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American Agriculturist, May 3, 1924 
Editorial Page of the American Agriculturist 
American 
Agriculturist 
Founded 1842 
Henry Morgenthau, Jr. Publisher 
E. R. Eastman . Editor 
Fred W. Ohm . Associate Editor 
G \brielle Elliot . . . . ' ■ • Household Editor 
Birge Kinne . Advertising Manager 
E. C. Weatherby . Circulation Manager 
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VOL. 113 May 3, 1924_No. 18 
The Law Must Be Enforced 
T HE Prohibition ballot recently taken by 
American Agriculturist resulted in 
15,369 votes from farm people. Of this number 
88%—an overwhelming majority—stood for 
the Eighteenth Amendment as it now stands. 
12% were for some kind of modification. BUT 
PRACTICALLY 100% WERE FOR ABSO¬ 
LUTE ENFORCEMENT OF THE LAW AS 
LONG AS IT REMAINS ON THE STATUTE 
BOOKS. No honorable citizen could stand oth¬ 
erwise than for enforcement. Yet there is a 
prevailing tendency to make light of this 
law of the land and its lack of enforcement 
is a disgrace to the United States of America 
and to every citizen. Somebody is falling down 
on this job and falling down badly. 
Will you work with American Agricultur¬ 
ist to find out what the conditions are in your 
county and to help clean them up? If you 
want the law repealed, it is your right to work for 
repeal but until it is, we know you are with us 
and with every other citizen in wishing for its 
enforcement. Just what are the conditions in 
your county? Is illegal booze being manufac¬ 
tured near you? Is it being sold in nearby villages 
and cities? What is the attitude of the State 
Police and other officials toward enforcement of 
the law? Do you know that if public sentiment 
is made strong enough that is all that will be 
necessary to bring about the enforcement? W rite 
us the facts together with your suggestions. If 
you do not wish us to use your name, say so m 
your letter and we shall follow your wishes. 
by farmers in doing more and more, as our grand¬ 
fathers did, toward making the farm supply nearly 
all the needs of the farm table. The consumption 
of milk and other dairy products on farms has 
increased by leaps and bounds in the last ten 
years. More veal calves, beef cows and hogs 
are being killed for home consumption. Espe¬ 
cially is there more attention now given on 
farms in nearly every community to growing 
small fruits and to giving more attention to the 
supplies that come from the garden. It is inter¬ 
esting to know what some farmers have accom¬ 
plished in keeping the supply of home-grown ber¬ 
ries on the farm table from the time of the ear¬ 
liest strawberries to the end of the blackberry 
season. Now is the time to get the garden 
started right. It ought to be protected from the 
hens, it ought to be large enough so that a horse 
can be used in cultivating it, and it ought to be 
well fertilized. 
Here’s hoping that all farm families are making 
every plan this spring to beat the high cost of 
everything and at the same time have the fresh¬ 
est and best food in the market by growing it 
themselves. _ 
“Plow-handle Talks” Here Again 
A LL of our readers, especially our older ones, 
L will note with much satisfaction their old 
friend, H. E. Cook, back in this issue of Amer¬ 
ican Agriculturist with one of his famous 
“Plow-handle Talks.” No farm writer of our 
acquaintance is in closer practical touch with 
the actual affairs of the farm nor better able to 
put the problems of the every-day farmer into 
words, than H. E. Cook. 
During the past months, he has been so busy 
farming that we have not been able to get him to 
write his “Plow-handle Talks,” which he fur¬ 
nished for American Agriculturist readers 
for so many years. But we finally convinced him 
that our folks were really missing him, so he is 
with us again. Turn back to the feature page 
and get his message. 
great is the temptation and even the need of get¬ 
ting the cattle out early. 
But of course it is bad dairy practice both from 
the standpoint of the cow and the pasture. About 
all the cow gets out of a too short pasture is dis¬ 
satisfaction with the regular feed, which must be 
maintained if her production is to be kept up and 
cropping the pastures before the grasses get a fair 
start sets them back for the whole season. 
Fifteen Thousand Farmers Already 
Enlisted 
Y OU certainly would be interested if you could 
read all of our etters that have come as a 
result of our tax-reduction campaign. More than 
fifteen thousand—quite a small army, is it not?— 
have written us letters or sent in the tax-reduction 
petitions in the past few weeks. Not only the 
farmers but many others are really thinking about 
this farm-taxation problem as never before. We 
wash there were room for all of this correspond¬ 
ence, but it would make a library. Some of the 
good letters are on the next page. 
We have taken the first trenches in getting the 
half mill reduction but our fight has only just be¬ 
gun. Talk it over in your Grange and other local 
farm meetings, sign the tax-petition blanks, 
and write us your views. We can go only as far 
as you support us. Blank petitions will be fur¬ 
nished free on request. 
