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Editorial Page of the American 
American Agriculturist, January 19, 1924^ 
Agriculturist 
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 
E. C. Weatherby .Circulation Manager 
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Jared Van Wagenen, Jr., H. H. Jones, 
G. T. Hughes, H. E. Babcock. 
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Entered as Second-Class Matter, December 15, 1922, at the Post Office 
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VOL. 113 January 19, 1924 No. 3 
New York “World” Comments on 
Indictments— 
OMMENTING on the indictments of the 
Standard Food and Fur Association, Inc., 
which American Agriculturist helped to secure, 
a recent issue of the New York World had this to 
say: 
“Rabbits have come back to roost for the indicted members 
of the Standard Food and Fur Association, Inc., which in 
advertisements headed ‘Dollars and Hares’ is alleged to have 
swindled persons all over the country with offers to buy back 
off-spring Jof purchases with fancy prices. The indictments 
were filed in Federal Court recently, but not until yesterday 
was the extent of the alleged fraud made known. Post office 
inspectors said hundreds of complaints had been checked up 
from all over the United States and Canada. The investors 
were eager to ‘get rich’ on the simple proposition of selling 
their hares and rabbits back to the concern that sold the 
animals’ antecedents. ‘We buy all you raise at $97 to $2500 
pair, was one inducement held out to investors who were told 
it was possible for one doe to raise forty-two young in a year, 
at the ‘lowest price,’ making the return $147. 
“But something generally happened to interfere with 
payments as held out in the alluring pamphlets. A typical 
case recited yesterday by E. S. Greenbaum, of the firm of 
Greenbaum, Wolff and Ernst, attorneys for American 
Agriculturist, which had much to do with obtaining evidence 
that led to the indictments, was that of Andrew Cowan, of 
Cape May, New Jersey.” 
The World then goes on to give in detail the 
way this firm beat Mr. Cowman out of his savings. 
We have already printed many of such accounts 
in American Agriculturist. 
Already we have received congratulations from 
all over the country on our perseverance in put¬ 
ting these swindlers out of business, and although 
this work, which we expect to continue, is costing 
us a great deal of money, we do not hesitate be¬ 
cause we feel we cannot render any greater service 
to our people than to clean up the frauds. 
Back to Dixie 
D URING the last two or three years, there 
has been a great exodus of negroes from the 
South to the North. The high wages of the North , 
particularly in the automobile industry, evidently 
appealed to them. Perhaps, too, they had im¬ 
bibed a little of the general uneasiness that all 
the world seems to be afflicted with since the war. 
Anyway, thousands of them came North and 
their leaving was the cause of no small amount 
of worry to the plantation owners because it left 
them short of labor to handle their cotton and 
other crops under the hot Southern sun. 
But now, strange to say, the darkies are going 
back. It is said that they are returning in a steady 
stream from the North. Five solid cars filled 
with negroes left. Washington, D.C., on Christmas 
day. 
The promised land, particularly the promised 
wages, of the North, did not materialize, and when 
they got their wages, the negro family man found 
that he could not support a large family with 
the high rent and food costs in the Northern cities. 
Then too we suspect that many of them were just 
plain homesick for old Dixie. 
Free Seeds Again 
T HE free seed political bunkum has started 
again. Last year the free seed appropriations 
in Congress were defeated, but we are informed 
that a bill for $50,000 for free seeds is to be brought 
forward again. If this bill passes there will be 
50,000 wasted dollars bringing no one, not even 
the politicians, any good. Some Congressmen 
seem to have the idea that they can buy the farm¬ 
ers’ votes by distributing a few flower and vege¬ 
table seeds, of more or less questionable value, 
and they. persist in believing that this petty 
bribery will do them some good in spite of the 
fact that the National Grange and every other 
farm organization is opposed to it, as is every farm 
paper that is truly serving the farmers’ interests, 
and practically all the farmers themselves. 
Good Investments 
T HROUGH membership in the Cooperative 
Loan System connected with the twelve 
Federal Land Banks, some 300,000 farmers are 
slowly but surely paying off their mortgages. 
Money for these mortgage loans are obtained by 
the banks through the sale of Federal Land Bank 
bonds. These bonds, which are now being of¬ 
fered investors, pay a reasonable return of inter¬ 
est, are a safe investment, and are issued in small 
denominations. Another good investment is the 
United States Treasury Certificates, also issued 
in small denominations. The Federal Bank bonds 
have the advantage over these of directly helping 
the farm business, but both investments are safe. 
With investments like these available to all, 
why do so many risk money in fly-by-night 
schemes that are very likely to wipe out hard- 
earned life-time savings? 
