American Agriculturist, July 21,1923 
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. 112 July 21, 1923 No. 3 
Are You Opposed to Prohibition? 
W E state without danger of contradic¬ 
tion that the most important issue 
before the American people to-day is pro¬ 
hibition. The votes and letters which Amer¬ 
ican Agriculturist is receiving, indicate so 
far that the majority of farm people are for 
prohibition and a strict enforcement of the 
Eighteenth Amendment. But the response 
so far shows that there are a surprisingly 
large number of farmers who are voting 
against prohibition. Moreover, some folks, 
not farmers are saying that many farmers 
talk prohibition and have hard cider in their 
cellars, thereby failing to practice what they 
preach. 
The cities of the United States are mostly 
wet. Organizations and thousands of in¬ 
dividuals are working to amend or destroy 
the Eighteenth Amendment. They certainly 
will succeed unless the farm people, who are 
the largest single class in favor of prohibi¬ 
tion, take interest enough to stand up and 
be counted. 
... American Agriculturist, therefore, is urg¬ 
ing you to send in your vote. A ballot is 
given on page 37. It contains only two 
questions. All you have to do is answer 
yes or no to both of them. Your name will 
be held entirely confidential if you so wish 
it. We are also asking the Grange and other 
local farm organizations to bring this matter 
up, vote on it, and send us the vote. Are you 
not interested enough in this tremendously 
important problem to vote yourself and also 
to get action from your neighbors and your 
local farm organization? 
Use Our Market Service 
W E hope that all of our people are paying 
special attention to the Market Page in 
ev'pry issue of American Agriculturist. We 
hope also that some thought is being given 
toward making arrangements for getting the 
radio market reports. We are putting these 
out four, days a week in cooperation with 
the New York State Department of Farms 
and Markets and the American Telephone 
and Telegraph Company’s broadcasting sta¬ 
tion, WEAF. 
Herschel Jones, our market expert, who 
writes the Market Page, has had long years 
of intimate experience with the markets of 
New York City. Reading this Market Page 
each week will give yo ( u information as to 
prices and the trend of the markets, which 
will save you much rftoney in the sale of 
your eggs, other poultry products, and other 
farm products which you have for sale from 
time to time. 
We cannot help but feel that this page is 
the best market service that can be obtained 
from any source. We know also that our 
radio market reports furnished through 
WEAF are very worthy of any efforts you 
can make to receive them. If you do not have 
a radio yourself, there is almost certain to be 
one in your neighborhood so that it would be 
possible for you to make arrangements to 
have the prices you are interested in tele¬ 
phoned to you by your neighbor who has a 
radio. 
The Deserted Village 
O NE Sunday afternoon a few weeks ago, 
we followed an old hill road leading back 
for miles from the main highway into the 
hill lands of a southern tier New York 
county. Fifty years ago farming and its 
allied industries flourished in those hills; 
to-day the woodchuck, the crow, and a few 
families of Polish people make only a pre¬ 
carious living there. Once there were sev¬ 
eral hamlets thriving with stores, churches, 
blacksmiths’ shops and butter factories, liv¬ 
ing on the trade and patronage from the 
surrounding farms. But now the lonesome 
and vacant buildings in many of these ham¬ 
lets remind one of Goldsmith’s “Deserted 
Village.” 
Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plain, 
Where health and plenty cheer’d the laboring swain, 
••••••* 
How often have I loiter’d o’er thy green, 
Where humble happiness endear’d each scene! 
How often have I paus’d on every charm, 
The shelter’d cot, the cultivated farm, 
The never-failing brook, the busy mill, 
The decent church that topt the neighboring hill, 
••••••• 
These were thy charms, but all these charms are fled. 
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day, 
But chok’d with sedges works its weedy way; 
Along thy glades, a solitary guest, 
A hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest; 
Amidst thy desert-walks the lapwing -flies, 
And tires their echoes with unvaried cries. 
Sunk are thy bowers in shapeless ruin all, 
And the long grass o’ertops the mouldering well. 
Within a few miles of where we stood, 
much of it within our sight, there lay prob¬ 
ably a hundred thousand acres occasionally 
dotted by the good crops and buildings of 
some remarkably able farmer, but for the 
most part covered and dominated by the 
daisies and the devil’s paint brush. 
