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Editorial Page of the American 
American 
Agriculturist 
Founded 1842 
Henry Morgen thau, Jr .Publisher 
E. R. Eastman .. Editor 
Fred W. Ohm . Associate Editor 
Mrs. G. E. Forbush .Household Editor 
Birge Kinne .Advertising Manager 
E. C. Weatherby .Circulation Manager 
CONTRIBUTING STAFF 
Jared Van Wagenen, Jr. G. T. Hughes H. E. Cook 
Published Weekly by 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, INC. 
Address all correspondence for editorial, advertising, or subscription de¬ 
partments to 
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. 
Subscription price, payable in advance, $1 a year, $2 for three 
years, $3 for five years. Canadian and foreign, $2 a year. 
VOL. 114 October 18, 1924 No. 16 
“The Trouble-Maker’ * 
ITH the publishing of my story, “The 
Trouble Maker,” which starts in serial 
form in this issue, I have reached one of the goals 
toward which I have striven all of my life. 
I have always wanted to write. 
How well do I remember that big day, now 
some years since, when the Country Gentleman 
sent me a check for forty dollars for an article 
which they later published as a feature. It was 
my first real success, attained after years of prac¬ 
tice and discouragement from returned manu¬ 
scripts. Few people realize that success in writ¬ 
ing, like success in all other business, does not 
just happen. It is a trade, requiring, as do other 
trades and professions, years of training, study 
and practice—especially practice and then more 
practice. 
Writing articles and editorials alone, however, 
was not enough. I always longed to write a story, 
but somehow in the hurry of every-day work, there 
never seemed to be time, and I knew that writing 
a book is a big job. Had I known how big, I 
surely would never have had the courage to start, 
for “The Trouble Maker” has taken my spare 
time for nearly two years. And certainly had/it 
not been for the constant encouragement and en¬ 
thusiasm of Mrs. Eastman and a few of my inti¬ 
mate friends, who read each chapter as it was 
written, the book never would have been finished. 
But it is done, and I hope you will like it. 
Anyway, it expresses to the best of my ability 
the love and respect I have for farm people, and 
it tells of their struggles to get better prices for 
their products, a kind of story which I do not 
think has ever been written before. 
After you become acquainted with obstinate 
but lovable old Johnny Ball, with young Jim, the 
“Trouble Maker,” with Bill Mead, the typical 
Yankee hired man, and with Dave Messenger, 
who longed for “peaceable folks,” maybe you will 
think that they are just like the people you have 
known all of your lives. 
If you like them, and like the story, and if it 
sets forth in some small part your own hopes and 
struggles for a better life in the country, then I 
shall know that all of the work in writing the 
book has been worth while.—E. R. Eastman. 
Wheat Prices Soaring 
I 
A S you will notice by our Market Page, wheat 
prices have reached a new high level. Prices 
of wheat in the primary markets are now better 
than a dollar and a half a bushel. Prices of other 
grains are also rising in proportion. It is esti¬ 
mated that this year’s wheat crop will bring the 
American farmers better than a billion dollars in 
cash. The best of it is that they and not the spec¬ 
ulators will get most of this for farmers still had 
their crop after the prices began to go up. 
When we think of wheat, we are apt to think of 
it as being grown exclusively in the West. As a 
matter of fact, wheat growing is no small industry 
in many Eastern States. Some of the finest wheat 
in the world is grown in Central Pennsylvania, 
and in New York State alone it is grown on more 
than 50,000 farms. Moreover, many more 
Eastern farms grow large quantities of other grain. 
New York, for instance, is one of the largest buck¬ 
wheat-growing States, and buckwheat is high in 
price this fall. All of which means that the 
Eastern farmer is going to have no small share in 
these better grain prices. Further than this, 
there is a distinct upward tendency for other 
farm products, all of which is encouraging. 
Just at present, the only part of the farm busi¬ 
ness that is lagging behind is dairying, and of 
course high grain prices increase the dairymen’s 
problem. However, even here it may be a good 
thing. In the first place, when one part of the 
farm business prospers, sooner or later all of the 
rest does; and then again, perhaps the higher 
prices of feed will cause less of it to be fed to 
worthless cows and this in turn will reduce the 
volume of milk and increase milk prices. 
One of the encouraging features about the 
farmer’s market problem this fall is the efficiency 
with which the railroads are moving the crops. 
Those farmers who have waited to get car space 
while their crops have perished or the crops de¬ 
clined, know that good railroad service is as fully 
important as are low freight rates. The moving 
of grain during the past few weeks has been ex¬ 
tremely heavy. Yet in spite of this, 'Eugene 
Meyer, managing director of the United States 
War Finance Corporation, states that railroad 
efficiency in moving crops this fall is almost with¬ 
out precedent. 
<i ' 
Bring Back the Flour Mills 
HE picture of the old mill on our cover this 
time reminds one of a passing industry. 
“Going to mill” was as much a part of the life of 
our farmer fathers as was going to church. They 
raised their buckwheat and their corn, and the 
miller ground it. The breads, pancakes, the 
johnny cakes, and the good old mush-and-milk 
made from these home-grown grains were whole¬ 
some and appetizing and they made a large part 
of the family diet. But with our modern times 
and our diversified agriculture “going to mill” 
has become less and less a custom. We seem to 
prefer, in fact, to sell all of our stuff at low whole¬ 
sale prices and buy back our supplies and foods 
for our own tables at the highest retail prices. 
