May  12,  102  3 
710 
he  has  had  farm  training  previous  to  college.  I 
never  knew  an  immediately  successful  graduate  who 
had  not  had  it.  If  hejias  not  had  the  previous  train¬ 
ing,  his  sheepskin  should  not  be  given  him  until  he 
has  had  at  least;  one  year  on  a  farm,  doing  with  his 
own  hands  the  things  that  he  may  he  expected  to  tell 
others  how  to  do  before  he  is  cast  upon  the  bosom 
of  a  trusting  and  receptive  peasantry. 
A  CONTENTED  FARMER. — This  brings  me  to 
“Three  Ideas  of  Farming,"  in  your  issue  of  March  .‘51. 
Contentment  and  satisfaction  oo/.e  from  every  line 
of  Mr.  I’erry  except  for  a  few  lines,  lie  is  satisfied 
with  the  work  of  years  past,  and  contented  with  the 
present.  He  has  been  what  a  farmer  should  be — - 
self-contained  and  self-sustained.  He  does  not  and 
never  has  needed  to  be  surveyed,  investigated  or 
commissioned,  nor  does  he  or  those  in  his  class  re¬ 
quire  a  Farm  Bureau  or  a  farm  bloc.  All  they  want 
is  to  be  let  alone  to  work  out  their  own  destiny  and 
solve  their  own  problems  in  their  own  way.  out¬ 
side  interference  would  work  harm.  But  1  "ill 
wager  1,000  Herman  marks  that  Mr.  Perry's  re¬ 
sources  were  massed  prior  to  10  years  ago  in  the 
time  of  IS-cent  wool  and  12-cent  eggs,  unless  he 
plunged  on  war-time  prices.  Between  the  years  18(55 
and  1885  my  father,  on  a  100-acre  farm,  got  not  only 
on  Easy  Street,  but  on  the  sunny  side.  He  sold  hay 
after  a  12-mile  haul  for  $0  a  ton,  hand-thraslied  rye 
straw  to  paper-makers.  $7  a  ton;  eggs,  10  to  12  cents 
a  dozen;  Harrison  and  Campfleld  apple  cider,  .»  cents 
a  gallon;  vinegar,  8  cents  a  gallon;  handmade 
brooms,  for  which  he  raised  and  cured  the  broom- 
corn  and  paid  5!  cents  each  for  the  turned  handle,  25 
ceiris  each.  At  the  same  time  he  paid  7  per  cent 
intcre  on  an  .$8,000  mortgage,  $35  a  year  tax  on 
farm,  stock  and  tools,  and  kept  two  hired  men  all 
the  year,  and  four  during  the  Summer.  I  do  not 
know  just  how  he  turned  the  trick,  but  I  do  know 
that,  everything  from  the  soil,  as  soon  as  it  sprouted, 
was  headed  toward  the  bank  roll,  and  it  was  not 
allowed  to  stray  far  from  the  straight  and  narrow. 
Not  a  5-cent  shin-plaster  was  wasted.  At  the  end  ot 
the  period  he  panned  out  about  $1,000  for  every 
year,  and  sold  the  farm  for  $30,000,  free  and  clear. 
THE  AMOUNT  THAT  STICKS. — If  we  could 
sell  our  production  at  present  prices  and  do  our  buy¬ 
ing  at  prices  prior  to  10  years  ago,  we  could  got  on 
Easy  Street  so  fast  that  a  Rolls  Royce  doing  its  best 
<m  a  concrete  road  would  seem  tied  to  a  post  in  com- 
]*i, risen.  Deacon  Baxter  always  appeared  prosper¬ 
ous  it  emanated  from  him;  he  was  pointed  out  as 
an  example.  He  always  took  up  the  collection  at  the 
St.  Ephriam  Zion  A.  M.  E.  Church  in  his  immaculate 
and  shiny  plug  hat.  The  envious  members  of  the 
congregation  thought  the  purpose  was  to  show  off  the 
hat.  One  Sunday  a  nosy  member  of  the  congrega¬ 
tion  discovered  that  there  was  tar  on  the  inside  of 
the  crown  of  the  hat.  The  deacon's  prosperity  was 
explained  and  terminated  .at  the  same  time.  It  is 
not  the  amount  you  handle,  but  the  amount  that 
sticks  by  you  that  determines  the  amount  of  your 
a  ssets. 
THE  NORMAL-MINDED.— Mr.  Coon  asks,  who 
•I i*e  the  normal-minded.  Before  that  is  answeied. 
the  question  “What  is  normal-minded V”  must  be 
answered.  Our  people  in  the  industries  are  milling, 
and  it  is  spreading  to  the  people  on  the  farms.  If 
we  were  normal-minded  10  years  ago  it  is  very  safe 
to  say  that  our  people  will  never  he  normal-minded 
again  in  this  generation.  Were  the  people  10  years 
ago  normal-minded  compared  with  now,  and  will 
•be  normal-minded  compared  with  10  years  from 
now?  In  some  of  the  industries  the  overturn  in 
labor  is  80  per  cent  a  year. 
