Th 
r  e  e 
Ideas  of  Ear  mJ0l 
Prosperity,  Contentment.  Discontent 
Here  Is  a  Contented  Farmer 
HAVE  had  a  lifelong  experience  on  a 
farm,  an  experience  that  covers  near¬ 
ly  all  phases  of  farm  life,  beginning 
on  my  father’s  farm  at  a  time  when 
every  farm  boy  was  expected  to  go 
in  the  field  and  learn  what  a  day’s  work  really 
meant,  working  by  the  month  at  $17  per  month, 
which  was  the  best  part  of  my  farm  education. 
Then  renting  a  farm  for  cash  rent,  and  finally  buy¬ 
ing  a  farm  and  paying  off  the  mortgage,  and  now,  at 
60  years  of  age  trying  to  take  care  of  the  farm 
without  much  help,  because  help  is  not  to  be  found. 
If  I  could  have  had  for  the  last  40  years  anything 
like  the  present  prices  for  my  farm  products  I  would 
have  been  on  “easy  street”  long  ago.  Ten  years  ago 
1  sold  my  wool  for  ISc  per  lb.;  now  it  is  50c;  fat 
lambs  for  5c;  now  they  are  13c.  I  have  sold  apples 
for  00c  per  bbl. ;  this  year  1  got  $2;  eggs  for  12c, 
and  now  get  25  to  50c,  and  other  things  in  like  pro¬ 
portion.  Then  why  this  discontent?  Why  this  talk 
about  hard  times  for  farmers?  There  are  prosper¬ 
ous  farmers  all  about  us.  Some  are  doing  well  with 
poultry,  some  with  sheep,  some  with  cows,  which 
goes  to  prove  that  others  might,  if  they  would  go  to 
it.  I  know  that  if  any  young  man  has  the  will  there 
was  never  such  a  chance  for  him  to  get  to  work  on 
a  farm,  learn  the  business,  and  own  a  farm  in  a 
few  years,  that  will  cost  him  less  than  the  buildings 
would  cost  if  built  now. 
The  farmer  who  is  a  failure  and  is  always  knock, 
ing  his  business  cannot  expect  hissyji  t<^beu  Jla  rmer 
There  are  too  many  such.  I  do  not  liknjj^^ittitiide 
of  many  of  our  farm  papers  today,  as  they  print  too 
much  of  the  gloomy  side  of  farm  life.  It  almost 
seems  like  propaganda  to  prove  that  farming  is  sick, 
so  they  could  get  pay  to  doctor  us  up.  The  talk 
about  our  rural  schools  seems  to  be  along  tin1  same 
lines.  Did  it  ever  occur  to  you  that  those  who  curse 
the  rural  schools  condemn  the  product  of  our  high 
schools  (the  rural  school  teacher)?  I  know  that  I 
may  he  classed  as  old-fashioned,  and  perhaps  an 
obstructionist,  as  1  have  no  use  for  the  Farm 
Bureau,  as  I  have  never  seen  one  of  them  whom  I 
would  back  financially  to  buy  a  farm,  because  they 
flie  work  shown  in  this  picture  was  formerly  all  done  by  hand.  The  corn  was  husked  with  the  fingers,  and  the  stalks  were  fed  entire  or  cut  by  hand  in  a  cutter.  Now 
the  stalks  are  rushed  through  a  machine,  the  ears  snapped  off  and  the  stalks  shredded  and  blown  into  a  silo  or  haymow,  as  needed.  A  good  many  farmers  make  what  is 
called  mock  or  imitation  silage  by  blowing  these  shredded  stalks  into  the  silo  and  pouring  on  water.  There  has  been  great  trouble  from  mold  and  rot  from  this  practice,  but. 
now  a  plan  for  preventing  that  is  suggested.  The  germs  or  ferments  found  in  good  silage  are  “cultured”  and  sent  out  in  bottles,  much  like  the  inoculating  material 
used  on  the  seeds  of  legumes.  .When  these  germs  are  put  into  a  silo  filled  with  dry  cornstalks,  properly  moistened,  they  begin  working  like  the  yeast  in  bread  or  the  starter 
izi  cream,  and  make  the  stalks  into  good  silage.  Last  Fall  this  inoculating  material  was  sent  to  16  different  farmers,  who  used  it  on  dry  stalks.  The  majority  of  them  report 
that  the  feeding  value  of  the  stalk's. was  greatly  improved. 
