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Editorial Pa^e of the American 
American 
Agriculturist 
Founded 1842 
Henry Morgenthau, Jr .Publisher 
E. R. Eastman .Editor 
Fred W. Ohm .Associate Editor 
Gabrielle Elliot .... Household Editor 
BiRGE Kinne .Advertising Manager 
H. L. VONDERLIETH . . . Circulation Manager 
contributing staff 
Herbert E. Cook .... Plow Handle Talks 
Jared Van Wagenbn, Jr. . Van Wagenen Comer 
Herschel H. Jones . . . Market Department 
K. J. T. Ekblaw . Farm Engineering Department 
Paul Work .Vegetable Department 
George T. Hughes .... Investment Adviser 
Dr. S. K. Johnson .... Veterinary Adviser 
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Published Weekly by 
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461 Fourth Ave., New York, N. Y. 
Entered as Second-Class Matter, December 15, 1922, at the 
Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3,1879. 
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VOL. Ill March 10, 1923 NO. 10 
District Superintendents and the 
School Bill 
W HY are there several of the school- 
district superintendents so active in 
their opposition to the suggestions for school 
improvement made by the Committee of 
Twenty-one? Is it because of any real in¬ 
terest in the educational welfare of the coun¬ 
try boys and girls, or because of a selfish 
desire to maintain their own jobs? 
There are a large number of sincere capa¬ 
ble men and women acting as district super¬ 
intendents of schools. Some of these have 
gone as far as to publicly state that should 
the educational interests of country children 
require a change in school supervision, they 
would be the first to resign their jobs. The 
schools will always have need for such men 
and women. But there is another kind of 
superintendent of small ability and poorly 
trained, obtaining and holding his job by 
old-fashioned political methods. These nien 
always work hard to defeat progressive 
measures which might put better supervisors 
in their places and give the people more real 
control of their schools with a correspond¬ 
ingly better educational chance for the chil¬ 
dren. 
It is this class who have been' using every 
opportunity to circulate written matter and 
to talk to individuals in small groups in an 
effort to give rural people an incorrect 
knowledge of the recommendations for school 
improvement made by the Committee of 
Twenty-one. These superintendents have 
been rather bold in their efforts against 
suggested changes in the school law because 
they have felt that they had the support of 
two or three men in the Education Depart¬ 
ment at Albany who are and always have 
been enemies of all progress, and who desire 
to continue to keep the control out of the 
hands of the rural-school patrons. We are 
glad to say that such men in the department 
are very greatly in the minority, and that 
the department as a whole is working hard 
and well to serve the boys and girls, but 
minorities can make a lot of noise and do a 
lot of damage. 
There is much propaganda afloat to the 
effect that the proposed school bill, contain¬ 
ing the suggestions of the Committee of 
Twenty-one, will force school consolidation. 
Such statements are absolutely false. Under 
the present systepi, which some of the super¬ 
intendents seem so anxious to maintain, they 
and the Education Department can force a 
consolidation of any rural school in the State, 
and they have done so against the bitter 
opposition of the school patrons concerned. 
If the proposed bill now in the Legislature is 
passed, , the boundaries of rural districts as 
they are now will remain the same and can¬ 
not be changed except by local vote. 
Under the present law the people elect 
school directors whose only function is to 
elect a district superintendent once in five 
years. These school directors have absolute¬ 
ly no control over the superintendent, and 
he follows the instructions of the Education 
Department implicitly. It is right that in 
educational functions the department should 
guide, but in matters of administration the 
people should have a voice. In the proposed 
bill the superintendent will be elected, after 
his present term expires, by the district 
board, and will be responsible in the execu¬ 
tion of his duties to that board and through 
it to local school patrons. Knowing this, can 
you not see the motive in the minds of some 
of the superintendents who are fighting the 
new legislation? 
Some of the enemies of school progress 
and some sincere people are saying also that 
people are not well informed in regard to 
the proposed legislation. If they are not, 
they never will be. For three years the Com¬ 
mittee of Twenty-one and its recommenda¬ 
tions has been discussed in New York State. 
At least fifteen hundred local meetings have 
been held, and the papers have been full of 
the subject. There never was a piece of 
legislation that has had more preliminary 
discussion than the present rural-school bill. 
