 
country were living in cities or towns; and there 
are abundant indications that the movement city¬ 
ward has been accelerated since then. With the 
army of food consumers constantly growing, and the 
number of food producers steadily decreasing, it is 
obvious that within the next generation or two the 
nation will face the approach of a food shortage, 
presenting a problem more serious than any imagin¬ 
able threat of armed invasion; 
With a vast surplus of wheat bringing less than a 
dollar a bushel, and the prices of other grains al¬ 
most as low, it may appear to some readers that the 
trouble with agriculture is overproduction rather 
than underproduction. Such an assumption is un¬ 
sound. The deplorable situation of the farmers of 
the West, which has caused widespread depression 
in several great States, is one of the results of the 
abnormal conditions of the war period. The 
American farmer has always raised a surplus of 
wheat: for many years this constituted the country’s 
chief item of export, and made it possible to main¬ 
tain a fairly stable rate of exchange. Since the 
war the European market has been closed, because 
of the impoverishment of the masses and the depre¬ 
ciation of their currency. 
When the American farmer was told that “food 
will win the war,” he speeded up production and 
increased his output to the utmost ; this was a pa¬ 
triotic contribution to the national cause, although 
the farmer expected, and had a right to expect, 
that the product of his heavy toil would yield him 
a fair return. Tinder that stimulus the acreage of 
wheat was greatly enlarged. But while the farmer 
was growing more wheat, he could not govern the 
price, which is fixed by the demand and supply at 
Liverpool, where the surplus stocks from all parts 
of the world are sold. Deprived of his foreign mar¬ 
ket, he had to sell his wheat in the overloaded home 
market, at prices fixed in Liverpool. 
But the western farmer is not the only sufferer; in 
all parts of the country agriculture is in decline. 
This is shown by the tens of thousands of farm 
mortgages foreclosed each year; by the increasing 
number of abandoned farms, especially in the East; 
by the rapid spread of tenant farming, and by the 
falling values of farm lands, as witnessed by the 
Chester County transaction the other day. Another 
recent sign of the times is the closing of a Minne¬ 
sota bank, as the result of the tying up of its re- 
sou rces in farm loans which had become “frozen 
a ssets.” 
Analysis of the prevailing agricultural depression 
discloses many causative factors. But when all the 
others have been taken into account there is one 
which exerts an overshadowing influence in making 
farming an unprofitable industry and in undermin¬ 
ing the market value of farm lands. That is the 
scarcity and excessive cost of labor. 
The stimulation of industry and the consequent 
growth of cities have steadily depleted the rural re-, 
gions of the man power necessary to carry on the 
diverse tasks of the farms. A strong argument can 
be made for the proposition that when the labor 
unions raise wages and shorten hours of work they 
bring about a general social advance. When Henry 
Ford establishes a minimum wage of $5 or $6 for a 
day’s work, setting a standard which competing en¬ 
terprises must follow, he is hailed as a benefactor 
of society. But upon the farmer the effect of such 
movements is disastrous, for they make it more and 
more difficult for him to obtain help. With $7.50 
the daily wage for common labor in the unionized 
bituminous mines, what chance has he to compete? 
These conditions explain the sacrificing of the 
Chester County farm. It was for years a profitable 
dairy farm; with modern methods it could support 
75 cows, or pay handsomely as a plant for inten¬ 
sive agriculture. Lack of help compelled the own¬ 
er to raise wheat and oats and hay, which require a 
minimum of human labor. But at best, farming of 
that kind pays only where land is cheap and opera¬ 
tions are on a large scale. With soil adapted to the 
most valuable crops, with the best of transporta¬ 
tion facilities and with markets for foodstuffs close 
by. the owner was helpless to make use of his equip¬ 
ment, and had to retire from the struggle. 
Such an incident, duplicated innumerable times, 
signifies a process of agricultural depletion which is 
of the utmost gravity. Farming is an occupation re¬ 
quiring exceptional qualifications of knowledge and 
skill. Efficient industrial labor can be more quickly 
trained, workers in the professions can be more 
quickly educated, than a competent farming class 
could be created. For one farmer to leave the soil 
means a heavier economic loss to the country than 
would the vanishing of a dozen of the most skillful 
industrial workers. 