Some of this change has been necessary and in 
the way of progress, but we believe it perfectly 
practical and perfectly possible to bring back to 
our modern farms .some of the ways of our 
fathers, among which might well be the raising 
of more home-grown foods. 
In recent years, the acreage of wheat has 
greatly increased in the East. Many of our 
dairy farmers are now growing a few acres of this 
fine old grain. Why not go another step and 
make arrangements through your Farm Bureau, 
your Grange, or in some other way, to establish 
and use mills for manufacturing some of this 
wheat into good wheat flour? 
Should Boys Drive Cars? 
HE new automobile law which went into 
effect in New York State on October 1st, 
while excellent in most respects, raises some real 
inconvenience and problems for farmer owners. 
Among these is the question of boys driving cars 
who are under eighteen years of age. It is now 
against the law for any one under eighteen to 
drive. There are many valid reasons for this 
requirement, for statistics show that quite a pro¬ 
portion of accidents happened when boys or girls 
were driving. Often also, it has been these young¬ 
sters who were responsible for the so-called joy¬ 
riding, and there has been altogether too much 
burning of gasoline by young people at night 
when they should have been at home. 
On the other hand, the farm automobile is much 
more than a pleasure vehicle. It has become a 
necessary machine in the operation of the farm 
American Agriculturist, October 18, 1924 
Agriculturist 
business, and on thousands of farms fathers have 
depended upon their boys to drive the car to 
town on necessary errands to get supplies anti 
especially to carry the milk. 
In the State, also, the farm automobile has 
done much to help the rural boy and girl to get a 
high school education. It has helped them to 
cover easily and quickly the long distance between 
the farm and the high school. 
Under the new law, all this will be impossible. 
If these reasons why young people should be 
allowed to drive are sufficiently strong to over¬ 
balance some of the dangers of such driving, then 
undoubtedly the law can be amended. What do 
you think about it? We would like to hear both 
sides of the question discussed. 
A Failure at Being a Failure 
ID you ever stop to think that much of this 
talk about lack of prohibition enforcement 
is just straight propaganda started by the big 
liquor interests? The manufacturers of booze 
well know that prohibition works and that their 
only hope for future business is to bring about the 
repeal of the amendment. To be sure, there is 
sand in the enforcing machinery; to be sure, there 
are violations of the law in every community. 
These are discouraging and disheartening; but 
after all, they were to be expected. 
All that one needs to do in the midst of discour¬ 
agement is to compare actual conditions now to 
what they were before the Eighteenth Amend¬ 
ment was passed. For all of the loud talking, 
there is not one-tenth of the liquor drunk in the 
United States now that there was before prohibi¬ 
tion. The Michigan Farmer , commenting on the 
situation, says: 
“The booze restaurants of the wet age are out of 
business. Charitable institutions have been relieved 
of from 25 to 75 per cent, of their burden. Church 
memberships have increased at the rate of 2,500 per 
day during 1923. The banks are doing better, the in¬ 
surance companies are doing better, but the breweries, 
such as they are, are delivering in hip-pocket quantities 
instead of in truck loads. 
“Remember the prophecies of all the grass that would 
grow on the streets when things were dry? Well, they 
are not using lawn-mowers on the city streets yet. 
Perhaps it was too dry for the grass to grow. 
“Oh, yes, you can get it, but you can get anything 
you want if you have the money and a sufficient amount 
of disrespect for law and decency. But even so, if 
prohibition is a failure it is one of the greatest failures 
at being a failure we have seen for some time.” 
Eastman’s Chestnuts 
ERE’S one that George Duff and I used to 
tell on the hired man when we were boys. 
Before writing it this time, I looked over a list of 
my friends to get some one to tell it on, but I did 
not quite dare to do it for fear the victim would 
lack a sense of humor and decide it was the open 
season for editors! 
The story went something like this: 
It seemsThat there was a man in a certain neigh¬ 
borhood (yours, maybe) who was so confounded 
lazy that he was absolutely no good. The neigh¬ 
bors even had to furnish his food, which his poor 
wife fed him with a spoon. Finally, the neighbors’ 
patience wore out—as you have probably no¬ 
ticed, it is none too long in such affairs anyway— 
so they loaded him into a coffin and set out to 
bury him. 
On the way, they passed a man who wanted to 
know what was the matter. The neighbors ex¬ 
plained that the man in the coffin was so lazy that 
he was worthless, and that they had decided to 
bury him because they were tired of feeding him 
for nothing. 
“Now, that’s too bad,” said the stranger. 
“Here, I’ve got a bushel of corn. I’ll give it to 
him so he can have another chance.” 
The man in the coffin raised himself languidly 
to a sitting position and said to the stranger: 
“Is it shelled?” 
“Why, no,” said the other apologetically, “it 
ain’t shelled.” 
Whereupon the man sank back to his rest and 
said softly, “CARRY ME ALONG, BOYS.” 
