492 
Editorial Page of the American 
American 
Agriculturist 
Founded 1842 
Henry M6rgenthau, Jr .Publisher 
E. R. Eastman . Editor 
Fred W. Ohm .Associate Editor 
Gabrielle Elliot .Household Editor 
Birge Kinne .Advertising Manager 
E. C. Weatherby .Circulation Manager 
CONTRIBUTING STAFF 
Jared Van Wagenen, Jr., G. T. Hughes, H. E. Babcock 
OUR ADVERTISEMENTS GUARANTEED 
The American Agriculturist accepts only advertising 
which it believes to be thoroughly honest. 
We positively guarantee to our readers fair and honest 
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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. 
Published Weekly by 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, INC. 
Address all correspondence for editorial, advertising, or subscription de¬ 
partments to 
461 Fourth Ave., New York, N. Y. 
Entered as Second-Class Matter, December 15, 1922, at the Post Office 
at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879, _ 
Subscription price, payable in advance, $1 a year. Canadian 
and foreign, $2 a year. 
VOL. 113 May 24, 1924 No. 21 
More Salaries—More Taxes 
OR several weeks politicians in Congress have 
been busy trying to find a way to add further 
to the people’s tax burden by increasing the sal¬ 
aries of Post Office clerks. Several different pro¬ 
posals to this end have been considered, but the 
latest and the one most likely to pass provides 
for a three hundred dollar increase to all postal 
clerks and carriers except the R. F. D. men. 
! “How pay for it?” “That is easy,” say the 
politicians. “Raise the parcel post rates, and 
make the farmers pay, for they are the ones who 
use the parcel post.” This proposal raised such a 
united protest from the Grange and from the farm 
press that it is now said some other way will be 
found. But whatever the way, rest assured the 
people will pay. The worst of it is that the latest 
proposal does not raise the pay of the R. F. D. 
men and they, as every farmer knows, are the 
ones who need it most. 
In spite of all that has been done so far, the pol¬ 
iticians in Congress persist in trying to please this 
faction or that faction by voting large appropria¬ 
tions. It must be stopped, but it will not be 
stopped until the people make it impossible for an 
office-holder to be reelected except upon a real 
economy platform. 
Dr. Copeland’s Health Book 
URAL doctors, like the young folks and the 
hired men, have gone to the city, or rather, 
young doctors no longer settle in the country. 
What are country folks going to do about it? We 
have received many letters on this important 
problem during the past year. 
There never will be any substitute for a trained 
physician in severe illness, but people nowadays 
are learning how, as they never knew before, to 
guard their health so as not to get sick. They are 
learning also how to take care of sick folks and to 
use simple remedies so that they do not have to 
call a doctor at all, or so that they can take care of 
the patient during the long and dangerous wait 
until the doctor comes. This knowledge is neces¬ 
sary for everybody, but it is especially important 
to those who live miles from the nearest physician. 
It is because of this that American Agricul¬ 
turist takes great pleasure in announcing the 
publication of Dr. Royal S. Copeland’s “Health 
Book.” 
Dr. Copeland, who is now United States Sena¬ 
tor from New York, was for many years the Health 
Commissioner of New York City. He is noted as 
one of the world’s greatest physicians. His 
writings on health subjects appear daily in many 
newspapers and are read by millions of people. 
Dr. Copeland’s health book is the best doctor’s 
book we have ever seen. It contains 448 pages, 
is 8 % x 5 " in size; is more than 2" thick, and 
contains a simple description and concise direc¬ 
tions for treatment of practically every known 
human ailment. Yet in spite of its size, and the 
amount of information it contains, it is written 
in simple language and is so classified, indexed 
and arranged that any particular subject can be 
found at a moment’s notice. American Agri¬ 
culturist set out to get this detailed up-to-the- 
minute information by a famous physician and 
to publish it for a price within the reach of every 
family. We think we have succeeded. The price 
is $1.98. 
We prevailed upon Dr. Copeland to write this 
book for American Agriculturist, by convinc¬ 
ing him of the great good it would do especially 
where people find it difficult to get a doctor 
quickly, and we are proud of the job he has done. 
Selling Potatoes 
RECENT study made of prices of potatoes 
by the United States Department of Agri¬ 
culture shows that one-half of the price of pota¬ 
toes paid by the consumer goes for city distri¬ 
bution. Of the final consumer price, the country 
buyer and railroad jointly receive about 50%, 
and the city distributors about 50%. Maine 
potatoes brought an average retail price of $2.17 
per hundred pounds. Of this, the grower’s por¬ 
tion was 67c; country buyer got 20c; the freight 
took 39c; and the city distributor 91c. 