If the farmers were to pay the industrial scale 
of wages, the cost of food would be so high that 
revolution would be in the air. To avert catas¬ 
trophes threatened by food scarcity and high prices, 
the government would be compelled to seek supplies 
in other parts of the world; thereby it would be 
forced into competition with other countries, would 
have to increase its naval power to protect its com¬ 
munications, and would be in constant danger of in¬ 
volvement with its rivals. 
Prophecies made familiar by repetition picture the 
United States of the future as a nation of two or 
three hundred millions, politically free, economically 
secure and socially enlightened. If this forecast is 
to be realized—if, indeed, our national existence is 
to be preserved at all—there must be wrought a 
revolutionary improvement in the condition of agri¬ 
culture, the main power plant of our system of civi¬ 
lization. 
Viewed superficially, the sale of that Chester 
County farm is merely a minor transaction in real 
estate. To anyone who studies the circumstances 
with understanding it is a danger signal as ominous 
as would be the shadow of oncoming war or pesti¬ 
lence. 
Mangels a Crop for Hens and Cows 
REPARING THE SOIL. — Nearly every poul- 
tryman in this section grows a few mangels for 
feeding in Winter to his poultry, as by experience 
this vegetable has been found to give better results 
than can be secured by any other crop, be it cab¬ 
bage, turnips, or even sprouted oats. Also, poultry- 
men have found that mangels will give more succu¬ 
lent matter per acre for poultry than can be pro¬ 
vided in any other manner. There may not he much 
dry matter in mangels, but there certainly come a lot 
of eggs from somewhere when mangels form a part 
of the ration. The best method, if one wishes to 
grow mangels on a large scale, is to start with a 
clover sod, turn that under and grow potatoes for 
one year, fertilizing this crop heavily with commer¬ 
cial fertilizer, so that a residue of phosphoric acid 
and potash may be left in the soil, after digging the 
potato crop. Many poultrymen manage to get along 
successfully without purchasing any commercial fer¬ 
tilizer, using the manure provided by their hens. 
This manure is really a mixture of hen manure and 
acid phosphate, as the poultrymen use large quan¬ 
tities of the latter, which they scatter over the drop¬ 
pings boards and gather up with the manure when 
the boards are cleaned. This mixture is quite rich 
in nitrogen and phosphoric acid, but a little lean in 
potash, but on some of our clay loams it seems to 
give just as good remits as a fertilizer of a heavier 
potash content. Alter the potato crop is gathered 
the field is left all Winter in the rough, just as left 
by the potato digger. No cover crop is sown. There 
is very little waste of plant food in this section, as 
the ground is frozen practically all Winter, and the 
growers would rather lose a little fertility than be 
bothered with the extra cultivation which is re¬ 
quired when a cover crop is turned under before 
planting mangels. 
SOWING THE SEED.—As early as possible in 
the Spring the ground is plowe and thoroughly 
harrowed, perhaps being harrowed four or five 
times. Sometimes during the harrowing process a 
commercial fertilizer is applied, and nearly always 
lime or limestone is broadcast and harrowed in. An 
acid soil will not grow mangels. From this point 
on there are two methods of growing mangels in 
vogue in this section. One method is to sow the 
seed in the rows where the mangels are to finish the 
growth; the other is by the transplanting method, 
both having their advocates. The work required is 
about the same. It takes as long and is just as 
much a backbreaking job to thin as it is to trans¬ 
plant. If the mangels are to be grown by the direct 
planting of seed method, after the field has been 
plowed, harrowed and limed, it is marked out into 
ridges about 3 ft. apart. These ridges are made by 
taking one horse and a common corn plow and going 
across the field and back-throwing two furrows to¬ 
gether, so they lap just the same as when starting 
to plow 7 a back furrow 7 . This is done every 3 ft., so 
that when the field is finished it is virtually a series 
of ridges 3 ft. apart. These ridges are then slightly 
leveled or smoothed on top by running over them 
with a light smoothing liarx'ow, using one horse, let¬ 
ting him walk down the furrows between the ridges. 
Where fields are somewrinit stony, and we have many 
fields of this kind in this section, the tops of the 
ridges are smoothed off w 7 ith a hand rake. The 
main object of the ridges is to get rid of the small 
stones, which by this method roll down the hills or 
slopes, away from the small seedlings when they 
come to be worked. The ridges having been smoothed 
down, or rather smoothed off on top, there is a space 
of perhaps 4 in. of flat surface on top of the ridges. 
