American Agriculturist, June 7, 1924 
A Mixture of Everything 
Emphatic Letters on Hired Men, Starvation Prices and Taxes 
I MUST say that your paper is doing all that could 
be expected in every way, and if it could reach the 
consumer as it does the farmer, showing farm 
conditions, I believe he would soon have the sym- 
I pathy and assistance of the general public. But it does 
I not. Where do you see a large daily paper discussing 
I farm conditions? I have yet to notice very much atten- 
I tion paid to farm conditions whatsoever. Every one of 
I them takes it for granted things will go right on as they 
I have been in the past. I have just read Aaron Sapiro’s 
I radio speech. I know what he saw or spoke of in the 
I South—I saw it years ago. 
Cooperative marketing is good philosophy, but you 
I see the farmer and his farm is now in such a sick condi¬ 
tion that he is practically helpless. He has 
been a football so long they have the 
stuffing almost complete’y kicked out of 
him. His.only hope is in coming in direct 
contact with the consumer. If our upper 
class of people could only be made to see 
the great prop, the grand old farm, was 
rapidly decaying as it is, the people would 
sit up and take notice. But who is going to 
tell them in such a way that they can see 
it? Your little paper is powerless—which 
I say is a pity. I read the daily papers 
closely. Just one minister put the situation 
as it is up to his congregation during the 
past year. 
Now, Mr. Eastman, what can the farmer 
do? He has lost his golden opportunity 
when labor was cheap. Now he can not 
live because he would not break even. I 
have defied them all in this vicinity to show 
me the farmer who could clear a dollar a 
day over and above his expenses. I have 
as yet been unable to find one. That does 
not even take into consideration the 
amount invested in his farm. He takes his 
eggs to the country grocer, and exchanges 
them for groceries and grain. The grocer 
connects with the other fellow, the other 
fellow connects with the other fellow, and 
at last the farmer’s fresh eggs are sold to the 
consumer by the retailer for more than 
double what the farmer originally received. 
In order to do what he has to do just to keep 
going, you know where he gets off at, but 
the consumer doesn’t. 
The time is coming when the cities and 
large towns will find that it is part of their 
business to feed their growing population 
in a municipal way and to handle the farm 
products as they come direct from the 
farmer. Sooner or later this will come about 
because they can not stop eating, neither 
can the farmer continue to grow crops and 
go into a hole year after year. That is, the 
proper cooperation on one hand must 
watch the other. This cut throat business 
can not go on. Ask any of your clergymen 
in your city, any of your prominent lawyers, 
priests, or bishops what they know about 
farm conditions and they will look at you 
in astonishment. I tell you, Mr. Eastman, the people 
don’t know where they are at. “Hold your horses!’’ 
There are five farms vacated in my immediate vicin¬ 
ity. Go further and you can see them one after another 
tumbling in. All dead or gone to the movies in the city . 
Talk cooperative farming to empty houses! The State 
sends out its inquiry—how much of this, that and the 
other thing have you got? Bye and bye they will have 
to tax the farmer’s saw and saw-horse or anything that 
is left to raise a cent. Lots of these once good farms are 
sold fox taxes and the town grocer bids them in. You 
seldom see one of those fellows who is not pretty well- 
heeled. He has taken pretty much all the farmer could 
rake and scrape up. 
These are facts, Mr. Eastman. Now what I have 
written you were I to send it to a daily paper it would 
immediately find its way into the waste-basket and 
that editor would say: “Oh, piffle.” Our representa¬ 
tives go to the legislature and to Congress to represent 
themselves. They don’t represent the people. All our 
rogues’ galleries don’t happen to be at the police sta- 
'/ tions.—M. L. N., Chester, N. H. 
4, * * * ' 
A Hired MarCs Troubles 
TN looking over some old papers I got for my shop, I 
came across the January 19 issue of the American 
Agriculturist, and in looking through it I read an 
editorial on “Experience with Farm Help.” I worked 
on a farm as master mechanic a few years ago, and the 
following is my experience. 
I hired out to do the horseshoeing, wagon, and barn 
By A. A. READERS 
implement repairing. The first two weeks went fine. 