While this bill is long, there are, after all, 
only a few fundamental principles to keep 
in mind. If you can agree with these, de¬ 
tails can be changed and worked out. First 
among these suggestions incorporated in the 
bill sponsored by the Committee of Twenty- 
one is the principle of local control by school 
patrons. By it, if you want consolidation, 
you can have it. If not, no one can put it 
over on your district, and the same is true 
of many other principles of school adminis¬ 
tration. The bill calls for better-trained 
country teachers and more State aid to such 
teachers and to the rural schools that need it. 
Provision is made for an equalization of tax 
rate, so that the unfair present situation 
cannot exist, whereby the farmers in one 
district pay from two to twenty times as 
much for the same school facilities as i| paid 
in an adjoining district. 
Now is the time for you to decide what 
the future of the country school is to be. 
Will you take the recommendations of a com¬ 
mittee containing a majority of your repre¬ 
sentatives which has unselfishly worked for 
three years for your interest and for your 
children, or will you allow the prejudiced 
statements and propaganda of the opponents 
of this bill and educational progress to de¬ 
feat it for selfish and unworthy reasons? 
No Price Fixing of Any Kind 
RESIDENT HARDING’S Ship Subsidy 
Bill has been defeated. This is as it 
should be. Both the National Grange and 
the American Farm Bureau have gone on 
record opposing this plan of the Govern- 
American Agriculturist, March 10, 1923 
Agriculturist 
ment’s paying ship owners to operate their 
vessels. 
Right along the same line Senator Good¬ 
ing has introduced a bill, which has been re¬ 
ported favorably by the Senate Committee 
on Agriculture, to have the Federal Govern¬ 
ment standardize the price of wheat at $1.75 
per bushel. In other words, this bill would 
subsidize the wheat growers. Fortunately, 
it has no chance of passing. 
The bitter experiences of the war, and 
since, ought to have proven that there could 
be no interference with the law of supply 
and demand without sooner or later bring¬ 
ing disastrous results. Price fixing or any 
other forms of subsidy do interfere with the 
law of supply and demand. They are un¬ 
economic, dangerous, and in the end will 
cause more trouble than any temporary re¬ 
lief they can produce. 
Hay as a Cash Crop 
ROFESSOR LADD, in his article on the 
first page of this issue, has raised a most 
interesting and important question on the 
future of the hay market in the East. The 
market for hay has depended in the past 
largely upon the large number of horses used 
in the cities. It is plain, therefore, that with 
the partial elimination of the horse by the 
automobile the demand for market hay must 
decrease. 
Thousands of farmers have found hay a 
very profitable cash crop. Even where much 
hay is consumed at home, the few tons of 
surplus high-grade timothy have added a 
little welcome cash when it was much needed. 
The high freight rates have helped to give 
the Eastern farmer an advantage over his 
Western brother in marketing hay, but even 
this advantage has not offset the rapidly 
declining demand. 
The question is: Shall we change the farm 
practice to find some cash crop in the place 
of hay, and, if so, how ? This is not a simple 
problem, because if we plow more to get some 
other cash crop we are almost sure to create 
unprofitable surpluses along other lines. Pos¬ 
sibly the real solution is to raise more legu- 
minus hay instead of timothy for consump¬ 
tion on the farm, and if any more plowing 
is done to raise more home-grown grain in¬ 
stead of buying so much from the West. 
State Votes for Coliseum 
T he New York State Legislature has 
passed and Governor Smith has signed 
the bill for the erection of a Coliseum Build¬ 
ing on the State Fair Grounds. 
The erection of the Coliseum was one of 
the conditions demanded by the World’s 
Dairy Congress for coming to New York 
State and to Syracuse. Therefore farmers 
of the East are now assured that the Na¬ 
tional Dairy Show and the World’s Dairy 
Congress, which will be the greatest dairy 
show of its kind, is to convene in the heart 
of the Eastern dairy district, at Syracuse. 
American Agriculturist has worked hard 
from the first to get this World Show to 
come to New York State, believing that it 
will help to advance and emphasize the im¬ 
portance of the Eastern dairy industry. We 
are, therefore, naturally pleased that its com¬ 
ing is now assured. 
Work on the Coliseum is to begin as soon 
as the frost is out of the ground,, and it will 
be completed probably in time for the State 
Fair in September, certainly in time for the 
Dairy Show, which is to meet a month later. 
The building will have a seating capacity ot 
nearly 6,000 persons, and it will give the 
State Fair Grounds much-needed facilities 
for the judging of cattle, for holding of ^eat 
cattle sales, and for great farm meetings, 
where the people can be seated under cover. 
