316 
Editorial Page of the American 
/American 
Agriculturist 
Fomided 1842 
Henry Morgenthau, Jr .Publisher 
E. R. Eastman -.Editor 
Fred W. Ohm .Associate Editor 
Gabrielle Elliot .... Household Editor 
BlRGE Kinne .Advertising Manager 
E. C. Weatherby . . . Circulation Manager 
. contributing staff 
H. E. Cook, Jared Van Wagenen, Jr., H. 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. 
We positively guarantee to our readers'fair and 
honest treatment in dealing wifi 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. 
dren sicken and die. No wonder that the 
papers are constantly filled with accounts 
of food riots, uprising and v general chaos 
in Central Europe. 
v In December, 1921, Congress appropriated 
twenty million dollars for the American Re¬ 
lief Association, with which to buy corn for 
starving Russia. This purchase had two 
effects. First, it was a humanitarian one in 
that it helped to save thousands of Russian 
children from starving; second, it was good 
business for America because the purchase 
of the twenty million dollars’ worth of corn 
relieved the pressure of the surplus corn and 
was one of the causes for the nearly fifty 
per cent advance in price of corn which fol¬ 
lowed in a few months. 
Why could we not do the same thing with 
wheat? All realize that America has too 
much wheat, which results in the farmers 
getting a too low price for it. If the govern¬ 
ment were to purchase say 'fifty million dol¬ 
lars’ worth of wheat and send it to Germany, 
it would go far toward relieving famine con¬ 
ditions in that country and would without 
doubt do much to help the wheat farmers 
here. _ 
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, 22, at the 
3 ost Office at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March o, 
Subscription price, payable in advance, $1 a year. 
Canadian and foreign, $2 a year. 
VOL. 112 
November 10, 1923 
19 
Information on the School Bill 
AT a recent meeting of the New York Con- 
A. ference Board of Farm Organizations, a 
suggestion ^vas made that a special Publicity 
Committee ought to be appointed to see that 
the farm people of New York have every 
opportunity of getting full information about 
the Rural School Bill. In accordance with 
this suggestion, such a committee was ap¬ 
pointed, consisting of one representative 
from each of the State farm and home or¬ 
ganizations, making a committee of five 
members, no one of whom is a member of 
the Committee of Twenty-one. 
Mrs. Mabel Feint, Dryden, N. Y., was ap¬ 
pointed for the Federation of Home Bureaus; 
Mr. Enos Lee, Yorktown, N. Y., for the 
Farm Bureau Federation; Mr. S. L. Striv¬ 
ings, Castile, N. Y., for the New York State 
Grange; Mr. T. E. Cross, Lagrangeville, 
N Y. for the State Horticultural Society; 
and Mr. D. J. Carter, Editor of Dairymen’s 
League News, 120 West 42nd Street, New 
York City, for the Dairymen’s League Co¬ 
operative Association. 
This committee is now ready for work. 
Requests for speakers to explain the School 
Bill may be referred to any member of the 
committee whose name and address is given 
above, or to your own organization. Any 
request foT printed material on the school 
bill may be made to any member of the 
Publicity Committee. 
One Way to Help Wheat 
T HE situation in Germany daily grows 
more intolerable. Their money is a joke, 
worth less than the paper it is printed on. 
Their government is disintegrating and 
thousands of their people are actually starv- 
How Many Can You Do? 
A VERY interesting and valuable little 
_ pamphlet, which should be read by every 
boy thinking of being a farmer, has just 
been published by the New York State Col¬ 
lege of Agriculture and the State Depart¬ 
ment of Education. It is entitled, “Prepare 
for Farming” and copies may. be. had by 
writing either of the above institutions. 
It discusses briefly the farm operations 
and the different ways of getting an educa¬ 
tion in order to be a farmer. We were par¬ 
ticularly interested in reading this little 
pamphlet to note the long list of skilled op¬ 
erations, the most of which every successful 
farmer must know how to perform. Farm¬ 
ers have grown up in the business so that 
few realize the immense amount of skill that 
it takes to run or manage an average farm. 
This is especially the case in this mechanical 
age, when most of the work is done with 
machinery. 
Sometimes we take some little pride in 
our farm trade when we see a city man or 
boy try to harness a team of horses, or milk 
a cow, or pitch hay, or do any one of the 
dozens of other skilled tasks which a farmer 
must do. In this little pamphlet there is a 
partial list of some skilled farm operations. 
The list is by no means complete, but it 
brought home to us, as we are sure it will 
to you, the large amount of skill and train¬ 
ing that it takes to make a successful modern 
farmer. 
