VOL. LXXXIII. 
Published Weekly by The Bural Publishing Co., 
S33 W. 30th St., New York. Price One Dollar a Year 
NEW YORK, JUNE 28, 1924 
Entered a» Second-Class Matter. June 26, 1879, at the Post 
Office at New York, N. 7 under the Act of March 3, 1879. 
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vV 
NO. 4801 
Connecticut Boy in Czecho ak ia 
II - m w POWER OF THE FARMER.—Never of enough to eat. They gave up sugar beet culti- supposed, produce more*- v o^ ^ss of a marketable 
the 
HE POWER OF THE FARMER.—Never 
has the fundamental nature of agriculture 
been more clearly shown than in post-war 
Europe. When the delicate machinery of 
city industry was upset and put off center 
by the tremendous events of 
World War, the people on the 
of enough to eat. They gave up sugar beet culti¬ 
vation. which requires more complicated machinery, 
and allowed their fruit trees in many cases to go 
without proper care. The consequence was that a 
given block of 10.000 acres would not, as we had all 
farms demonstrated the importance of 
their calling. In Russia today agricul¬ 
tural machinery is almost lacking in 
the American sense, but the peasant 
still eats when there is no famine, and, 
what is more important, eat first be¬ 
fore the proletarian worker of the city. 
In the grim struggle for food which 
has taken place in so much of Europe, 
and still is, for that matter, in Ger¬ 
many, where the ration of a grown-up 
may be a boiled potato and a herring, 
the peasant has a distinct advantage. 
From this there springs his political 
power. That he is well organized in 
Czechoslovakia is evinced by the fact 
that the Premier is a member of the 
Agrarian party. In Serbia and Bul¬ 
garia the peasant party is a force to be 
reckoned with. Even in England the 
government finds it well to help the 
farmer in order to keep from becoming 
even more dependent on a foreign food 
supply, whereas in Russia the peasant 
by sheer weight of numbers is able to 
influence the trend of events in the 
city. No, here in Europe articles of 
the kind which frequently appear in 
The R. N.-Y. and other farm papers in 
the United States arguing the impor¬ 
tance of the prosperity of the farmer 
for the good of all concerned are not 
needed. No thoughtful dweller in the 
city here has to be told that the man 
on the land is the most important link 
in the chain. Hard experience with an 
insufficient food supply has taught us. 
We know it. 
BREAKING UP LARGE FARM'S.— 
One of the greatest evils under the old 
system was the concentration of land 
in the hands of too few people. This is 
of course still true in England, al¬ 
though the continuance in power of a 
Labor government may be expected to 
work a change. On Continental Eu¬ 
rope, however, several new States ap¬ 
peared on the map, and some of the 
older ones became more democratic. 
Thus there ensued an effort to break 
up the large estates by taxation, if not 
by forcible division. A farm of say 
200 acres or more would have to pay 
higher taxes, hire a government book¬ 
keeper, and support a certain number 
of laborers whether they were needed 
or not. Under these conditions the 
large farms either were split up or 
went bankrupt. But the difficulty of 
reform by legislation is shown by the 
fact that the net results were not so 
rosy as we had all expected. The new 
small farmers planted their land to 
grain and potatoes in order to be sure 
A Milk Wagon in Czechoslovakia Fig. 31/9 
A Flemish Milkmaid and Her Team Fig. 350 
Public Market in the City of Prague Fig. 351 
supposed, produce morC>- v o^ >ss of a marketable 
surplus when split up ins unall farms, and the 
large-scale crops, such as fruit and sugar, have 
been neglected. As a result there is not now quite 
so much agitation to split up the large hold¬ 
ings which are managed properly. 
1 MARKETING THE CROPS.—As for 
distribution, there is in some places a 
i piite well-developed system of public 
markets, where the farmer can sell his 
jgoods to the stall-woman, who in turn 
retails them out to the consumers all 
day long. It is at stalls like this that 
I buy American Ben Davis apples now 
jfor 4 cents apiece. Such is the quality 
of the native supply that I consider 
that I have got my money’s worth. A 
while ago we had a few California (so 
they said) Spitzenbergs which were 
cheap at 0 cents apiece. Australian ap¬ 
ples are not a rarity, though their 
quality is not up to the wonderful 
Australian and Canadian fruits which 
are now on view and for sale for the 
low price of five big ones for a shilling, 
at the British Empire Exposition. But 
to continue, in general, methods of dis¬ 
tribution in Europe seem to be inferior 
to our own. Certainly the refrigerator 
service of the American railroads is a 
wonderful achievement, not paralleled 
in Europe. Take the case of the 
Ukrainian farmer. He leaves his work 
on the land, drives his team many 
miles to town, sells his produce to some 
thrifty middleman because he cannot 
wait to retail it himself; then before 
he has bought all the supplies he needs 
he gets roaringly drunk and goes back 
home to sober up on the farm. Such a 
method of distribution is assuredly 
more wasteful than anything in force 
in the United States. Possibly the peas¬ 
ant receives more than a 30-cent dollar, 
but he loses out utterly in the end. 
EUROPEAN LIVE STOCK.—In the 
live stock line I think Europe is able 
to make a much better showing than 
in the fruit. The horses, for example, 
are almost all of them fine big chunky 
fellows who pull a load steadily and 
cheerfully. Owing to the fact that the 
bulk of the short hauling is done by 
horses, for gasoline is much higher 
than at home, the breeding of fine ani¬ 
mals is a necessity as well as an art. 
In the places where there are many au¬ 
tomobiles, in London and Paris, the 
horses are not so well groomed. The 
stranger is also struck by the absence 
in some parts of Europe of the breech¬ 
ing as a part of the harness. For this 
reason they have to use a strong brake 
when driving down hill, and anyway it 
is hard to back up a wagon, for the 
collar runs clear up around the horses' 
heads. Also the custom of driving one 
horse on the side of the pole, instead 
of between shafts, is awkward in our 
eyes. A more picturesque method of 
hauling is that by means of dogs. It 