One Way to Beat High Costs 
O NE of the chief troubles with farming is 
that the farmer must sell all of his products 
at wholesale prices and buy all of his supplies at 
retail. There is one way to partially beat this 
unfair system, and that is to raise more and 
buy less supplies for the farm house. More and 
more farmers are giving attention to w 7 hat their 
farm can supply toward meeting their own needs, 
and it is surprising w 7 hat a lot can be done along 
this line when a real effort is made. Take the 
subject of cattle feeds. The purchase of more 
lime, resulting m the growth of so much more 
clover and alfalfa and the increasing acreage, to 
grain feeds, all show what is being done in cutting 
dowrn the grain bill. . . , 
But perhaps the most progress is being made 
Small or Large Seed Potatoes 
S EVERAL times we have known a new vari¬ 
ety of potatoes to come into a community 
and do exceptionally w 7 ell for several years and 
then gradually the yield would be less and less 
until the variety had to be changed for some 
new one. We always used to wonder why this 
was. The answer is fairly easy. Small potatoes 
were always used for seed, and these small seed 
potatoes, through the method of selection used, 
always came from the poorest hills in the field, 
for it is the poor and often the diseased hills that 
always produce the largest proportion of small 
potatoes. No wonder the vitality and produc¬ 
tiveness of the new variety could not be . main¬ 
tained long. It was exactly the same kind of 
practice as trying to produce a dairy from the 
poorest and the most sickly individuals m the 
herd. It is not hard to see wliat kind of a herd 
a man following such practice would have after 
a few years of such breeding. 
However, small seed potatoes in themselves, 
if properly selected from the good hills, make the 
best kind of seed. So much depends on good seed, 
why not try using certified seed potatoes? If 
you are interested, write to J. M. Hurley who 
is secretary of the New York State Seed Potato 
Cooperation Association, Syracuse, IS . V. Mr. 
Hurley will tell you what is back of certification 
and what farmers are having their seed certified. 
It may be that one of your neighbors is in this 
list. _ 
\. 
Save the Pastures 
T HE green grass on the hillsides and the dis- 
couragingly small amount of hay, silage and 
gram left in mow or bin always make it a tempta¬ 
tion this time of the year for the dairyman to 
turn his cattle into the pasture too early. The 
temptation will be especially great this year be¬ 
cause of the late, backward season. We always 
hesitate to say anything about this mistake be¬ 
cause we know from our own experience how 
The Most Important Factor 
A FEW [days ago we asked a farmer what 
a farmer thought about the most as he 
went about his work every day. Without 
hesitation he replied: “The weather.” He 
is probably right. Farmers’ problems are many 
and mighty, but most of them come and go. 
What looms up today is settled and something 
else takes its place tomorrow, but Old Man 
Weather is right on the job three hundred and 
sixty-five days in the year, and much of the 
farmer’s fortune depends upon whether this 
same old man smiles or frowns. The farmers of 
the whole nation may decide to increase or de¬ 
crease the acreage of any particular crop, they 
may use the best or the worst seed, good farm 
practice or bad, and then will come along Old Man 
Weather and do more in determining the final 
yield of that crop, by adding or subtracting a few 
inches of rainfall, than all the human effort 
combined. i _ 
To a Dandelion 
Y ESTERDAY son George brought in the first 
dandelion blossom of the season—pestiferous, 
persistent, little nuisance of a weed, yet somehow, 
how good it always looks this time of the year 
flecking the early lawns, meadows and pastures 
with its golden yellow. 
Sometimes we have wondered if some of those 
things which in our materialism we condemn so 
utterly do not have after all a real place in God s 
Great Scheme._ 
Eastman’s Chestnuts 
H ERE is a true story that mother sends me 
from her life as a little girl on a farm dui mg 
the Civil War. Grandfather and Uncle Frank 
had gone away to the war, leaving grandmother 
and five little children of whom mother was one 
to run the farm and worry along through years 
of privation and loneliness. During that long, 
hard time I suspect that there were many periods 
when grandmother did not quite know vheie 
the next meal for her brood was coming from, but 
they came somehow, for grandmother was of tha 
breed of pioneer women of indomitable and un¬ 
conquerable spirit. . . 
During one of these particularly hard tune 
the little girls, who had been taught to take turns 
in saying grace at meals, had gathered aroun ® 
dinner table, and it was little five-year-old Ac ies 
turn to ask the blessing. She took one disgus e » 
disappointed look at the scant fare on the a > 
then bowing her head she said, Lord, I 0 „ 
thee that our hogs have got to die next- week. Amei. 