HARD  CONDITIONS.— The  letter  of  Helen  S. 
K.  Willeox  truthfully  sets  forth  the  conditions  under 
which  a  majority  of  farmers  in  the  East  are  work¬ 
ing.  1  have  personally  gone  through  every  situation 
she  gives,  and  then  some.  I  have  been  successful  in 
other  lines  of  business,  but  now,  on  my  farm,  1  am 
lighting  with  my  back  to  the  wall,  and  the  wall  is 
crumbling.  Two  or  three  years  ago  I  saw  a  car  of 
cabbage  loaded  in  New  York  State  at  $10  a  ton,  f. 
o.  b.  1  followed  that  cabbage,  personally,  to  the 
man  who  bought  it  from  the  farmer,  to  the  man  who 
Ivouglit  it  from  the  man  who  bought  it  from  the 
farmer,  and  to  the  man  who  got  it  and  opened  the 
car  and  commenced  to  distribute  it.  1  followed  it  to 
the  man  who  wholesaled  to  the  small  stores  on  the 
East  Side  of  New  York,  and  there  I  found  it,  the 
identical  cabbage,  being  sold  to  the  people  who  wanted 
it  to  cook  and  eat,  at  three  pounds  for  25  cents,  or 
about  $1(5(3  a  ton.  In  February  of  last  year  I  saw 
onions,  raised  at  Croat  Meadows,  N.  .L,  sold  to  re¬ 
tailers  at  Easton,  Pa.,  about  20  miles  distant,  at  $11 
for  a 
Croat 
them. 
100-lb.  sack.  The  man  who  raised  them  at 
Meadows  told  re  that  he  got  $2(5  a  ton  for 
the  Fall  before.  The  retailer  paid  $220  a  ton 
Sht  RURAL  NEW-YORKER 
WHEAT  AND  BREAD. — It  takes  four  and  nine- 
tenths  bushels  of  wheat  to  make  a  barrel  of  flour  of 
19(5  lbs.,  with  bran  and  middlings  on  the  side.  The 
average  baker  takes  it.  adds  eight  quarts  of  milk. 
5  lbs.  of  lard,  salt,  yeast,  and  enough  water  to  mix. 
This  makes  300  1-lb.  lumps  of  dough,  and  he  bakes 
it.  If  you  know  the  price  of  wheat  and  what  you 
have  to  pay  for  what  they  call  a  pound  loaf,  you 
can  easily  calculate  the  boost  from  farm  to  table. 
THE  MANUFACTURER’S  SIDE. — But  the  manu¬ 
facturer  is  up  against  the  same  thing,  but  not  so 
acute.  The  buyer  says  to  the  farmer,  “I  will  give 
you  so  much  ;  take  it  or  leave  it.”  The  manufacturer 
says  to  the  buyer,  knowing  his  cost,  “I  will  take  so 
much  :  take  it  or  leave  it.”  I  have  an  interest  in  a 
factory  that  makes  library  furniture.  Calling  so¬ 
cially  on  a  lady  one  day,  she  took  particular  pride 
in  showing  my  wife  and  me  a  new  table  she  had  just 
purchased.  As  a  polite  guest  should,  I  admired  the 
table  and  assured  her  that  I  thought  she  had  got  it 
at  a  bargain.  A  lady  who  was  calling  at  the  same 
time  went  into  raptures  over  the  table.  The  more  I 
looked  at  the  table  the  more  familiar  it  seemed  to 
me.  Finally  I  said,  “I  believe  that  table  was  made 
at:  my  factory.”  This  was  met  with  amusement;  it 
was  too  fine  a  table.  Finally,  to  humor  me.  the  table 
was  turned  on  its  top,  and  there,  stamped  in  the 
wood,  was  **.T.  M’F’G  Co.  14-7-21.”  It  was  made  at 
the  factory  I  was  interested  in,  and  crated  for  ship¬ 
ment  on  the  14tli  day  of  the  seventh  month,  1921. 
She  had  paid  $45  for  the  table  and  was  pleased  with 
her  bargain.  1  know  that  when  that  table  was 
crated  and  put  into  the  shipping  ear  it  had  cost  $9.85, 
the  last  cent  being  reckoned  in.  It  bad  a.  beautiful 
mahogany  finish,  like  a  mirror,  and  there  was  just 
$1.18  worth  of  real  mahogany  in  the  whole  table. 