The third Saturday the pasteurising machine broke and 
1 worked till three o’clock Sunday morning fixing it. I 
thought that he needed about four thousand quarts of 
milk for his ten wagons to go out with at eight o’clock 
in the morning, so I got the man up that could run the 
steam-boiler, and he and I were the only two sober men 
on the place that night. We worked like trogers the 
rest of the night, and when we were finishing about nine 
the next morning, the boss came out and lit into us 
because the rest of the help was drunk. The dairyman 
threw up the job, but I stayed on a while longer. 
Monday morning his help was still drunk, so I got 
up at four-thirty, fed the horses, cleaned the barn, and 
then went to the dairy and got it ready to run. At 
breakfast the boss asked me to run the dairy that day. 
At noon I had the milk up and the dairy clean. He 
spent the forenoon getting his help ready to cut ice 
after dinner. I was going to fix a sled for a driver 
when he said “Let the sled go and 
unload a car of baled shavings 
which I have to have off the tracks 
by midnight.” I worked till nine 
that night unloading the car, and 
when I got through I went to bed 
as I was dead tired. 
The next morning I got a bawling 
out because I did not have the sled 
ready for,the driver. I worked from 
seven in the morning till eight at 
night for the rest of the week getting 
the repairs caught up. The next 
Sunday I asked him if I could take 
a horse and go to town. “Sure,” he 
said, “take the colt.” When I was 
about to start one of the drivers 
told me to look out for him because 
he was balky and could not be 
driven off the place. However, I 
had good luck and drove him to 
town and he never balked. When 
I got back the boss lit into me be¬ 
cause I could drive the horse and the 
others could not. He said he would 
no* have let me taken the horse if he had thought I 
could drive him. When I. say that was the way he felt 
about it I thought it was time to be moving, so I asked 
for my time and got a bawling out because I was 
leaving.— Walter M. Stanley, Worcester, Mass. 
* * * 
Married Man Best Hired Man 
S I am a reader and also a subscriber of American 
Agriculturist, I will give you a little formula 
regarding the help problem. 
In the first place, the married man is the best bet of 
the two. Regardless of good wages, give him a bonus 
of from two to five dollars per month for steady, pains¬ 
taking care, either in the form of a savings 
bank deposit or in such farm products as he 
and his family need most. Increase his pay 
according to the length of time he stays with 
you and the interest he takes in his work. 
I have also found that the man who has 
an opportunity to attend the local fair 
will pick up points that are a benefit to him¬ 
self and to his employer, and are well worth 
the time spent. 
Just try this for pleasing results.— 
B. J. B., Jefferson, New York. 
What One Hired Man Thinks 
SAW in your paper of January 19 an 
article on the farm labor problem. Here 
are a few facts concerning farm labor and 
some causes for the scarcity of farm labor. 
Why do so many men choose road jobs 
and other large-paying jobs? My view 
of the case is for this reason. First because 
on the road you work ten hours for thirty 
cents an hour and earn three dollars. On 
the farm you work 16 hours a day for forty 
or fifty dollars per month. 
If you are married, some farmers think 
that you can live in any kind of a house and 
if you have children they must not make 
any noise nor come near the farm. Of 
course I do not say all farmers are alike in 
this respect, but from my experience I find 
that nine-tenths of them are. 
During the war-time when help was 
scarce I used to farm it on shares. A great 
many of our neighbors could not get any 
help but we always managed to get help 
when we wanted it. Some folks used to say 
“ How do you manage to get help?” I used 
to reply “Because I meet my help half way 
and use them as though they were human 
beings and not dumb animals.” I think 
that if all farmers would be more economical 
with their hired help we would feel more like 
working on the farm.—A. R. W„ Mont¬ 
gomery, New York. 
* * 
Farmers Are Not Pikers 
AM pleased to know that at least one of 
our papers has the backbone (and it 
requires some backbone) to come out so strongly on 
the question of taxation. In the past it has been 
customary for the general public to classify one who 
had the temerity to say a word against taxation, either 
as a tightwad or as a demagogue. 
The time has come now, however, when it is absolutely 
(Continued on page 5^1) 
Dentist —Junior! Naughty, Naughty. 
—Courtesy, Judge 
MAYBE WE’VE BEEN OVERESTIMATING THE CHICKEN’S 
INTELLIGENCE 
F’OOL CHICKESS ? wouldn't ) 
Think THEYb learn 
wot to try to cross- - 
Tire Road ahead of- an 
4VT0-MO8ILE9 
Copyrighted 1924 by the New York Tribune, Inn. 
Darling in the New York Tribune. 
