124 
% 
American Agriculturist, August 25 ,1923 
Editorial Pa 
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., Ii. H. Jones, 
Paul Work, G. T. Hughes, H. E. Babcock 
OUR ADVERTISEMENTS GUARANTEED . 
The American Agriculturist accepts only advertis¬ 
ing which it believes to be thoroughly honest. 
Vv T e positively guarantee to our readers fair and 
honest treatment in dealing with our advertisers. 
We guarantee to refund the price of goods pur¬ 
chased by our subscribers from any advertiser who 
fails to make good when the article purchased is 
found not to be as advertised. 
To benefit by this guarantee subscribers must say: 
“I saw your ad in the American Agriculturist” when 
ordering from our advertisers. 
Published Weekly by 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. INC. 
Address all correspondence for editorial, advertising, or 
subscription departments 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. 
Canadian and foreign, $2 a year. 
VOL. 112 August 25, 1923 No. 8 
Some Common Sense Needed 
T is reported that the American Farm 
Bureau Federation is likely to recom¬ 
mend that the immigration bars be lowered 
to admit foreign labor for American farms. 
If this be true, and if the movement suc¬ 
ceeds, the American Farm Bureau will have 
done more injury to the real interests of the 
average American farmer than all the good ' 
the organization has ever accomplished. 
All under heaven that ails agriculture at 
the present time is over-production. Every 
year sees a big jump in the production of . 
nearly every farm product. We got in the 
swing during the war and we have not known 
how to slacken up since. The only thing that 
has saved us from utter ruin is the increased 
demand caused by the prosperity in the 
cities. This prosperity is not likely to last. 
But still we go on piling up the surplus. It 
makes us tired and disgusted to hear some . 
speakers, who ought to know better, try to 
show that it is wrong and unpatriotic for 
farmers to even talk of cutting down produc¬ 
tion. The very first thing every other busi¬ 
ness in the world does when it runs into a 
surplus is to lay off its help and shut partly 
or completely down. But of course it is 
wrong for farmers to even think of this. 
We keep right on in the ruinous race of rais¬ 
ing more farm products than the consumer 
wants and then we look to the government, 
the politicians and to our organizations to 
do the impossible in helping us to get our 
money back. Furthermore, not satisfied with 
the present surplus, we want to get more 
help and make it still bigger. So our or¬ 
ganizations work to let in the cheap foreign 
labor, most of which is no good on our 
farms anyway. 
Without question lack of farm labor has 
worked a real temporary hardship on a 
minority of our farmers, but the average 
farmers—who make up the great majority 
—work one-man farms and hire little or no 
help. More labor simply increases the com¬ 
petition that such men cannot meet even now. 
Even those who now do hire help w T ill bene¬ 
fit in the long run by not getting it through • 
e of the American 
the better prices which will come through 
lessened production. 
We complain about the abandoned farms, 
the lack of help and the high costs of produc¬ 
tion. Where in Sam Hill would all of us be 
if some of the farms were not abandoned and 
if help were cheap and plentiful? It is 
about time a little old-fashioned horse sense 
was applied to the farmer’s many problems. 
The Reign of King Hawkweed 
R. G. M. TWITCHELL writing recently 
in the “Main Farmer” says that science 
tells us that one of two alternatives faces the 
people of this nation. “It is either control of 
the insect pests and diseases or absolute de¬ 
struction of all vegetation and that means of 
all life of every kind.” 
Dr. Twitched carries his point further and 
says that the above statement applies also 
to many destructive weeds one of the worst 
of which is the orange hawkweed commonly 
"known as and well called the devil’s paint 
brush. 
Like many another thing of evil the hawk¬ 
weed is attractive. So, many years ago some¬ 
body in Europe saw that it was pretty and 
imported it into America. What a world of 
trouble that fellow let loose! Soon after¬ 
ward it began to appear in the pastures and 
fields. Men gave little attention to it and it 
spread like fire. To-day one can travel in 
the hill lands of New England and the Middle 
Atlantic States and see thousands upon 
thousands of acres completely covered by 
this terrible weed. Where it comes it crowds 
out everything else. Hay buyers last year 
put an embargo on hay* for many sections 
where this pest prevails. It is so widespread 
that it does no good for one man to clean it 
out of his farm because next year it will 
seed again from the neighbors’ farms. 
To a man who loves the old hill lands it is 
really a saddening sight to stand on a hill¬ 
top in the summer and see this weed covering 
and coloring the fields in every direction. 
