Pit RURAL NEW-YORKER 
831 
One Man’s Power to Produce Food 
F ARM populations are steadily diminishing in 
this country, while town population is increas¬ 
ing rapidly. For years now there has been a steady 
drain from the country into the city, thus changing 
producers of food into consumers. There are more 
mouths to he filled with food, and there are fewer 
hands left to produce that food. Farm labor was 
never harder to obtain than at this time, yet in 
spite of all these evident facts, there is an over¬ 
production of many kinds of foods. There is more 
milk, more wheat and usually more potatoes, than 
can be profitably distributed by our present meth¬ 
ods. It cannot be said that there is any over-pro¬ 
duction of food in the sense that there is more of it 
than our people would consume if they were able 
to eat all they cared to, but there is more produced 
than our present system of distribution can handle, 
and thus a surplus is created which determines the 
price which is paid to our farmers. How can it 
he that farm production keeps up with consumption, 
when there are fewer to produce food? Such a 
proposition upsets all the organized theories of sup¬ 
ply and demand. If 20 years ago seven men pro¬ 
duced food for 10 families, how can five men now 
produce food for 12 families? That might seem an 
impossible problem until we study the 
development of farm power and farm 
machinery as applied to production. 
The modern equipment represents a 
wonderful development from the old- > 
time scythe and rake and flail, or the 
ox-team plow and the brush harrow. 
'File writer of this can well remember 
when every pound of hay was cut by 
a scythe and raked by hand. In those 
days there was a surplus of farm labor 
and we often wonder what would have 
happened to humanity if at that time, 
before the great city gave us markets, 
we had used tractors and all the won¬ 
derful machinery which now finds its 
place on many of our farms. The sit¬ 
uation would probably have been worse 
than it is today. 
The development of farm imple¬ 
ments has given one man greater 
power of production by enabling him 
to fit and handle a larger tract of land 
than he could with the old-time tools, 
and it is probable that the development 
of farm machinery has had more or 
less to do with the draining of farm 
labor from the farm into the city. 
Even today, in South Africa ox power 
and crude labor is employed at corn 
production, and with this inferior 
labor the South Africans are actually 
competing to a small extent with this 
country, in exporting corn. Should the 
time come when that country can use 
tractors and powerful machinery in 
grain production, it will enter largely 
into the world’s market but under 
present conditions this powerful and 
expensive machinery cannot be used 
in that country to advantage. 
The chemists tell us that the time 
will surely come when a very large 
proportion of our so-called food, will 
be prepared in the laboratory and that, in those 
coming days-, the land will produce but a small pro¬ 
portion of our food supply. It will take a hundred 
years to develop into that change of industry. But 
the chemists assure us that the time will come when 
the laboratory will take the place of the field, but 
at present the greater development will evidently be 
along the line of increasing the power of skillful 
man to produce food. For example, the pictures 
here shown are taken from a bulletin issued by the 
University of Maryland, illustrating the power of 
modern machinery. In the old days a farmer would 
hitch a yoke of cattle to a brush harrow which rep¬ 
resented a bunch of twigs and branches tied together 
so that the brush scratched and fitted the ground. 
In that way he might fit two or three acres a day 
for small grain. The three-liorse outfit here shown 
will usually cover 30 acres a day, and give it a 
thorough harrowing. Or take the picture shown at 
Fig. 302 which is evidently being used to fit a corn¬ 
field for small grain. After plowing, this outfit is 
run over the field or it may be used without the 
plowing. There is a disk harrow in front which 
turns or chops up the soil while what is known as 
the roller packer follows and completes the job. By 
using the tractor one man is thus enabled to do the 
work of three, while the tractor substitutes for 10 
horses. These are the things which are making it 
possible for fewer hands to provide food for the peo¬ 
ple. There has been a temporary halt in the de¬ 
velopment of farm machinery for the last few years, 
owing to economic trouble, but the developments 
will still go on, and the application of power to 
machines will still further increase the ability of 
one man to fit the soil for crops. 
A Farmer and a Garden 
At our next Grange meeting I am to present a dis¬ 
cussion on the following topic: “How can a farmer be 
made to realize the importance of making and caring 
for a garden?” Could you send me some helps on this 
topic? a. E. R. 
New York. 
I 
T will depend on the farmer, his history, age and 
condition of his mind. We have seen farmers 
who were in some way greatly prejudiced against a 
garden on the farm. Just why they were so would 
be hard to explain, but they will not listen to or¬ 
dinary Argument about it. We think such men 
must be reached through the stomach. Get them to 
go out and have dinner at some neighbor’s where the 
garden is a feature of the farm. See that they have 
more than they can eat of asparagus, peas, lettuce, 
starting a good garden. Their children go visiting 
where vegetables are served, and they are taught 
something of modern diet at school. They come 
home and talk about it. The average man is not 
proof against such long-continued comparisons be¬ 
tween his home and others when he knows in his 
heai't that he can end such talks if he will. A few 
bright and energetic women can if they will change 
the habit of thought in any community, and if they 
keep working at this garden proposition, explaining 
the health and comfort and satisfaction that a good 
gai’den will bring, they will in time make any farmer 
see that as his cows cannot do their best on dry 
feed alone, without pasture or silage, how can lie 
expect his family to do their best without vegetables 
or fruit! If there is some eldei’ly man in the family 
he can often be induced to start a garden, and if 
he can become intei'ested in it he will find in the 
wox*k and its l’esults the crowning pleasure of a life 
of labor - . 
