The RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
141 I 
Things To Think About 
The Radio Corner 
SOME DELICATE LISTENING 
I have been operating a small single¬ 
tube radio set for nearly two years. The 
cost of operation, including repairs, has 
been about $1 per month. I am well 
pleased with my radio. We can depend 
on it almost as much as we can on the 
clock. One should not expect too much. 
There have been many thunderstorms, 
causing much static the past Summer. But 
I have been able to get the weather, mar¬ 
kets and entertainments from stations 
up to ?>00 miles distant. Lately I have 
heard stations <SOO to 1.000 miles away, 
and got the programs clear and plain. As 
the weather clears and the nights get 
cold and frosty I shall again hear sta¬ 
tions 1.500 miles distant. 
A few days ago, when the world fliers 
passed over Iowa, Station WOC at Dav¬ 
enport turned the welcoming sounds out 
over the air. The cheering of crowds, 
the ringing of bells, the blowing of 
whistles, came in here perfectly plain; 
then a voice commanded quiet, the crowd 
stopped cheering, and the whir of the 
planes could be plainly heard as they 
passed over the city of Davenport, a dis¬ 
tance of 150 miles away. I regarded this 
as a world event, so staid by the radio 
and received announcements every few 
minutes as to the location of the planes. 
After a safe landing had been made at 
Omaha I went to dinner nearly an hour 
late. I had enjoyed the radio and was 
ready to enjoy the dinner, so all was well. 
During the Summer I have little time 
to listen over the radio. I did listen to 
the address and sermon for the graduates 
at the State University at Iowa City. 
The sermon was delivered out of doors, 
and a robin got near enough so his song, 
too. was broadcast. This troubled me 
for a while, as I _*ould hardly believe the 
bird's song was coming over the radio. 
I looked out of the window several times 
to see the robin, but he was not there. 
When the time came for the address for 
the Ames graduates I was in the field 
hoeing strawberries. I went to the house, 
washed my hands and face, sat down at 
the radio, got a rest from hoeing straw¬ 
berries, and enjoyed one of the best ad¬ 
dresses I ever heard. I believe I got 
the address better here in my own room 
than if I had been in the crowd at Ames. 
The distance is 70 miles. 
Some people complain that they cannot 
get results with a radio set. I will give 
a few reasons for my success. First, I 
bought a standard machine made by a 
reliable firm ; second, I am located two 
miles from a high tension line, a switch¬ 
board and an X-ray machine; third, when 
something gets wrong inside the machine 
I do not take a screwdriver and hammer 
and tear the machine to pieces. I take 
it to a man who knows more about its 
innards than I do and have him fix them. 
X owa . IIABLOW ROCKIIILL. 
IN LONELY PLACES 
One can hardly realize what a good 
radio outfit may mean to a farm family 
until he sees it in operation in some 
lonelv place far from railroads or towns. 
I know one radio enthusiast in such a 
place in Northern New York. I wish 
you could visit that community. It is 
about the loneliest place you ever saw; 
a bare, forest-denuded section among the 
foot-hills of the Adirondacks. My friend 
used to be one of the live dairy farmers 
around here. He went to the Adiron¬ 
dacks because his wife had tuberculosis. 
She died and he has had it for years, so 
that he has to live there to live at all. 
One of his sons is a graduate of the elec¬ 
trical engineering course in I mon and 
has fixed up a radio outfit for his father. 
Three or four scattering houses, a church 
and a schoolhouse complete the place. 
But several neighbors along the road 
own radio sets, and I wish you could 
hear them compare notes as to what sta¬ 
tions they got and what they heard the 
nivht before. A - D - 
It. N.-Y.—Just as we have said repeat- 
edlv. the radio is remaking life in such 
communities. It brings people into hu¬ 
man contact with the world through the 
voice, and few of us can measure the re¬ 
sult of all this after a few more vears 
of radio service. 
What About Careless 
Children 
In two of your editorials, page 1298, 
vou take a perfectly just view of one side 
of both questions. Your stand against 
careless driving and the injuries result¬ 
ing from it is indisputably just. But 
there is another side; that of the ma¬ 
jority of drivers against careless chil¬ 
dren! A course of instruction, and. that 
failing, the good old birch rod. would be 
a wonderful thing. I have driven for 
eight years and never had an accident. 
Last week I all but ran over a child. I 
was driving at about 15 miles on a wide 
paved road with double trolley tracks in 
the middle. A boy, absolutely without 
looking, darted out from in front of a 
parked car directly in front of my 
bumner! I jammed on my four-wheel 
brakes, honked my horn and just did 
miss him. The boy ran on across and 
turning made a face at me. Passersby 
stopped and sympathized with me. A 
veteran fireman said he'd like to trounce 
the kid. That is one of thousands of in¬ 
stances. The native children of foreign 
parentage coast in their express carts 
and various coasters down the long, steep 
hill into Stamford on the Post Road. They 
cross from side to side and occasion 
scathing passing rebukes, to which they 
reply in a disgusting manner. No one 
seems to stop them, and they get away 
with it and there you are 1 The vicious 
disregard for law and rights by 
young America make me feel that the 
regulation governing youths under 18 
from operating motor cars is right. It 
is perfectly true that there are many 
serious, careful, law-abiding young peo¬ 
ple under 18. On the other hand, think 
of the general run of 16-year-olds run¬ 
ning cars in cities, or in these crowded 
suburbs. Many of them do, and the 
speed is terrific with total disregard for 
road regulations and safety. It may be 
just youthful bravado, the “spirit of the 
age,” what you will. But the fact re¬ 
mains that the regulation is the “great¬ 
est good for the greatest number.” Many 
laws bring a certain degree of hardship 
to a few. w. b. E. 