Then a seed drill is run on top of these ridges, and 
the mangel seed drilled in, about 4 lbs. of seed being 
used to the acre. 
THINNING.—In about two weeks the seedlings 
will be ready for a slight stirring. This is done by 
taking an ordinary garden rake, placing it against 
the beets in the row and drawing it lightly away 
down a short distance. More often a double wheel- 
hoe is used, straddling the row of mangels, using the 
small curved hoes. This breaks the crust and dis¬ 
courages w r eed growth. Then thinning has to be 
done religiously, or there will be no crop. Many of 
the growers use a garden rake for this purpose. To 
thin with this tool, it is drawn carefully across the 
row when the plants are quite small. This will thin 
out the plants and also seems to act as a good hoe¬ 
ing. In about 10 days later the final thinning takes 
place, which is actual hand work. The rule in hand 
thinning is to “grab the beet you wish to leave, hold 
that down and pull everything else.” The plants are 
thinned to about S in. apart. Then, in a few days, 
after they have straightened up, the wheel hoe is 
again run along the rows, and after that all culti¬ 
vating is done by horsepower, using a 14-tooth culti¬ 
vator, or one of the various types of garden horse 
hoes. After the thinning there is very little hand 
work to do, as the rank growth of leaves soon 
smothers all weed growth. When ready for harvest 
the leaves are cut from the mangels with a short- 
handled hoe, which is ground down sharp, like a 
knife, and the mangels are pulled and carried to the 
cellars, where they are racked up like cordwood, or 
piled in bins, to be fed out as needed. 
THE TRANSPLANTING METHOD.—By the 
transplanting method the seeds are sown in the 
greenhouse or in the oxxt of dooi’s hotbed, the same 
as cabbage seed, and grown until they ai*e about the 
size of lead pencils; then they are transplanted to 
the field. After the field is thoroughly prepared, in¬ 
stead of marking it off in ridges as in the previous 
described method, it is mai'ked oxit into furrows 3 ft. 
apart. Then a high-grade fertilizer is sown down 
these furrows and a cultivator which has had the 
blades i*emoved from the standards is shut up tight 
and run down the furrows, to stir in the fertilizer 
and practically fill the furrows. These fui*rows are 
left a few days to settle, and then the transplanting 
takes place. The mangels are transplanted to the 
permanent rows just the same as we would set pep- 
pers, cabbage or celery. They are set about 1 ft. 
apart, or 15,000 to the acre. After the plants are 
set a few days cultivation begins with a horse culti¬ 
vator 1 , and is repeated about once a week until har¬ 
vest time. Transplanted mangels seem to grow 
larger in diameter, but not so long as those grown 
direct from seed. I believe that this is due to the 
fact that the tap-root is broken in the ti-ansplanting 
process, for many times there will be two or three 
tap-roots on the transplanted mangels, but always 
one straight one to the beets grown direct from the 
seed. c. o. warfobd. 
The Young Generation and the Land 
1 rented a portion of a small property last Summer 
to some of our neighbors who wanted to start house¬ 
keeping for themselves The house was not large, but 
had four rooms, an attic, a cellar, porch and out- 
kitchen, surrounded by a yard of ample proportions. 
The rent included a large garden better than our own 
(and we live in the best part of the Conestoga Valley). 
They kept 50 chickens and some ducks in the poultry- 
house, and had the use of a stable, and a shed in which 
they kept their car. Besides this, thei-e wae an aci;e 
or more of land on which they expected to raise their 
own potatoes and truck. 
One of the conditions was that I could call on the 
man for help in harvest time if we needed him. He 
did this, but because of a shower w T e did not make a 
full day, but his time paid the rent of his home for 
two months. 
I may add that although they rented the place for $2 
per month, and 1 paid the taxes, they had hard getting 
along, because of the car, parties, dances, and all the 
rest, and while the young man is an expert ironworker 
and gets big money, either in the iron mills or on the 
State i-oads, they have difficulty in making ends meet, 
and will never be able to buy even the little place they 
lived on, which was sold a few years ago for $300; a 
place wliere the older generations flourished and pi-os- 
pered and raised big families on the 13 aci-es. 
Pennsylvania. H. B. best. 
