American Agriculturist, November 15, 1924 
339 
Automobile Law Should Be Amended 
Our Readers Say It Interferes with Both Education and Business 
I AM teaching in a small rural high school. 
We have one hundred and sixteen students 
in the Academic department, forty-seven of 
which are non-resident students, and the 
majority of them drove or rode in cars to school up 
to October first. Many still do, as some are over 
eighteen years of age, and others come with them. 
I know of several cases, however, where the new 
law has worked as a hardship upon farmers with 
boys and girls of high school age. I do not believe 
that the framers of the law considered that angle 
of the problem when drafting the law. 
I know of at least one boy who is now driving a 
car to school without a driver’s license. He does 
not drive on a main road, and may not be caught, 
but I dislike the idea, if for no other reason than 
that it is teaching some measure of disrespect for 
law. I know of another case where a father is 
bringing his daughter to school and coming for her, 
a twelve-mile round trip twice each day. Quite a 
few boys are now riding horses, which means 
ANOTHER OLD-TIMER IN THE A. A. FAMILY 
This is a picture of “Joe,” a horse owned,'by Daniel 
Ilandschin of Fair Ilill. I do not know exactly how old 
“Joe” is but he is somewhere around the aye of “ Charlie,” 
the horse pictured some weeks ago in Agriculturist. “ Joe ” 
has been in this vicinity for over fourteen years and he was 
an old horse already then. lie must be around thirty-six 
years old.—J. IF, Bucks County, Pa. 
added expense and loss of time. Several girls are 
driving horses to school. 
I know that the majority of farmers are fully in 
sympathy with the objects for which the bill was 
passed, but they believe that those objects can be 
reached without causing them so ryucli incon¬ 
venience. It is difficult enough and costly enough 
for a farm boy or girl to attend high school, even 
without extra handicaps. 
I believe this can be brought about by a special 
license to be given boys and girls who prove 
themselves competent to operate a car after a 
road test — -this license to be given only for driving 
a car to and from school, and not good for driving 
at any other time. There are many boys and 
girls who are under 18 years of age who are fully 
competent to drive a car. I believe that if farm 
people really want this provision added to the law 
that they can secure it. — H. L. C., Chautauqua 
County, N. Y. 
* * * 
Eighteen Not Too High 
T what minimum age would you suggest 
permitting a minor to drive a car? From 
what may be seen on the highways, there is none 
at which some parents will not allow their children 
to mishandle , a steering wheel, except that at 
which they can neither reach it nor turn it. 
But perhaps most parents are powerless in these 
tines of peace, no longer piping but roaring. 
Surely their indifference as to whether or not the 
average citizen in the path of their offspring lives 
out his normal span of life should be balanced by 
anxiety, concerning the junking of machinery, in 
most cases, not yet escaped from its instalment 
bondages, but the evidence is adverse. Of course, 
not all the autos strung along roadway fences, or 
resting peacefully against jammed up trees or 
telephone poles, or hanging like the coffin of Ma¬ 
homet, between heaven and earth on the edges of 
bridges, are put there by the young. There is no 
age at which the hearts of certain varieties of 
idiot grow old enough to affect the bony structure 
of the skull sufficiently to prevent them from 
becoming a menace to the public. 
But, in a general way, unless some method can 
be devised by which parents, without respect to 
their wealth or their influence in the community, 
can be held to a strict accountability for allowing 
their children to convert the public roads to a 
“No Man’s Land,” eighteen is not an oppressive 
limit for conferring the power of life or death on 
prospective speed maniacs.—H. B. G., Sullivan 
County, N. Y. 
* * * 
This Boy Drove 1700 Miles One Trip 
N looking over your paper of October 18th, I 
noticed this, “Should Boys Drive Cars?” I 
say give the boys a chance. In the future, some 
one of those boys may be president of this beauti¬ 
ful country. Many of our distinguished men were 
born and brought up as farmers’ sons in country 
homes, and the boys of to-day, who lend a helping 
hand on their father’s farm, morning and evening, 
have not much time to spare. 
Can we blame them if they speed up a bit to get 
to school on time to line up when the bell rings? 
In every boy’s heart, no matter how mischievous 
he is, there is an inborn sense of honor and right. 
Many boys of 18 years are more observing and 
careful than some men many years older. 
I have a boy of my own who. drove me 1700 
miles in his auto this past summer. I noticed his 
love of speed and of being a leader on the road, yet 
the smallest chicken that crossed our path was 
sure of its life as well as the many folks who 
passed us by. Some of my friends had quite a 
laugh at my taking a boy as driver as far away as 
Prince Edward Island, Canada, one who had 
never been over that road before. He brought 
me back home without a scratch. Some record 
that, and I think that where there is one boy who 
will defy the law there are many others who will 
respect the law and order of the road.—H. E. R., 
Essex County, Mass. 