Connecticut. 
Is It Overproduction? 
My impression is that the fundamental 
trouble with farming is overproduction. 
During the past Summer I have been 
around Central New York some, between 
Alexandria Bay and Auburn. I suppose 
some of the best farming land in the coun¬ 
try is iu that section. I got the impres¬ 
sion that the agricultural potentialities 
are held in leash, that if demand and 
price warranted, the farmers with their 
present equipment could largely increase 
production. For example, they ship cu¬ 
cumbers, principally slicers, from Fulton 
to New York City. A year ago a good 
price made the crop profitable. This year 
the acreage around Fulton was probably 
doubled. They sent 5,000 bushels in one 
day, and perhaps averaged 20,000 bushels 
a week. The New York market was 
knocked silly and profit disappeared. 
On the editorial page of your October 
11 number you say: “(Prices) are too 
low chiefly because production has out¬ 
stepped economical distribution. IV e do 
not need increased production of crops 
until the present supply can be handled 
econo'mically.” (The italics are mine.) 
Does that mean that the people of the 
country would eat more if food were bet¬ 
ter distributed? I think the great major¬ 
ity have all they want to eat now, and 
while distribution might be improved, the 
principal effect would be to shift some¬ 
what the items in demand. For instance, 
there are sections where people would 
eat more strawberries and peaches if they 
were plenty and cheap, but they would 
eat less of something else. If food were 
more economically handled between farm¬ 
er and consumer so that price to con¬ 
sumer was less, I doubt if it would in¬ 
crease consumption, simply because peo¬ 
ple have all they want to eat now. But 
see the effect of lessened production. 
Statisticians figure the world’s wheat crop 
is 8 per cent less than a year ago. This 
change of 8 per cent in a cereal of prime 
importance has changed remarkably the 
whole situation for grain farmers. Of 
course the poor corn crop is another fac¬ 
tor. I won’t attempt to adjust it between 
them. If the amount of milk sent into 
New York and Boston were reduced 10 
per cent, or even 5 per cent, the farmers 
of this section would be in a much better 
position. If the farmers could all agree 
on an eight-hour day, wouldn’t they sud¬ 
denly find their business improved? But 
of course the farmers cannot agree on an 
eight-hour day. But if the need and ad¬ 
vantage of it, or at least of raising small¬ 
er crops, were brought home to them they 
might gradually work in that direction. 
HENRY N. KEELER. 
R. N.-Y r .—If Mr. Keeler would spend a 
week among the tenements of this and 
other large cities he would see that people 
do not have all they want to eat. A bet¬ 
ter system of distribution—carrying the 
food direct to the consumer—would soon 
use up the surplus and cause a demand 
for more. 
Vegetable Storage 
The Connecticut Extension Service 
Station at Storrs P. O. has issued Bulle¬ 
tin 77. This is an excellent pamphlet 
telling in simple language how to store 
vegetables and fruits, both for home and 
commercial use. There are pictures of 
storage pits and houses, and full direc¬ 
tions for preparing crops and putting 
them away. Many a man succeeds in 
producing garden crops, but he loses 
much of their value by a failure to carry 
them through the Winter. This bulletin 
will tell him how to do it. 
Sltrgeon : “I’ll sew that scalp wound 
for you for $10.” Patient: “Gee, Doc! 
I just want plain sewing, not hemstitch¬ 
ing and embroidery.”—Medical Journal. 
New York Central Lines carry one-tenth of the com¬ 
merce of the country. Upon their efficient perform¬ 
ance through the winter depend the comfort and wel¬ 
fare of millions of people. 
Food, fuel and other necessities — the raw materials 
of industry—must be kept moving hour after hour 
in all kinds of weather to prevent the slowing up of 
industry and human suffering. Reserves would 
quickly vanish if the railroads failed. 
New York Central Lines have made ready for the 
winter. Reserves of cars and locomotives, standing 
idle all summer, are now being called upon to move 
the crops, fuel supplies and raw materials. Box cars 
for grain, open cars for coal, special refrigerator cars 
for perishable products—a quarter of a million cars 
bearing the familiar mark of the New York Central 
Lines—are moving over the country. Road beds, brid¬ 
ges, signals—all are ready for the demands of winter. 
And 175,000 men of the New York Central family, on 12,000 
miles of lines from the Mississippi Valley to the Atlantic Coast 
—the men who operate the New York Central Lines — they, too, 
are ready for the test. They have a tradition of public service 
to maintain—a tradition that has grown up through nearly a 
century of railroad achievement. 
NEW YORK CENTRAL LINES 
BOSTON &ALBANY-MICHICAN CENTRAL-BIG FOUR - PITTSBURGH &LAKE ERIE 
AND THE NEW YORK CENTRAL AND SUBSIDIARY LINES 
Agricultural Relations Department Offices 
New York Central Station, Rochester, N. Y. 
La Salle St. Station, Chicago, Ill. Michigan Central Station, Detroit, Mich. 
466 Lexington Ave., New York, N. Y. 68 East Gay St., Columbus, Ohio 
SHOT GUNS BREECH LOADING S4 50 
Like Cut ft*- - - V 
It is the U. S. Cal. 45B. L. 
Rifle. Barrels cut to 22-inch length. 
Rebored smooth for Bird shot. Rifle Bar¬ 
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shot Cartridges for these guns, 82.00 hundred; Ball 
cartridges. 82.00 hundred. Send for Catalog. 
W. STOKES KIRK, 1627-FG NORTH 10th ST.. PHILA., PA. 
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RURAL NEW-YORKER 
333 West 30th St., New York 