If one was a preacher, he could draw a moral 
oil how the devil and his agencies gain quick 
control in nature when good things begin to 
slip. The good thing in the case of the 
devils’ paint brush is the clover. Under 
present conditions with low prices there is 
probably nothing effective to be done to con¬ 
trol the hawkweed. But perhaps when farm 
conditions improve, some of the land can be 
reclaimed and the clover brought back by 
acid, phosphate, and a large use of lime. 
Wheat in the Dairy Country 
I T is curious how nearly everything, in¬ 
cluding farm practices, seems to travel 
in cycles. History repeats itself. There was 
a time in early days when wheat was grown 
on nearly all Eastern farms and on most of 
our many streams and creeks, there stood 
the grist mills, which, because of the forests, 
were supplied with a more regular water 
power than can be. had 'at present. Our 
forefathers threshed tjie wheat out, usually 
with hand flails, then took it to the mill 
where it was ground by the .miller who took 
his pay or toll out of the wheat itself. From 
this flour our grandmothers made the large 
wholesome loaves of homemade bread. 
But with the settlement of the prairies, 
wheat gradually left our Eastern hill farms, 
although it is still grown extensively in the 
rolling lands of western New York and in 
central Pennsylvania. For a long time a 
patch of wheat was almost a curiosity in the 
Eastern dairy country. But during the last 
few years for some reason, probably because 
of the higher prices of the war, wheat has 
been coming back again into the East and, 
although the prices have declined', we be¬ 
lieve it is here to stay. 
Wheat growing in our dairy country has 
Agriculturist 
many advantages, not the least of which is 
that it can be made to produce a high yield. 
It is a splendid nurse crop; in fact, a better 
grass seeding can be obtained, especially of 
clover, than with any other grain. Wheat 
makes excellent feed for hens. But the 
greatest possibilities lie in getting the home¬ 
grown wheat back on to our own tables. 
The chief difficulty in doing this is the 
lack of wheat flower milling facilities, but 
we believe a little pressure on the part of 
farmers with the local miller with the 
promise of enough patronage to pay him, 
would encourage him to put in the necessary 
machinery for grinding a good wheat flour. 
Why is not this one way for farmers to be¬ 
come like their fathers, more independent, 
and beat the high cest of living by growing, 
milling and using one of the fundamental 
parts of their diet? 
Some Gift 
HE rather amusing letter which follows, 
shows how much farmers will miss the 
free seeds which Congressmen used to hand 
out. We are glad that this nonsense has at 
last been done away with. 
“I hereby wish to call your attention to the 
good seed the government has been handing 
out, and no doubt paid good money for. 
Relatives of mine living in the city received 
it last spring, and having no use for it, gave 
it to me. I sowed it and now it turned out 
to be wild radish and mustard. I have been 
fighting them for years, and then I have them 
given to me. I have managed to get rid of 
mustard and I certainly don’t want a fresh 
start of it.”—G. W. K. 
The Suit Against The I. H. C. 
EWSPAPERS recently have contained 
accounts of the filing of'a suit by the 
United States Department of Justice against 
the International Harvester Company in an 
attempt to break up this corporation into 
smaller- units. 
About eleven years ago the government 
sued the same corporation on the charge, 
among others, that the company had unduly 
raised the price of harvesting machinery to 
the grave injury of the American farmer. 
The government lost this suit. Now in this 
new proceeding, the company is charged by 
the government with having made the prices 
of harvesting machinery so low that it has 
injured the business of its competitors. 
The business of trust-busting in this coun¬ 
try is pretty nearly a played-out game. Un¬ 
doubtedly there is danger in great corpora¬ 
tions becoming so powerful as to be injurious 
to small competitors and to the public in gen¬ 
eral. But these are the days of big opera¬ 
tions and it is often only through and by the 
smaller concerns uniting into big ones that 
efficiency is obtained and the costs of pro¬ 
duction cut down. 
Farmers themselves, through their coop¬ 
erative associations—many of which are al¬ 
ready doing business in this country running 
into millions of dollars—are coming to see 
that one way to cut down overhead expenses 
is to increase the size and volume of the bus¬ 
iness done. We do not think that the govern¬ 
ment will get much sympathy from farm 
people in its complaint that the International 
Harvester Company is selling machines at 
too low prices. 
We succeed or we fail as we acquire good 
habits or bad ones; and we acquire good 
habits as easily as bad ones., Only those who 
find it out succeed in life.— Herbert 
Spencer. 
*f* 'k H 5 
What man gains by his own labor he doth 
treasure; but the gift of the gods he squand¬ 
ers as of little worth. 