Experience With Farm Help 
ONDITIONS in obtaining farm labor vary 
so much in different sections that it is difficult 
to draw safe conclusions from experiences in any 
one locality. But the following is worth com¬ 
menting upon. 
Our publisher recently advertised in the Sunday 
Courier of Poughkeepsie, for a single man and 
a married man to work on his farm at Fishkill, 
Dutchess County. In each case, sixty dollars 
a month was offered. The single man’s board, 
which amounts to about a dollar a day, was to be 
furnished. The married man was to receive a good 
tenant house, wood, ten bushels of potatoes, 
a garden, with the privilege, if he wished, of 
keeping a little poultry and a pig. 
Thirteen answers were received from the ad¬ 
vertisement. Of these thirteen, nine came from 
the city of Poughkeepsie. All had had farm 
experience. This would seem to show a trend on 
the part of people to move from the city back to 
the farm, and it is possible that the very serious 
housing conditions in the cities are gradually 
forcing people with some knowledge of farming to 
return to the farm. Out of the thirteen answers, 
eleven were married, and only two were single, 
which would seem to indicate that the farmer 
who has a tenant house to offer his married farm 
hands is finding it easier to get help. 
The winter will pass quickly and another season 
will soon be here, bringing with it again the 
serious help problem. We would like to help 
in every way that we can, and one of the ways 
is by publishing all of the information and 
experience that we can get about farm labor. If 
you have anything to contribute in the way of 
your experience during the past season, we would 
be very glad to get it in a short letter and pass it 
along through our columns to other farmers. 
Causes of Fires 
L ightning causes an annual loss on Amer- 
i ican farms of more than four million dollars 
and is the cause of more than 18 per cent, of all 
the farm fires. Practically all of this could be 
saved by good lightning rods carefully erected 
and grounded. 
The second greatest cause of farm fires is 
defective chimneys and flues, which cause about 
12 per cent, of the fires on farms. Some of the 
other causes are fireworks and firecrackers, gas— 
natural and artificial—carelessness with bonfires, 
smoking (which is the third greatest cause of 
fires), open lighting, spontaneous combustion, 
explosions, defective wiring for electricity, stoves, 
furnaces, boilers and their pipes, and several 
other miscellaneous smaller causes. 
Eastman’s Chestnuts \ 
F EW problems connected with any part of the 
farm business have caused more trouble 
than the health regulations for the production of 
clean milk. If the rules, especially in the early 
days, had been more practical and particularly 
if the inspectors had been experienced men, 
familiar with dairy problems, a lot of trouble 
could have been saved and the farmers’ coopera¬ 
tion quickly secured for the enforcement of sens¬ 
ible regulations. But, unfortunately, too many 
times, inspectors were overbearing, inexperienced 
young chaps from the city who seemed determined 
to enforce arbitrary rules without the application 
of any common sense. 
I remember a rather laughable experience I 
had up in Delaware County, New York, in that 
gloomy and uncertain month of September, 1916, 
just before the great milk war between the 
Dairymen’s League and the dealers. Milk prices 
were discouragingly low, and farm tempers were 
exceedingly high. 
Over in one neighborhood, there was a good 
farmer friend of mine with whom I had had many 
talks about the milk situation. He admitted that 
prices were too low and barn inspectors somewhat 
pestiferous, but he was very conservative and 
philosophical and constantly advised moderation 
and tolerance. 
“ Those boys will know more as they get older. 
They don’t mean no harm,” he said at a meeting 
once when some one was complaining about the 
inspectors. 
One afternoon as I entered his yard, I heard 
voices raised in loud and angry expostulation down 
in the cow stable. In a moment I saw a young 
well-dressed man break from the stable door on a 
dead run, hit the sloppy barnyard in about three 
great jumps, and clear the barnyard gate without 
hardly touching it. 
No sooner was he out of the barn than I per¬ 
ceived that there was some reason for his haste. 
Back of him came my farmer friend shouting in 
incoherent rage and brandishing a pitchfork so 
close to the young fellow that when he cleared the 
gate, those menacing tines were not a foot behind 
him. Once over the gate he stopped not on the 
order of his going but dashed madly down through 
the yard by me, looked neither to the right nor 
to the left, climbed into his car standing by the 
side of the road and went away from there mighty 
fast. A moment more and the farmer came up 
puffing and blowing. 
“By thunder, I pretty nearly got him that 
time,” he panted. “If that whelp ever puts his' 
foot in my barn again, I’ll-” 
“Why, John,” I interrupted. “What’s the 
matter? Who was that?” 
“That, my dear sir, was one of them cursed 
dairy parasites known as a barn inspector!” 
