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American Agriculturist, May 19,1923 
Editorial Page 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 
H. E. Cook, Jared Van Wagenen, Jr., H. H. Jones, 
Paul Work, G. T. Hughes, H. E. Babcock 
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Entered as Second-Class Matter, December 15, 1922. at the 
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VOL. Ill May 19, 1923 No. 20 
Support the Mullan-Gage Law 
0 citizen of New York State or member 
of its Legislature can take any pride in 
the accomplishments, or lack of them, in the 
session just passed. It would have been 
much better and cheaper had it never met. 
Not in years has there been more political 
horse-play and less real achievement. Then 
to cap the climax, and to add insult to injury 
to the law-abiding citizens of the State, the 
Legislature at the last moment passed the 
bill repealing the Mullan-Gage Law. The 
responsibility is now on Governor Smith of 
determining whether or not New York State 
believes in cooperating with the national gov¬ 
ernment in enforcing prohibition which is 
the law of the land. 
Nearly all of the States have passed legis¬ 
lation supporting the Volstead Act, prohibit¬ 
ing the manufacture and sale of intoxicating 
liquors and providing cooperation between 
the State law enforcing machinery and the 
Federal authorities. The Mullan-Gage Law 
provided for such cooperation in New York 
State. About the only argument against the 
Mullan-Gage Law is the claim that its at¬ 
tempted enforcement by State and city offi¬ 
cials and police led to much bribery and graft 
between the bootleggers and the law enforce¬ 
ment officers. Such an argument is absurd 
on its face because it is a confession that all 
State and city enforcement officers are dis¬ 
honest and can be bribed. 
The Eighteenth Amendment is a Federal 
law and a part of the United States Consti¬ 
tution, which Governor Smith and other 
public officials agreed to support when they 
took their oath of office. If the Governor 
does not veto this repeal bill, hundreds of 
bootleggers already indicted under the State 
law will be released. New York will by this 
repeal give open support and comfort to the 
criminal bootleggers, and we will have one 
of the worst situations from a law enforcing 
standpoint that has ever existed in America. 
In the words of the Utica “Observer,” pub¬ 
lished at Utica, Newx York: “It throws the 
State open to a revel in lawlessness that has 
never been before approached. It will fill 
the State with criminals who will flock here 
to open illicit traffic and make possible the 
opening of dives upon every corner.” 
The New York “World,” which openly 
fought the Eighteenth Amendment both be¬ 
fore and after it was passed, makes the fol¬ 
lowing remark since the passage of the bill 
repealing the Mullan-Gage Law: “Congress 
imposed the Volstead Law upon the people 
of New York. Now let Congress provide for 
the enforcement of the Volstead Law.” If 
South Carolina ever made any stronger 
statement than this for State rights and nul¬ 
lification before the Civil War, we never 
read it. 
The Governor is to hold a hearing on the 
bill repealing the Mullan-Gage Law some¬ 
time during the week beginning May 20. If 
you agree with us that the repeal of this Law 
would be a sad disgrace to the people of 
New York State, we suggest that you write, 
or better still, telegraph the Governor im¬ 
mediately asking him. to veto the repeal. 
Home, Sweet Home 
‘‘TTOME, SWEET HOME” celebrates its 
XJ.one hundredth anniversary this month. 
It was written by John Howard Payne, on 
the eighth of May, 1823. A New York news¬ 
paper in commenting on the song’s anni¬ 
versary said that no doubt a city audience 
hearing it in a theatre now for the first time 
would call it very mediocre. Maybe so, but 
if “Home, Sweet Home” is not a great ballad, 
then our sense of all that is beautiful in 
music and fine in sentiment is mediocre, too. 
This song, standing as a symbol of the home 
associations which are the best in all human 
relationships, has lived one hundred years 
in the hearts of hundreds of millions and it 
will continue to live when the high-toned 
operas or the wild jazzes which seem to 
please people so much now are long gone and 
forgotten. 
“Home, Sweet Home” is particularly an 
American song because the American has 
been a pioneer and a wanderer; few of them 
have stayed in one spot for more than one 
generation, and this song more than any 
other has expressed the wanderer’s bitter 
feelings of lonesomeness and homesickness. 
