1158 
September 6, 1924 
Iht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Lay roofs that don’t talk back 
What does that mean? It means roofs that don’t rot 
or rust—roofs that don’t need painting or patching—roofs 
that don’t catch fire from flying sparks. It means Barrett 
Roofings. 
Once you lay Barrett Roofings you’ll hear no more com¬ 
plaints from the house tops. And that means no more 
worry about leaks—no more digging down in your pocket 
for upkeep expense. Sixty-six years of experience have 
taught The Barrett Company how to make roofs that don't 
talk back. \ 
For Your House —A roof of Barrett Shingles gives last¬ 
ing weather-tight protection—adds beauty and color. Their 
weather-surface is everlasting mineral in pleasing soft 
shades. And these rugged shingles are highly fire-resistant. 
Flying sparks or burning embers burn out harmlessly on 
their surface. This is important to people who live far 
from a fire department. 
For Barns, Sheds, Etc. — there is Barrett Mineral- 
Surfaced Roofing, the most attractive roll roofing made. 
It, too, is fire-resisting—surfaced with unfading mineral in 
the same pleasing colors. If you don’t want color in the 
roofs of your barns there is Barrett Smooth-Surfaced Roll 
Roofing—tough, durable, inexpensive, easy to lay. 
Call on the Barrett dealer nearest you. Ask to see Barrett 
Roofings. (Leading lumber, building supply and hardware 
merchants carry them.) There’s a Barrett Roofing that is 
100% right for any building on your farm. 
ROOFINGS 
Your Choice of Six Styles 
Ever las tic 
Smooth-Surfaced Roofing 
A roll roofing of best grade 
roofing felt, saturated with high 
grade waterproofing material. 
Made in medium and heavy 
weights. Tough, pliable, elas¬ 
tic, durable, low in price, and 
easy to lay. 
Everlasiic 
Mineral-Surfaced Roofing 
A beautiful and enduring roll 
roofing. Mineral-surfaced in 
red, green, or blue-black. Popu¬ 
lar for cottages, garages, farm 
buildings. 
Everlastic Giant Shingles 
Handsome enough for the 
expensive home, economical 
enough for small farm house 
or cottage. Mineral-surfaced 
in beautiful shades of red, 
green, or blue-black, with 
extra-thick, extra-rigid base. 
Size 8" x 12M". 
Everlastic Single Shingles 
• 
Identical in shape with Giant 
Shingles but not quite as heavy. 
Mineral - surfaced in same 
beautiful colors. Need no paint¬ 
ing, are fire-resisting. 
Everlastic Multi-Shingles 
Four shingles to a strip. 
Mineral-surfaced in red, green, 
or blue-black. Two sizes—10 or 
12% inches deep, both 32 inches 
long, providing two or three- 
ply roof when laid 4 inches to 
weather. 
Everlastic 
Octagonal Strip Shingles 
The newest mineral-sur¬ 
faced strip shingle. Colors: 
red, green, or blue-black. Can 
be laid in novel designs by 
interchanging red strips with 
green, or red strips with blue- 
black. 
MAIL THIS COUPON TODAY 
THE BARRETT COMPANY, 40 Rector St., New York City 
I have checked the buildings on my farm that need new roofs. Please send me free 
literature describing roofing suitable for the building (or buildings) checked. 
HOUSE 
CHICKEN HOUSES 
SILO 
GARAGE 
HOG PEN 
SHEDS 
BARN 
CORN CRIB 
Your Name. 
Your Address. 
low ». ...State. 
Jn Canada: The Barrett Company. Limited. 2021 St. Hubert Street, Montreal. Que., Canada i 
Things To Think About 
Responsibility for 
Drunkenness 
A year ago last Winter A had a sick 
cow. On the way home from town 
where he went to secure medicine he 
stopped at B’s. Told B he didn’t know 
how he was going to give the medicine 
to the cow without help. B offered to go 
home with him and help him. B has 
been a drunkard for years, but the prev¬ 
ious tv r o years had abstained from drink. 
A gave B several glasses of hard cider. 
