24 
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 
E. C. Weatherby .Circulation Manager 
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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 12, 1924 No. 2 
Dairymen! 
0 not miss Jared Van Wagenen, Jr.’s article 
on page 26. Mr. Van Wagenen believes 
that constructive criticism of any organization 
including even the Dairymen’s League Coopera¬ 
tive Association, is necessary to get all men to 
giving their best thought to every side of the 
great problem of organization. 
Too Much Government 
IGURES just compiled by the National 
Industrial Conference Board show that one 
person out of every twelve over the age of sixteen 
gainfully employed in the United States is already 
on the public pay roll. Before the Civil War, the 
ratio was only one in a thousand; in the Cleveland 
administration, it had risen to one in one hundred. 
These figures apply to officials and employees 
in the Federal, State, county, city or town 
governments. The total number of persons 
receiving pay from the public at present, accord¬ 
ing to this board, is over 3,400,000. To pay this 
great horde of non-producers, $91 per year must 
be collected from every person gainfully em¬ 
ployed in the United States, and the money for 
the purpose of salaries alone is only a small part 
of the tax that must be collected to run the 
government’s business. 
These figures constitute one of the most serious 
situations in America to-day. The chief cause is 
the fact that most Americans have an idea that 
the government can do anything, so when any 
class gets into trouble they rush to the politicians 
for help. Then the politicians, influenced by 
votes, pass another fool law, arrange for some 
more special investigations, appoint commissions 
and office-holding positions, and add to the 
already too-long list of office-holders whom we 
must support. 
To be perfectly honest with ourselves, farmers 
are just as much to blame as any other class, for 
we are all the time asking for legislation, like 
that now desired by the wheat growers, to es¬ 
tablish some new commission or fix the prices on 
our products and thereby add to the general tax 
burden. When the office-holders are once on the 
job, the civil service and politics protect them 
and it is next to impossible to reduce the number. 
So we have gone on piling them up year after 
year until no wonder that public taxes are well 
nigh ruinous. 
There is too much government in this country. 
One cannot turn around without breaking some 
law. Officials are getting altogether too plentiful. 
The great unrest and chaos in Europe to-day is 
almost directly the result of the dissatisfaction of 
people who have been governed and taxed to 
death. How true it is that “the least governed 
country is the best governed country! ” 
Alfalfa Trebled in Ten Years 
N another page of this issue we have printed 
a very interesting table showing the alfalfa 
acreage in New York State in every county in 
1909 and in 1919. The fact that the acreage has 
increased in those ten years from 35,000 acres to 
120,000 acres in New York state shows that it 
can be grown successfully in nearly every county 
in eastern United States and it shows further 
that more and more farmers are coming to recog¬ 
nize its very great importance. 
One of the chief reasons for alfalfa failures is 
poor seed. Southern grown seed will not stand 
our Northern weather conditions and a large part 
of the seed which is on the market is Southern 
or foreign grown. There will be thousands of 
new acres of alfalfa sown during the coming season. 
No one thing is more important than to be abso¬ 
lutely sure of good seed. 
While you think of it, if you live in New York 
State, turn to the table on page 27 now and note 
the increase in alfalfa acreage in your own county. 
One Cause of High Costs 
T HE United States Department of Agriculture 
has just completed a survey which shows that 
the cost of credit at stores to farmers is 25 per cent, 
when calculated on the basis of a yearly interest 
rate. The report says: “Farmers would profit 
greatly if they could place themselves in a posi¬ 
tion to borrow from banks and pay their bills with 
cash. Merchants would be benefitted since they 
could give their attention to merchandising'and 
avoid the loss which they now assume.” 
One of the injustices about this business of 
obtaining credit at stores is that the man who 
pays cash in most cases helps to carry the man 
who does not. A great many of those people who 
are perfectly able and even willing to pay cash for 
their purchases do not do so because they have 
drifted into a sort of natural habit of having their 
purchases charged. There are many others also 
who could obtain credit at the bank but have 
never tried, or else have not tried in the right way. 
It is, of course, necessary to establish one’s stand¬ 
ing with a bank before the bank can feel secure in 
granting credit. Banks prefer character and 
general business ability over any other tangible 
security in making loans. 
