American Agriculturist 
THE FARM PAPER THAT PRINTS THE FARM NEWS 
“Agriculture is the Most Healthful, Most Useful and Most Noble Employment of Man ."—Washington 
Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. 
Established 1842 
Volume 113 
For the Week Ending May 3, 1924 
Number 18 
Spring is the Time for Courage 
Study and Thrift, Not Politics, Safeguard Farming—A Plowhandle Talk 
T HERE is no time like the springtime to 
develop courage and optimism. And 
yet I hear and read almost every day 
words of discouragement and pessimism, 
and I think it is bad. Men and women do not 
think one way and then act in the opposite direc¬ 
tion, at any rate, if they are 
normal. And if they are not 
normal the farm is 
no place for them. 
I know how easily 
I can see the bad 
side of things and 
so for a long time 
I have tried to 
associate with 
those who had first 
sound judgment 
but at the same 
time did not think 
h. e. cook that everything 
was going to the 
bad. And the plan has been good for 
me until I am inclined to look at the or¬ 
dinary troublous event as a problem to 
be solved, and with that point of view 
lean usually do it with more or less 
success. What other way is there? 
1 don’t know of any other. 
Dr. J. W. Thompson, who was for a 
number of years prominent in educa¬ 
tional circles in New York State, used 
to tell this very good story of an Irish¬ 
man who, during the Civil* War, was 
< called before the commanding officer, 
tt'ho said that a bridge would have to 
be built and that the plans would be 
ready in a few days. Shortly after¬ 
ward Pat came into headquarters and 
said, “Gineral, the bridge is done. The 
plans and spicifications will be along 
in about two wakes.” 
Now while we have many agencies 
supposedly working in our behalf, 
there would be less complaint in my 
opinion if we had more farmers who, 
like Pat, would proceed at once to 
build the bridge themselves. As I 
look around among my neighbors, 
whom I have known for many years, 
they don’t seem to be as badly off as 
they think they are. 
Of course, the eastern farmer had not, like the 
westerners, gambled in land, fortunately so, and 
that has been to the good. The western fellows 
have bought land at a price so high that by no 
combination of fortunate events could crop prices 
be high enough to match the land cost. Instead 
uf taking the loss as we have had to do in the 
bast, when their competition drove some of us 
°ut of business, they are trying to stir up a polit¬ 
ical mess and demand that the United States 
Government shall pay their losses.—Bunk. 
The agricultural bloc, so-called, has had more 
|o do in defeating majority rule at Washington 
than any other single influence, and may be than 
yl others combined and to stage minority rule 
|u its stead. The late President Wilson made his 
safe for Democracy” the world’s clarion call, 
j^d yet current history not only in this country 
in the great countries of Europe tells us 
By H. E. COOK 
every day that there is less Democracy and more 
minority rule than before the war. Witness the 
United States, Spain, Italy, Germany and Russia. 
Every farm organization feels it a bounden duty 
to go at once to the law-making power. Let them 
go, but let’s have the bridge built before they get 
Copyrighted, 1924, by the New York * ‘Tribune, ” Inc. 
SPEAKING OF LABOR SHORTAGE 
Darling in the New York Tribune. 
back. Any combination of factors that will 
make farming a prosperous business for every 
one engaged will be a catastrophe, and let us all 
pray that it may not come. Only by hard, per¬ 
sistent work, and that over a period of years, will 
we get what we are seeking. Keen study and 
thrift are the safeguards of agriculture, not poli¬ 
tics and law. 
I am writing April 16th and the ground is still 
freezing nights, and it seems like a late spring. 
We are . getting everything ready, tools, seeds, 
etc., that will hasten seeding when the time 
comes. Our horsepower is not up to par this 
spring and so we have added another tractor. 
We have to work hard and fast in the north with 
our comparatively short seasons in order to get a 
maximum crop, or perhaps better to say a high 
average. 
Most of us, I think, have found that maximum 
crops are expensive in sections where land values 
are low. Labor is high and the extras here and 
there in order to get a fine finish are very expen¬ 
sive. We get more than average prices for our 
milk, and no doubt we do all of our work somewhat 
better than we could or would if the receipts were 
less. At the same time we must measure the cost 
of our farm crops by their own market value. 
We can afford to spend money for 
high-priced labor so far as its direct 
effect concerns the quality of the milk. 
But the crop cost must be governed 
by other crops sold in the open market 
of equal values. 
If I can buy hay at $15 per ton and it 
costs me $20 to raise the same amount, I 
am losing, although at the higher figure 
there may be a profit on the milk, and 
the same reasoning will follow with 
grain and silage. I read by times, 
statements that oat raising is unprofit¬ 
able in the East and I query whether 
or not I am going wrong, but what shall 
I do? I am sure in our case that the 
oat and barley mixed crop is fully as 
profitable as corn growing. We have 
to buy concentrates and we could leave 
out the corn crop and have enough 
coarse fodder in the form of hay. We 
are in the natural oat and barley sec¬ 
tion, which is not true of corn. We are 
quite sure of a crop of these small 
grains of high quality without the ex¬ 
tremes of care and fertilization, neces¬ 
sary to secure a fair corn growth, ton¬ 
nage and maturity combined. The 
combination 'of corn, oats and barley 
and hay are the crops we must have 
for milk production, and the rotation 
of corn on sod, barley and oats fol¬ 
lowing with clover seeding and hay 
for two years gives us reasonable cul¬ 
tivation and clovers without risk, and 
so after a good many years of study 
with crops and cows, this rather old- 
fashioned combination appears to be 
about the best for us. If we have a 
surplus of hay there is sure to be some 
timothy fields that are fit for market. 
In harmony with the opening of 
this letter I am again emphasizing 
the importance of adapting methods 
to suit our business methods, soils and all of 
those things that make a somewhat separate 
and distinct set of problems for each one of us. 
There are certain well-defined methods and prin¬ 
ciples involved in the growing and handling of 
each crop which must be observed, but the com¬ 
bination thereof may be studied and adapted to 
our own particular business. 
Successful farming, whether of the dairy, fruit, 
poultry or mixed will not as a rule depend upon 
an extravagant effort upon one particular phase 
but upon our ability to harmonize the branches 
or details so they go along together like a happy 
family. Don’t misunderstand me, a man must 
specialize, but any one branch of farm work is 
divided and subdivided. 
I believe thoroughly in the general principle 
of making our dairy farms more nearly self- 
(Continued on page lj.36) 