He offered to take B home when he was 
ready to go, but B thought he could reach 
home safely. On the way home he was 
overcome and lay in the snow for sev¬ 
eral hours before his wife and one of the 
children found him ; was in the hospital 
some time, and had to have parts of all 
his fingers, which froze, removed. A is 
a prosperous farmer, has money at in¬ 
terest : B has nothing. Mrs. A per¬ 
suaded her husband to settle the matter 
out of court for several hundred dollars; 
I do not know the exact amount; it was 
a little less than a thousand dollars. Now 
A’s friends and relatives, especially his 
two married children by his first wife, 
tell Mrs. A what a terrible thing she did 
by not “standing by her husband,” as no 
doubt he would have had to pay only two 
or three hundred dollars if the matter 
had been settled in court. Will you tell 
me just what A would have been liable 
for if same had been taken to court, both 
maximum penalty and minimum penalty? 
A told B on that day that his^ married 
son was disposing of hard cider, and also 
told him just how much he had sold. 
New Jersey. neighbor. 
This woman has evidently saved her 
husband from prosecution and conviction 
under the prohibition law. In addition 
to this there would have been other dam¬ 
ages in large amount which he might 
have sustained. It is not too late yet 
for this prosecution to be brought. There 
might be a fine imposed up to $1,000. The 
National Prohibition law fully provides 
that any person who shall be injured in 
person, property, means of support, or 
otherwise, by an intoxicated person or 
by any reason of intoxication of such per¬ 
son shall have a right of action against 
any person who shall be unlawfully sell¬ 
ing to or assisting in procuring liquor for 
such an intoxicated person. If they 
caused or contributed to such intoxica¬ 
tion in any such action, such person 
shall have the right to cover actual and 
exemplary damages. On the statement 
made in your letter there would seem to 
be a clear case against A, as being re¬ 
sponsible for injury to B. Had the case 
come into court the consequences might 
have been very serious to A. He not only 
would have lost far more money than he 
actually paid, in the case mentioned, but 
he would have been liable for criminal 
prosecution as well. His wife was his 
best friend in advising him to settle as 
he did, and she deserves commendation, 
rather than censure, for the part she took. 
This ought to be a sound warning to 
anyone in the country who thinks he 
can give out hard cider to the extent of 
intoxication to any of his neighbors or 
friends. 
The Japanese Exclusion Act 
We live in Stanislaus Co., Cal., near 
Turlock, iu the heart of the Turlock 
melon district, where formerly there were 
large numbers of Japanese, especially 
during the melon season. About three 
years ago there was a campaign against 
employing Japanese labor and leasing 
land to Japanese tenants. 
At that time most of the Japanese left 
this community, going to other commu¬ 
nities where there was less opposition to 
them, both in California and other States. 
Tiie opposition to the Japanese tenants 
arises from the fact that they will pay a 
high cash rental and then adopt a lower 
standard of living and work their women 
and children in the fields in order to 
make ends meet. They are not better 
farmers than the white man; in fact, 
those that I have known are not so good 
as the average American farmer. And 
yet the American farmer would have to 
adopt a lower standard' of living than he 
is accustomed to in order to compete with 
them in the lines of farming requiring a 
large amount of hand labor, like fruit, 
vegetables and melons. Japanese, either 
as tenants or laborers, are seldom found 
on dairies or general farms. They are 
very slow to learn how to handle stock or 
machinery. , 
There is no shoi rtge of labor here at 
the present time. So far as I know 
there has been no effort to induce labor 
to come into any part of California ex¬ 
cept for short periods during fruit har¬ 
vest, and that is taken care of by tran¬ 
sient labor within the State. In local¬ 
ities devoted to one kind of fruit, white 
labor quite often demands more than 
farmers feel able to pay. Mexicans are 
coming in in increasing numbers t^ do 
this kind of work and are fairly satis¬ 
factory in work that can be paid for by 
the piece, provided they work in gangs, 
with a boss to see that the work is prop¬ 
erly done. I am sure that negroes are 
not wanted. 