The  price  paid  the  factory  for  it  was  $15.25.  Quite 
some  expansion  between  that  and  $45.  There  is  an¬ 
other  incident  bearing  on  the  table  that  might  be 
settled  by  the  answer  to  what  is  normal-minded.  The 
husband  of  the  lady  who  admired  the  table  came  to 
me  shortly  after  and  said  that  his  wife  wanted  a 
table  like  (Mrs.  S.  had,  and  he  thought,  as  I  was  a 
friend,  I  might  scale  the  price  a  bit.  I  told  him  that 
I  would  let  him  have  a  table  for  just  what  the  dealer 
paid,  he  to  pay  the  transportation,  and  told  him  the 
price.  There  was  where  1  proved  my  head  solid 
bone.  Some  weeks  after  I  was  in  his  home,  and 
there  stood  one  of  the  tables.  “You  see,"  exclaimed 
the  mistress  of  the  house,  “I  believe  in  patronizing 
friends;  I  have  a  table  just  like  Mrs.  S.”  "Yes,  but 
where  did  you  get  it?  Did  Harry  tell  you  what  I 
said?”  “Yes,  I  know,  hut  I  wanted  to  have  just  as 
good  and  nice  a  table  as  Mrs.  8.,  so  I  got  this  at  the 
same  place  she  got  the  one  she  has.  fsn  t  it  a 
beauty?  1  never  saw  such  beautiful  mahogany.  If 
I  had  told  Harry  that  I  would  let  him  have  a  table 
for  $44.98.  plus  the  freight,  instead  of  $15.25,  I 
would  have  made  a  sale. 
Both  the  farmer  and  «the  manufacturer  must 
bridge  the  gap  between  themselves  and  the  ultimate 
consumer,  and  let  the  men  who  play  in  between  get 
in  the  producing  line.  The  farmer  does  not  want 
special  legislation  or  blocs.  He  wants  a  fair  chance 
to  settle  his  own  problems  in  his  own  way,  and  a 
chance  to  make  a  living  while  doing  it.  Make  it 
easy  for  him  to  borrow  money  and  you  will  ruin  him. 
New  Jersey.  w.  l.  n. 
Beginnings  of  Agriculture  in  America 
Part  II. 
Professor  Carrier  discusses  the  effect  of  slavery 
and  of  liquor  manufacturing  upon  early  American 
farming.  He  says  that  the  introduction  of  negro 
slaves  was  of  great  advantage  to  the  early  tobacco 
planters.  The  negroes  were  more  immune  to  malaria 
than  the  whites,  and  did  the  rough  work  of  clearing 
new  land.  Without  slaves  the  people  of  South  Caro¬ 
lina  could  not  have  competed  with  the  rest  of  the 
world  in  growing  rice  and  indigo.  Slavery  at  first 
was  profitable  at  the  South,  but  became  less  so  as 
the  years  went  on.  At  the  North,  Carrier  says  it 
was  more  of  a  luxury  than  a  utility,  and  was  aban¬ 
doned  as  an  industrial  mistake — unsuited  to  the 
climate.  As  for  alcoholic  beverages,  the  agricultural 
development  of  America  has  been  greatly  influenced 
by  the  liquor  industry.  We  do  not  know  when  the 
word  “booze”  entered  the  language,  but  our  ances¬ 
tors  considered  some  form  of  alcoholic  liquor  as  a 
necessity — just  as  important  as  meat  or  bread.  No 
one  knew  about  bacteria  or  germ  diseases  in  those 
early  days,  and  when  impure  water  caused  sickness 
they  regarded  all  water  with  suspicion.  On  long 
sea  voyages  water  which  might  be  impure  when  the 
voyage  started  became  foul  before  land  was  reached. 
Beer  and  other  liquors  kept  better  and  were  consid¬ 
ered  less  dangerous.  Thus  the  early  settlei’s  came 
to  use  their  wheat  and*  barley  for  making  beer  and 
whisky.  It  became  a  regular  part  of  trade  to  take 
salt  fish,  butter,  corn  and  lumber  to  the  West  Indies 
and  exchange  these  products  for  molasses  and  sugar. 