How many of thfe following operations can 
you do well: Sharpen an axe, cut logs, re¬ 
move a calf’s horns, pitch hay, lay tile drain, 
milk cows, treat cows for lice, sharpen a 
mower sickle, run a mowing machine, oil and 
repair a harness, sharpen a saw, shingle a 
barn, butcher a hog, shear sheep, weld a 
piece of iron, paint a building, operate a 
sprayer, pick out a good cow, mix and lay 
concrete, cull out poor layers, tell the age of 
a horse, strike out lands and plough, operate 
a tractor, run an automobile, break a colt, 
run a grain binder, shoe a horse, splice a 
rope, ride horseback, fit and connect water 
pipes, make a good haystack, stack grain 
bundles, shock grain, husk corn, operate an 
incubator, mix fertilizers. 
AJlA o # -j -» , 
If the suffering in Germany could be 
limited to those who first plunged the people 
into war and to those who have badly mis¬ 
managed it ever since the war, no one would 
worry. But unfortunately the just suffer 
with the unjust, the innocent with the guilty. 
It is hard for poor people to become poorer, 
and for innocent women to watch their chil- 
Best Producing Guernseys 
T HE American Guernsey Cattle Club an¬ 
nounced at the Dairy Show at Syracuse, 
that H. E. Babcock of Ithaca, has the best 
producing herd of Guernsey cows in the 
world. We are especially proud of this fact 
because Mr. Babcock is a staff member of 
the Americ^ Agriculturist and as our read- 
Americaji Agriculturist, November 10,1923 
Agriculturist 
ers know regularly contributes to our 
columns on dairy subjects. Thebes^; thing 
about Mr. Babcock’s herd is that it has been 
developed without any frills or fancies. The 
cows are kept in an ordinary dairy barn, not 
any better than thousands scattered about 
the dairy country of the East. In fact, the 
last time we saw it, the stables were badty 
in need of a good coat of whitewash. No 
fancy prices were ever paid for any of the 
individuals, prices that are not beyond the 
pocketbooks of any average dairyman. A 
great deal of skill has gone into the selec¬ 
tion and breeding, not for show or fancy 
purposes, but just to get milk and butterfat. 
The result is that other herds may have, more 
f&ncy types, and better exhibition animals, 
but there is none in the world that equals 
this one in production. 
We think that one trouble with, the pure¬ 
bred dairy cattle business is that in the past 
it has contained too much speculative value. 
After all, the only real value of a cow is 
her ability to produce milk and offspring, 
which can also produce milk in large quanti¬ 
ties. Mr. Babcock has demonstrated some 
of the possibilities to almost any dairyman 
with either pure breds or grades of develop¬ 
ing good producers by using just plain horse- 
sense in breeding, feeding and care of the 
dairy cow. 
Because Mr. Babcock knows and is proving 
from actual experience what he is talking 
about, we are glad to have him write for us 
regularly and to have you send in any ques¬ 
tions on dairy subjects for his attention. 
1 Eastman’s Chestnuts 
I N spite of all that I can do to chase them 
out, cows have an unruly habit of break¬ 
ing constantly into this column. I can’t seem 
to get this argument about breeds of dairy 
cattle settled. The fact is, after we are all 
dead and gone.I suspect that our great, great 
grandchildren will still be quarrelling over 
who has the best breed. 
You remember that I told the story here 
a while ago about Mr. Morgenthau’s visit to 
Mr. Ed Babcock’s farm at Ithaca and as he 
was looking over the fine Guernseys, he found 
stored away in a dark corner one lonesome 
Holstein.' W r hen Mr. Morgenthau took Ed 
to task about keeping a Holstein cow, you 
will recall that Ed confessed that he had to 
have the Holstein milk to raise his Guernsey 
calves! At least, that’s what Mr. Morgen¬ 
thau told me when he returned. 
A little later, Lew Toan, who is president 
of the State nGuernsey Breeders’ Club, 
claimed that Mr. Babcock did not say any 
such thing, but what Ed really did say was 
that his well had gone dry, his spring had 
gone dry and he had to have something to 
wash his milk cans with! 
Now along comes Ed again with still 
another version. Just between ourselves— 
and I wouldn’t want you to whisper it out 
loud—I am beginning to suspect after 
sitting up several nights in an effort to de¬ 
termine who was telling the truth, that all 
three of these otherwise perfectly reputable 
gentlemen are fairly good candidates for the 
“Ananias Club” when it comes to discussing 
the merits of dairy cattle breeds. But here 
is Ed’s story of why he keeps one Holstein 
cow in a large herd of Guernseys. Read it 
and judge for yourself. 
Ed writes that neither the story of Mr. 
Morgenthau or Mr. Toan bears any resem¬ 
blance to the truth whatsoever. The real 
reason, he says, is that he finds it difficult in 
the morning—particularly on foggy morn¬ 
ings —to locate the yellow and white Guern¬ 
sey cows amid the buttercups and daisies. 
The black and white of the Holstein, how¬ 
ever, show up prominently and he conserva¬ 
tively figures that by having her in the herd 
he saves at least fifteen minutes each day in 
getting the cows! ^o’s next? 