The valley land's of the East are in general 
still excellent; so good, in fact, that riding 
along the main roads and seeing the fine 
crops and buildings that border these roads, 
makes one forget that the hills are not so 
good. There are sections of the East where 
the hill lands are nearly, if not quite, as 
good as those that border the creeks and 
rivers in the valleys. But speaking in gen¬ 
eral, the acid, and often swampy, soils of 
our eastern hills are worn out. American 
farm families have reached a point where 
it is impossible to maintain a decent standard 
of living on them, and one wonders what 
is to be their future. Some of. these lands 
are now being worked by Polish and other 
families of foreign blood, excellent people, 
able because of a large amount of help at 
home and a lower standard of living, to sub¬ 
sist for a time on a meager income. But 
even these people are beginning to leave, 
realizing the foolishness of working so hard 
Agriculturist 
for so little, when high wages can be ob¬ 
tained in the cities. 
Professor C. E. Ladd, of the New York 
State College of Agriculture, with some as¬ 
sociates, is making a study of the eastern 
hill lands. No definite conclusions have been 
reached. Perhaps there are none, but it has 
been suggested that the present situation can¬ 
not continue and that one of two things must 
happen. The first is that some of this land 
probably should never have been cleared in 
the first place, and that it never can be 
farmed profitably; therefore, the only solu¬ 
tion is to let it grow back into woods. The 
second remedy suggested is that the better 
parts of these worn-out hill soils can be re¬ 
claimed by the use of lime, drainage, acid 
phosphate and the production of clover. 
Some farmers are already doing this, but 
the difficulty with this plan is that the prices 
of farm products will not justify the heavy 
expense needed to reclaim this land. 
Perhaps, though, the time will come when 
the farmer, through the large demand for 
his products in the city, and through coop¬ 
eration, will obtain his proper share of the 
prices which come from this demand; and 
then the old hill lands will blossom forth 
again into fields of clover, renewed pros¬ 
perity, and a happy farm people. 
A Word For the Lightning Rod 
T HERE is quite a jump both in time and 
accomplishment from Franklin’s discov¬ 
ery that lightning is electricity, to the ex¬ 
periment which was conducted the other day 
by a scientist in the employ of the General 
Electric Company, in which he actually pro¬ 
duced lightning. 
.A room was especially prepared and a 
miniature village was set up in the room, 
well protected by lightning rods. When all 
was ready, the scientist pulled levers and 
made actual bolts of lightning crash across 
the room at the will of the operator, smash¬ 
ing into the buildings in the village. But 
the buildings were uninjured because they 
were well protected by the lightning rods. 
The lightning rod business has had rather 
a stormy career with farmerfe. When first 
invented, they were readily accepted and put 
up on farm buildings. Then a time followed 
when a good deal of crookedness and trickery 
were used by the agents in charging more 
than the lightning rods were worth or in 
selling worthless ones. There was so much 
of this crookedness that in time farmers 
came to look with doubt upon the whole 
business and to chase the lightning rod 
agents off the place with the dog. The re¬ 
sult was that for years few protectors were 
sold. 
This was unfortunate because the lightning 
rod in itself, if made properly, put up right 
and well grounded, is almost certain protec¬ 
tion against damage of buildings by lightning 
and the resulting fires. Of late years, farm 
people have come to realize this and more 
and more are equipping their buildings with 
this adequate protection against one of 
nature’s forces, which causes tremendous 
damage and loss to farm buildings every 
year. 
Quotations Worth While 
I do not care so much, where, as with 
whom, I live. If the right folks are with me 
I can manage to get a good deal of happiness 
in the city or in the country. Affter all a 
palace without affection is a poor hovel, and 
the meanest, but with love in it, is 2 . palace 
for the soul— Robert G. Ingersoll/ 
* * * ( 
Here’s to the woman who has a smile for 
every joy, a tear for every sorrow, a con¬ 
solation for every grief, an excuse for every 
fault, a prayer for every misfortune, an en¬ 
couragement for every hope.— Sainte Foix. ^ 
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