This  molasses  was  brought  back  to  New  England  and 
made  into  rum,  and  this  rum  was  sold  to  Indian 
traders,  who  used  it  in  buying  furs.  Then  these  furs 
could  be  shipped  to  England  or  Europe  as  a  cash 
products.  England  had  little  use  for  the  corn  and 
butter  or  fish.  The  Cuban  planters  needed  it  as 
food  for  their  slaves,  and  the  molasses  obtained  in 
exchange,  turned  into  rum,  made  the  fur  trade  pos¬ 
sible.  It  is  said  that  only  through  this  rum  trade 
were  English  colonists  able  to  draw  the  fur  trade 
away  from  the  French  in  Canada.  Some  of  the 
great  American  fortunes  of  today  trace  back  to  this 
awful  debauchery  of  the  American  Indians  with  the 
products  of  agriculture.  Later,  throughout  the 
West,  great  quantities  of  grain  were  made  into 
whisky.  Much  of  this  grain  could  not  be  trans¬ 
ported  in  bulk  to  market  for  lack  of  roads  and  trans¬ 
portation.  When  made  into  whisky,  it  could  be  car¬ 
ried  down  the  rivers  or  over  the  mountains  and  find 
a  ready  sale.  For  years  it  was  impossible  to  find 
a  cash  outlet  for  Western  gx-ain,  except  in  the  form 
of  liquor,  and  many  communities  could  hardly  have 
kept  going  and  paid  taxes  and  interest  without  this 
whisky  outlet.  Carrier  says  that  what  we  now 
call  prohibition  is  purely  an  American  product,  and 
it  is  remarkable  how  public  sentiment  has  changed 
from  those  old  days.  No  doubt,  the  Prohibitionists 
will  claim  that  the  “wets”  never  have  changed. 
It  is  said  that  up  to  the  French  and  Indian  War 
the  work  of  colonizing  America  had  cost  the  Eng¬ 
lish  people  about  $400,000,009 — a  vast  sum  for  those 
days.  The  indirect  gain  to  England  had  been  great. 
Vast  profits  were  made  in  tobacco,  rice,  fish  and 
lumber  sent  from  this  country,  and  the  immense 
English  shipping  commerce  was  built  up  in  American 
trade.  Merchants,  sailors  and  manufacturers — all 
prospered.  The  Americans  were  expected  to  pro¬ 
duce  the  raw  materials  and  leave  the  shipping, 
handling  and  profits  to  the  English  people.  It  was 
the  refusal  of  New  England  to  agree  to  this  which 
really  led  to  the  Revolution.  As  we  have  stated 
the  agricultural  development  in  New  England  was 
quite  different  from  that  in  the  South.  New  England 
had  no  staple  crop  which  England  needed.  The 
section  was  therefore  obliged  to  develop  fishing, 
trade  and  manufacturing — all  of  which  put  it  into 
direct  competition  with  the  old  country.  Thus  as 
tin*  country  developed  it  would  seem  that  independ¬ 
ence  was  inevitable.  It  seems  to  us  a  remarkable 
thing  that  the  agricultural  South  should  have  been 
able  to  unite  solidly  with  the  industrial  and  trading 
North  under  all  the  circumstances.  This  brief  out¬ 
line  of  Professor  Carrier’s  book  gives  but  a  faint 
idea  of  the  study  and  careful  research  which  must 
have  been  given  to  it.  We  consider  it  a  very  notable 
contribution  to  American  history. 
New  Source  of  Water  Supply 
N  page  471  C.  W.  E.  R.,  Berwick,  Pa.,  asks  about 
water  supply  from  a  spring  2,400  feet  distant 
from  the  buildings.  I  shall  just  tell  of  my  exper¬ 
ience.  1  once  piped  a  spring  2,500  feet  from  the 
building,  with  15  feet  fall,  using  1 14 -inch  pipe  for 
the  first  500  feet  from  the  spring,  and  one  inch  the 
rest  of  the  way.  The  last  time  that  I  heard  any¬ 
thing  from  it,  it  was  still  in  operation.  The  expense 
of  digging  a  trench  4%  feet  deep  that  distance  in 
these  times  of  high  labor  costs,  and  also  the  present 
A 
price  of  pipe,  makes  this  installation  almost  pro¬ 
hibitive,  but  in  a  pipe  line  where  spring  water  is 
running  all  the  time  it  does  not.  require  so  great  a 
depth  of  trench.  In  the  instance  mentioned  here  the 
pipe  was  in  the  ground  on  an  average  of  2^  feet. 
To  try  out  the  flow  of  water  the  line  of  pipe  was 
first  laid  on  the  surface  of  the  ground,  and  would 
stick  with  a  heavy  frost,  but  at  the  depth  mentioned 
it  will  never  freeze  while  the  water  is  running,  and 
with  a  spring  this  is  all  the  time,  as  the  reservoir 
must  be  at  the  outlet  end.  I  never  have  placed  a 
spring  pipe  line  deeper  than  21/?  feet  when  piping 
spring  watei*,  and  have  never  had  a  freeze-up  of  the 
line.  Such  a  source  of  water  supply  as  C.  W.  E.  R. 
has  is  of  great  value.  If  in  piping  a  spring  the  line 
rises  above  its  spring  source  at  any  point,  right 
there  should  be  placed  a  hydrant,  as  an  air  lock  is 
ve  ry  apt  to  form  at  this  point  and  will  completely 
stop  the  flow  of  water.  If  the  run  gets  slow  open 
the  hydrant  and  the  air  will  rush  out.  if.  e.  cox. 