There are few farmers who could not obtain 
bank credit if they went at it in the right way and 
there are few who would not do so if they realized 
the tremendous cost of having their supplies 
charged. _ 
More Dollars for 1924? 
A BOUT this time of the year every farmer is 
L thinking hard of what he can do to increase 
his income in 1924. In the next few issues of 
American Agriculturist there will be some sug¬ 
gestions that we hope will help you put cash in 
your pockets. We would be glad to have letters 
as to what some of your plans for cash crops are 
for 1924, with reasons why you have decided on 
these particular plans. 
More Marketing Help 
HE Pennsylvania State College of Agri¬ 
culture announces that it has added a De¬ 
partment of Agricultural Economics to train 
students in the economic phases of agriculture, 
which are becoming more important and per¬ 
plexing each year. 
At the same time, there comes news of activities 
American Agriculturist, January 12, 1924 
Agriculturist 
from the Department of Agricultural Economics 
in the New York State College of Agriculture to 
enlarge the department so as to give more atten¬ 
tion to studying the farmers’ markets and to train 
students to the many problems involved in farm 
marketing. 
This is mighty good work. In this day pro- 
'duction is only half the story. Products must 
be well sold after they are produced or farmers 
cannot succeed. We have often said that we will 
put the American farmers against any others 
in the world when it conies to efficient production. 
But we must admit that there are only a very 
few who can sell as well as they can produce. 
Until recently, almost all of the energy of the 
colleges has been devoted to production prob. 
lems, and they have been of great service in 
helping the farmer to keep his costs of production 
down and to improve the quality of his products. 
But the colleges have not given enough attention 
to the equally important problem of farm market¬ 
ing. We certainly need to know more about 
the business and economic end of farming, 
and every move that is made toward helping 
us to this knowledge is in the right direction. 
For a Gasoline Tax 
HY isn’t it fair that those who use the roads 
should pay for them? Under the present 
system of licensing automobiles, two men can own 
the same kind of a car, and one of them can drive 
his car thirty thousand miles a year and the other 
not over two thousand, and yet each have to pay 
the same license fee. Much support is developing 
for gasoline tax instead of the heavy license fee 
for the car. We believe this would be a change 
that would be welcomed by farm people and by all 
others who believe in fairness. Talk it up at farm 
meetings. 
Eastman's Chestnuts 
ITY folks were once quite fond of telling 
funny stories about the strange things that 
farmers did and said who were visiting the city 
for the first time. As a matter of fact, if the aver¬ 
age farmer was ever any “greener” in a city than 
the city fellow was on his first visit to the country, 
I shall make my next meal out of my old hat. I 
will bet that there are still quite a few city folks 
that could not tell a cow from a camel, and who 
still think that potatoes grow on trees! 
Happily though, these days of rapid trans¬ 
portation and communication have made us all 
more cosmopolitan. City folks know more about 
the country and farmers know that city folks are 
“ just folks” like themselves. With this knowledge 
of one another there has come greater understand¬ 
ing of each other’s problems. 
A farmer I know up in Tioga County, New York, 
used to tell this story on himself. It seems that 
when he was twenty-one, his father gave him one 
hundred dollars and he started out on a short 
trip to see the world. Coming down to New 
York City on the Lehigh Valley, he fell into an 
argument with another traveller as to whether the 
Lehigh or the Erie killed the most people in the 
course of a year. They finally agreed to leave it 
to the conductor who, like the average train man, 
was rather fed up on answering fool questions. 
When he came through the train, bur hero said: 
“How often do you kill people on this road?” 
To which the conductor answered, “Just once! ” 
In due course of time, the young farmer arrived 
in the big city and immediately started out to buy 
himself a suit of clothes. 
“As a special inducement,” said the salesman 
to him, “ we will throw in this extra pair of pants 
with the suit.” 
“Nothin’ doin’,” said the young farmer, “two 
pair of pants would be too warm!” 
Then he went to the hotel where the room clerk 
told him that he could have a room without bath 
for two dollars and with bath for three dollars. 
“Give me the two-dollar room,” replied our 
farmer, “what do you think I want with a bath? 
This ain’t Saturday night!” 