The exclusion law does not prevent the 
Japanese already here from doing busi¬ 
ness, as land can be leased or owned by 
the children, who have full rights of citi¬ 
zenship. Wages here are 40 cents an 
hour, without board, or $2.50 to $3 with 
hoard. Good land in this locality rents 
for $35 per acre. The only good reason 
for excluding the Japanese is that they 
cannot be assimilated, and the constant 
friction between two strong races will 
eventually cause serious trouble. It is 
wiser if the two races do not try to live 
in the same country. 
E. F. HOELINGSWORTH. 
A Single Taxer Talks 
I have read the letter on page 1085 
signed A. H., New York, and also the 
comments, and I was very much inter¬ 
ested. In the latter part of A. H.’s let¬ 
ter he states: “Another idea some town 
people have, is that the land should be¬ 
long to the government and all taxes 
shall be put on land.” _ Of course A. H. 
is here referring to single tax, and it 
hurt me, that a man like A. H. is knock¬ 
ing a good idea. Did A. H. stop to think 
that big cities are built on land and 
some of that land is worth about twenty 
million dollars an acre? That what 
was made before man came he can use, 
but not own? That is “single tax,” and 
strictly, speaking, under that system, no¬ 
body is taxed, only the unearned in¬ 
crement is taken away from the indi¬ 
vidual and used for government expenses 
and public improvements. That increase 
in value due to the community—people 
coming together—rightly belongs to them. 
Under the single tax system, industrious 
people are encouraged and lazy people 
get no lift, hence the benefit to farmers. 
J. w. B. 
The Farmer’s Buying Power 
Is the buying power of farmers at last 
back again to what it was before the 
war? Comparison of prices of leading 
crops, with prices of leading commodities 
indicates that the’ crops in sight if sold 
at present wholesale prices would buy as 
much goods at wholesale as in 1913. Dur¬ 
ing the last few months many articles 
have been coming down in price while 
some few products have been high. 
The result looks good on the charts 
published by the financial papers. Some 
farmers are actually in the better posi¬ 
tion shown. Many others are not. In 
the first place, the cost reductions have 
not filtered down to the farm purse. The 
largest item of farm expense is hired 
labor and that is almost twice as high as 
before the war. If the farmer needs a 
suit of clothes, furniture, building ma¬ 
terial, a new machine, groceries, feeds, 
fertilizer and chemicals, the prices are 
still high. As for crops, the main cash 
crop of the North in Autumn is the po¬ 
tato and these have not yet been selling 
at anything like the level of the farmer’s 
costs. It all depends much on what a 
farmer raises and on what he buys. 
Still there is some improvement in the 
general farm situation, especially in the 
West. It begins to look as if the worst 
is over, after 10 years of jolting ups and 
downs. The aggravating feature since the 
war has been the sight of all sorts of 
workers with pockets full of money while 
the farmers were only getting into debt. 
But, if prices are coming more closely 
together as it seems now, the incomes will 
soon do the same. In fact it would not 
be surprising if the mechanics, factory 
workers and clerks often had the worst 
of it for the next 10 years, and for the 
same cause that hit the farmers; over¬ 
production. We have caught up with the 
war shortage of goods, buildings and 
equipment and there is more and more 
competition which will tend to bring 
down prices and wages. Farmers are in 
a position to stand these conditions bet¬ 
ter than any other class. g. b. f 
Wife’s Rights 
1. Can a man mortgage real estate 
without the consent of his wife? 2. Can 
a man borrow money oil Cattle or horses 
without the consent of his wife? 3. Could 
a man get a diivorce from an invalid? 4. 
If he started cuc-h a proceeding, would 
she be legally notified in ample time to 
prepare defense? 5. If she should divorce 
him for jusit cause, could he be compelled 
to provide for her? r. m. 
1. A man may mortgage real property 
belonging to him without the consent of 
hie wife, but he cannot deprive her of 
her dower interest thereby. 
2. Yes, if he owns the stock. 
3. On the grounds of adultery only. 
4. Yes. 
5. If the wife obtained a divorce the 
court would provide for the payment of 
alimony as it considered adequate. 
n. r. 