“Home, Sweet Home” has been sung by 
thousands of farm women, soul-starved for 
music and for associations with friends and 
relatives, of which the isolated business of 
farming had deprived them. “Home, Sweet 
Home” is the song of the farm boy hired out 
to a Yankee farmer, or lured by adventure to 
the great city only to find after all that “be 
it ever so humble there is no place like 
home.” “Home, Sweet Home” is the song of 
the pioneer in his covered wagon with all of 
his friends and old associations left behind, 
and an unknown land and future ahead, and 
“Home, Sweet Home” is the song also of the 
boy soldier, separated from his family for 
the first time and almost dying with the 
nostalgia of homesickness. 
There is a story of two great armies dur¬ 
ing the Civil War lying one summer evening 
on opposite sides of a Virginia river. As we 
remember the story, the fighting had ceased 
for the day and the men were resting. After 
a while, a Southern band began to play 
“Maryland, My Maryland,” and as the band 
played, a few of the Confederate boys began 
to sing. Then regiment after regiment took 
up the song until the whole army had joined 
in. 
Not to be outdone, a Union band began to 
play “Marching Through Georgia,” and the 
soldiers joined in until the whole Union army 
was singing. When the Confederates had 
finished their song, they immediately started 
another one, “Dixie,” and they were an¬ 
swered on the other side by “The Girl I Left 
Behind Me.” Then the Southerners took up 
one by one some of the beautiful old planta¬ 
tion ballads, and each time they were an- 
Agriculturist 
swered by the Union boys by the love and 
folk songs of the North. 
Finally, after a lull, from the Southern en¬ 
campment softly across the waters of the 
river came the beautiful and sad old strains 
of “Home, Sweet Home.” Then the Union 
band began to play it, too, and as the bands 
played in unison, the boys from both North 
and South sang the greatest of all home 
songs together. As the great volume of 
song arose from the hearts of a hundred 
thousand men, they became again little boys, 
forgetting that they were bitter enemies and 
remembering only those loved folks waiting 
far away in Southern and Northern homes. 
They were little boys, called by the haunting 
melody to pleasant scenes of childhood days 
forever gone, to memories of mother, father, 
brothers and sisters now separated by death, 
time or distance; to memories of the pleasant 
home meal times, the long evenings together 
around the reading table and the warm wood 
fire—into which the horrors of war and the 
tragedy of separation had not yet come. 
Just put the record on your phonograph, 
or get somebody to play the melody over 
softly for you on the piano, then close your 
eyes and picture the scenes that the words 
and music of “Home, Sweet Home” recall, 
and you will then know why it has lived a 
hundred years and will continue to live while 
folks hold the associations and memories of 
home as life’s best treasures. 
Pasture Crops 
0 farmer would think of harvesting a 
crop of corn or oats until it is ripe. Good 
pasture is one of the most valuable crops, 
yet a majority of dairymen pay little atten¬ 
tion to its improvement, and begin to harvest 
it too early by turning the cattle on it in the 
spring before the grasses have had a proper 
start. It is always a temptation to get the 
cattle out of the barn in the spring, partic¬ 
ularly when the costs of feed are high, and 
returns for milk comparatively low. But it 
is a costly practice to yield to that tempta¬ 
tion. 
When they are turned out, the flow of milk 
too close cropping by feeding some hay at the 
can be kept up and the pasture saved from 
same time. The New Jersey State College 
of Agriculture says: “The food material in 
growing grass is manufactured by the green 
leaves and if the pasture is kept closely 
cropped, the leaf surface is decreased to such 
an extent that many of the roots die or are 
weakened through lack of nourishment. If 
the pastures are expected to grow and thrive, 
we must allow them to get a good start in 
the spring which will enable them to develop 
sufficient roots to carry them through the 
dry summer.” Later in the summer when 
the pasture is most needed to keep up the 
flow of milk those that have been pastured 
too early are the first to turn brown and to 
become comparatively useless. 
This year the cold season has greatly 
retarded the pastures in all Eastern States. 
In most sections they are at least two weeks 
late, and special care will have to be given by 
dairymen not to turn the cattle on them too 
early. _ 
Quotations Worth While 
Make one person happy each day and in 
forty years you have made 14,600 human 
beings happy for a little time at least.— 
* * ♦ 
Honor is like an island, rugged and with¬ 
out a landing place; we can nevermore re¬ 
enter, when we are once outside of it. 
♦ * * 
There is no place more delightful than 
one’s own fireside.— Cicero. 
* * * 
Mutual brotherhood means mutual service. 
—Lyman Abbott. 