The grower’s portion of the retail price covers 
cost of labor, feed, fertilizer, maintenance of 
buildings, stock and machinery, storage, interest 
on investment, taxes, and any profit which may 
be realized. It is not difficult to understand after 
reading this list of items, which the grower’s price 
must cover, why the grower’s profit is so often 
a minus quantity. However, there is one hope¬ 
ful sign for potato growers. Consumption of po¬ 
tatoes is increasing. Both the population and the 
rate of potato consumption per capita has rapidly 
increased in the last ten years. The rate of in¬ 
crease per capita in that period has been about 
6 %. _ 
Standardized Plow Bolts 
OW many, many times farmers have found 
reason for criticizing manufacturers of farm 
machinery because no two bolts or other parts 
were ever alike, making it impossible to make 
repairs without an exact duplicate of the missing 
or broken part. This condition has been recog¬ 
nized by the National Association of Farm Equip¬ 
ment Manufacturers, and this Association has 
been working for some time toward standardiza¬ 
tion of farm machinery parts. 
The number of plow bolts now has been reduced 
to four, where there was before an indefinite num¬ 
ber. The standardized bolts are known as numbers 
three, four, six, and seven, of which three, six, 
and seven have round heads and number four has 
a square head. Aside from the great convenience 
in obtaining these bolts, it will be seen that the 
standardization will greatly reduce the number 
of wrench changes necessary in working with 
these bolts. 
The manufacturers are to be congratulated for 
their spirit of cooperation in working with one an¬ 
other and with the United States Department of 
Agriculture toward this much needed standardi¬ 
zation of machine parts. 
Confounded Weather 
Vl/'E can not keep away from talking about the 
^ ' weather. Let us hope that when you read 
this the sun will be shining again the way it ought 
to this time of the year. When we crawled out of 
bed this morning, and saw the overcast drizzling 
skies, as we have every morning for the last two 
weeks, we thought of all our farmer friends and 
their weather worries as they fret over the un¬ 
planted crops. 
In order to add to your worries of the weather. 
American Agriculturist, May 24, 1924 j 
Agriculturist 
we might tell you of a weather prophet who was 
in our office a few days ago. This man was a 
scientist who had spent many years in the study 
of weather conditions and of the relation of sun 
spots and other phenomena to the weather. 
He claimed that there was much evidence to 
prove that the coming summer was going to be 
very cold and very dry. 
However, ’whenever we get discouraged or 
pessimistic, we always remember that there 
always has been a seed time and a harvest. In 
fact, no matter how cantankerous the weather 
seems at times, it usually averages good enough 
throughout the season to grow more stuff than 
farmers can sell at a profit. 
What Alfalfa Did 
URING the early part of the past winter, a 
Cortland County dairyman was. feeding 
good alfalfa hay mixture with a 20% protein grain 
mixture. He had no silo. About the middle of 
January the alfalfa in the mow from which he was 
feeding gave out and he had to feed timothy. 
There was an immediate decline of milk produc¬ 
tion per cow at the rate of about three pounds per 
day. This decline still continued even when the 
grain ration was greatly increased, and still con¬ 
tinued until the alfalfa in the lower part of the 
mow was reached, when the production came back 
to normal again. These facts were checked by 
the New York State College of Agriculture. 
Sign Your Letters 
HE ever-increasing number of letters that 
come to American Agriculturist is an 
encouraging indication that our friends appreciate 
what we are trying to do and are asking us for 
more help. In the last few months, the cor¬ 
respondence in regards to taxes, bovine tubercu¬ 
losis, the bonus problem, household subjects, and 
hundreds of other things we have discussed of 
interest to farm people, has overwhelmed us. 
Let them come; the more the better. Perhaps 
the answers which we have given may be of some 
good to the writers, and we know that your letters 
are valuable to us in giving us the information to 
get out a paper that farmers want. 
Only one thing we ask; that is, that all letters 
must be signed. We can not pay any attention to 
an unsigned communication. If you wish, your 
name will always be considered absolutely con¬ 
fidential. As a sign of good faith, the name should 
be attached to the communication. 
Eastman’s Chestnuts 
SHEEP grower shipped some sheep to a 
commission merchant. The sheep were so 
cheap that the commission man sent a statement 
showing that he had not realized enough from the 
sales to pay the freight and the commission 
charges, so he asked the farmer to remit the 
balance 
The 'farmer replied: “I AIN’T GOT NO 
MONEY, BUT I CAN SEND YOU SOME 
MORE SHEEP!” 
* * * 
Before I dare print any of my chestnuts in this 
corner, I try them out on any member of the A. A. 
office staff who will listen—sort of trying it out on 
the dog. When I told the above story to Fred 
Ohm, my associate editor, he got that absent- 
minded, far-away look in his eye that told me 
what to expect and then almost before I could 
finish he told this one: 
Rastus took a load of tobacco to town. After 
the dealer had weighed it up and figured a while 
he said, “I’m sorry, Rastus, but tobacco is so 
cheap that I find you owe me money for taking it, 
but if you’ll just bring me a good fat rooster the 
next time you come to town we’ll call it square. 
So Rastus brought the dealer a rooster. 
A few days later the dealer looked up from his 
books to see Rastus standing in his office door. 
In his arms the darkey carried two big roosters. 
“Hello, Rastus,” said the dealer, “what’s the 
matter now?” 
“’Scuse me, Boss,” said Rastus, “me and mah 
son, Mose, has done got TWO LOADS of baccer 
out here. 