* * * 
A Word for the Girl 
1 READ your paper every week, and in your 
October 18th number I read a piece on 
“Should Boys Drive Cars?” I say yes. I have 
no boys, but I have a girl just passed 16 and she 
has run our car for two years and drives it well. 
I think she is able to drive without trouble, yet 
she goes to Gloversville High School, which is three 
miles away, and has to walk. This is her last 
year in High. Then she plans to go to Training 
Class for teachers at Broadalbin and that is six 
miles from home. I wish she could be home every 
night where I would rather have her than out 
among strangers. I think the government is 
doing more harm to keep a child from an educa¬ 
tion than it is saving auto accidents. 
I know a good many youngsters who went to the 
city schools with their little cars to get an educa¬ 
tion, but I don’t know how they are getting there 
now, unless they walk, and that is probably three 
miles or more. I think if the government would 
enforce the law and not let bootleggers or drunken 
men drive cars that would save most of our auto 
troubles.— Mrs. L. B., Fulton County, N. Y. 
/ * * * 
For a Rigid Examination 
Y OUR inquiry as to boys and girls under 
18 years driving autos should be more than 
overwhelmingly responded to, and it is not likely 
that one out of 100, that have children drivers, 
will reflect the injustice. One of the gross 
injustices ever dealt to farmers is that act, as 
most any farmer child-can steer a sled successfully 
at a terrific speed, which is more difficult and 
: dangerous than driving autos. 
The law should be made to grant licenses to any 
person that can see and pass a rigid examination. 
It would cut out many old road hogs. They think 
that all they have to do is “hook and run” and 
never stop until someone is ditched. 
I know many a child that can drive autos more 
successfully on country roads than many chauf¬ 
feurs from the cities that obtain licenses and don’t 
know how to follow a country road. This is 
actually the truth.—D. J. B., Ulster County, N. Y. 
Topsy, Another Rival of Charlie 
I DO not wish to pluck one spray of laurel from the 
ancient topknot of “Charlie” as the oldest horse. 
Topsy is very nearly the same age. We will say just a 
very little younger. In the old days when each man 
worked his road tax, when noon came the whole gang 
went to the nearest farmhouse, ate a hearty dinner of 
potatoes, side pork and pie and went back to their road 
work. We did not hear anything about county super¬ 
intendents. Each commissioner was responsible for 
the roads of his own town and each “path-master” for 
his own beat. Thirty years ago last May the Com¬ 
missioner for this town was a jolly, good-hearted farmer 
known as “Big Jack.” He had been a blacksmith in 
his younger days, and his special pride was his team, a 
pair of prancing blacks, of which Topsy was one. She 
was at that time at least five years old, possibly a little 
older, strong enough to plow the deep furrows on the 
hill roads and help pull the road worker. While Topsy 
TOPSY, WILMA UP 
was still a young horse. Big Jack died and his possessions 
passed into the hands of others. The day of the sale, no 
doubt there were both good and bad masters bidding 
on Topsy. But when she was “knocked down” to the 
highest bidder, it was not a stranger’s hand that reached 
for her halter. Less than half a mile from her old home 
she is spending her last days in peace and plenty. She 
worked in the team until long past twenty, then growing 
stiff and overfat, a younger horse took her place. Her 
last job was doing the raking during haying. But now 
during winter a good barn keeps the chill from her old 
bones, and in summer she spends her time dozing under 
the shade of the maples in the pasture or gossiping over 
the fence with Dick, the fat pensioner on the next farm; 
but he is only twenty-four, a mere colt compared with 
Topsy. How I wish all old horses were just as well off 
as those two.—J. Y., Delaware County, New York. 
Where the Farmer Has the Best of It 
ECENT press dispatches have called attention to 
an acute food situation in Germany. It has been 
reported that some classes of the people are starving, 
although this statement seems to be exaggerated. 
The harvests of the past few years have been bountiful, 
but the depreciation in the value of the currency has 
made it difficult for the people of the towns and cities 
to accumulate enough money to buy sufficient amounts 
of food. The farmers have the grain and the live stock, 
but they naturally refuse to sell for paper marks which 
are decreasing in value every day and only put their 
products on the market when they must have money to 
pay interest or to buy necessary supplies. 
The situation is not one of shortage of food but rather 
one of surplus of money. The German farmer, at 
least, is in no danger of starving and the foodstuffs 
which he holds he can exchange for other products on 
almost any terms which suit him. One advantage 
which the farmer has in any economic emergency is 
that every other class will know the pangs of hunger 
before he does.— Ernest Cordeal, Nebraska. 