Combination of Roller-cruslier and Disk Harrow. F'kj. 302 
Mr. Mole is at it Again 
My garden is being subwayed far more thoroughly 
than New York City by moles or mice. They are mak¬ 
ing a complete job of killing my tulips, peas, and al¬ 
most everything in the place, even going so far as eat¬ 
ing the roots of Dahlias completely away. Having 1*A 
acres to look after in my spare time it is 
quite discouraging to see tulips drop over 
when they are ready to bloom, and peas, 
etc. wilt away as these pests seem to cut 
away a small piece of the stem between 
-the root and ground. Can you advise me 
what to do? F. E. s. 
Dong Island. 
'HAT is the advance guard of doz¬ 
ens of such complaints. There is 
evidently to be a perfect pest of both 
moles and tent-caterpillars this year. 
Very likely both moles and mice are at 
work in your garden. The moles do 
not, as a rule, eat vegetable matter, 
though we have had several reports 
which show that at times they •will do 
so. They will, however, often cut off 
stems or bulbs of plants which grow in 
the way of their burrows. The most 
effective remedy we know is the per¬ 
sistent use of spring mole-traps, the 
kind that fit down over the run and 
are “sprung” by the mole as he passes 
along under ground. It will require 
great patience and a number of these 
traps to catch the moles on this large 
piece of ground. In some cases small 
pieces of liver poisoned with arsenic 
or Paris green are scattered along the 
run. This will help, but is not a sure 
help. Some gardeners report success 
with pouring or injecting bisulphide of 
carbon into the run. This may answer 
when you know where the mole is, but 
taking all things together the persist¬ 
ent use of mole-traps while slow is the 
most efficient remedy. As for mice 
poisoned wheat scattered in the runs 
and covered with soil will generally 
“get them.” 
A Three-section Peg-tooth Harrow With Barrow Cart, Fig, 303 
beets and half a dozen moi’e to choose fi’om. There 
are some men who do not like vegetables. We have 
heard men say they would as soon eat Timothy hay 
as to eat asparagus or lettuce. “Do you take me 
for a cow to eat gi*een fodder?” said one man when 
we offei’ed him spinach. Such men were brought up 
in families where potatoes, turnips and cabbage 
were the only vegetables known, and it is hal’d to 
change their habits. There are not many such, but 
there are hundreds who think gai’dening very small 
business—the woman’s job—not sizable enough for 
a grown man. As a full supply of vegetables will 
not bring any direct money income many farmers 
do not at once see the advantage of it. Let them 
eat dinner at some house where the family get more 
than half their living from the garden and they 
will begin to understand. Sometimes the wife will 
buy asparagus, lettuce and similar goods in town, 
and present the hill to her husband! We know a 
woman who did that, and when her husband saw 
what it cost there was an explosion. The woman 
stood firm, and insisted that her children must be 
brought up to eat vegetables, and she explained as 
best she could how such vegetables and small fruits 
supply vitamines which are so needed by gi’owing 
childi’en. The woman pei’sisted and the man was 
finally convinced. Some farmers are shamed into 
Long Distance Truck Runs 
T am thinking of hauling my straw¬ 
berries to New York by truck, a dis¬ 
tance of say 150 miles, and would like to 
, .. learn of a market to sell these berries bv 
he truckload, for cash. Do you think that it would be 
advisable to haul strawberries on small fast pneumatic 
tire trucks that distance? The run would be about 12 
hours, with good luck, and it would be all good high¬ 
way to run over. T Tr 
Maryland. 
THE probabilties are that it would not be profit- 
A able in the long run to truck berries that dis¬ 
tance. It would be better to tiy selling them in Wil¬ 
mington, Philadelphia, or in some of the numerous 
small places within reasonable distance. Often the 
high-class retail stores in the suburbs of large cities 
are the very best market for a load of this kind. If 
half of the 10 or 12 hours needed for a trip to New 
York City were spent hauling to a nearer market 
and the rest of the time spent in peddling a small 
load at the retail stores in that market, the results 
ought to be better than to take them to New York. 
The wear and repair and maintenance of a truck 
xised for long trips is a heavier charge than xisually 
lealized. I would reckon it altogether not less than 
10 cents a mile, based on figures supplied by a large 
number of truckmen who have continued in business 
long enough to figure it out during the life of a 
truck. For this reason I find that many of the long¬ 
distance runs have been discontinued, especially for 
small trucks, which cost more to operate per cx’ate 
carried. 0i 
