VOL. LXIV
INDIANAPOLIS, AUGUST  14, 1909.
NO. 32
The Call of the Farm.
[From the Literary Digest.]
Many others besides James J. Hill
see in the "return to the soil" of a large
part of our population the only hope of
rescue from high prices and food scarcity. In an interview in the New York
American John W. Gates is quoted as
saying:
" 'This country has not been scratched yet in the way of development, especially in agriculture. There is Texas,
with 20 to 25 per cent more area than
France, and Texas has 4,000,000 population, while France has about 38,000,-
000, and the French are a prosperous
people. Take California, with its 3,- j
000,000 population. It has the area of I
Germany, while the last-named country has 60,000,000, and Germany is one
of the most prosperous countries in the
world.'"
In the same paper Secretary James
Wilson of the United States Department of Agriculture, corroborating Mr. •
Hill and Mr. Gates, argues thus in behalf of agricultural education as a
means of turning the tide that during
the last fifty years has been draining
tbe rural communities and flooding
the towns to congestion:
" Most of our colleges to-day are
strenuously at work turning out lawyers, doctors, preachers, and typewriters, but few of them make any effort to
graduate a farmer. I would have agriculture in some form taught in every
seat of learning and in our public
schools.
" 'Starting with the fact that while
the farmer has to work hard he has as
a reward better health, a longer life,
and a more independent existence than
any other man on earth, it ought to be
easy to make the life attractive.
" 'Then I would have the young men
taught the newest and, latest methods
of agriculture. Show them how they
can produce more from an acre than
their fathers did, prove to them how to
make $2 where their fathers made but
$1, and you will have offered the inducement needed to check the abandonment of the farm for the city.' "
And now that the papers pictorial ly
and editorially are echoing the call
from the grain-fields for labor to aid
in gathering in the crop, the Indianapolis News thus explains the reluctance
that the unemployed city laborer manifests toward hastening to the wheat
country:
"The annual call has come from the
WeBt for harvest hands. Fifty thousand of them are said to be needed this
year to start the wheat and other grain
crops on their way toward the consumer. Doubtless there are many more
than 50,000 men in the country who
would be glad to have this work; but
the distance between the man and the
job Is long and to the man in urgent
"'■'■il of work the railroad fare is practically prohibited. Aside from this
many such men have families which
"'• '.v are maintaining, poorly enough it
must be confest, but in some way or
other—perhaps by eking out a little
money here and there from odd Jobs.
These families they would necessarily
have to leave behind them to get along
ln some way or other until money
earned in the fields could be sent to
them.
"Nor is that the only complication.
w«rk in the harvest-field is not a steady
J°b-    It   may   pay   comparatively   well
while it lasts, but it is soon over, and
at the conclusion of it the laborer may
find himself far away from his family
with scant prospects of other means
of maintaining either it or himself,
and a serious problem before him
when he considers the means of getting
back to the place he calls home."
The News hopes for a remedy
through "the encouragement of a
gradual movement away from urban
congestion, and the dispersal of labor
over a greater area so that    it will  be
bushels, out of 3,500,000 bushels
which constitute the world's crop, are
practically out of danger. That is to
say, even tho our own spring wheat
harvest in the Northwest is just reaching the point at which they are calling
for labor to help in harvest, easily the
major portion of the world's bread supply is now under cover.
"The expectation of months of work
and waiting is realized and the reward
of the toiler will be far more liberal
than  usual  in  the  comparatively  high
A  REMINDER   OF EARLY DAYS.
Old Homestead  of Tavner Neal, Hendricks County.    This House is Still Standing, Though Long Disused.
more readily available for the necessary work of the  time."
Meanwhile The Wall Street Journal
presents a brighter prospect in this
picturesque review of the great march
of the world's harvest line:
"Harvesting operations at this season of the year extend ths.- greater way
around the globe in a line which coincides approximately with the forty-first
degree of north latitude. On a level
with New York and Northern Pennsylvania, with the lower lake districts and
westward across the Mississippi plain
to the North Pacific States, there is a
line of reapers which day by day moves
a little farther north until the entire
winter wheat belt is reaped and the
shock stands in the field for the curing
which precedes the threshing. Of this
kind of grain the United States alone is
expected to furnish this year at least
410,000,000  bushels.
"But the line of reapers does not end
with the Western Continent. In Europe
it is high tide in the harvest calendar.
In Northern France, Switzerland ,\ Germany, Austria-Hungary, east along the
.Danube and the north shores of the
Black Sea into Bessarabia and the Volga Valley of Southern Russia. Far
over into the Caucasus harvest comes
a little earlier, and down in the Anatolian region of Asia Minor they finished
the work of harvesting fully a month
ago.
"By this time of year probably two-
thinls of the wheat of the world is cut.
Within a month more, nearly all of it
will be safely garnered. At this time
it 18      safe to    say that      2,000,000,000
pricea which wheat commands in every
commercial center of the world.
Whether it be in the rich granary of
our geat interior wheat States, or in
the heavily set growth of Central Europe, or in the small yielding acres of
North Africa, or in the remote plains
of Damascus where the American reaper and thresher have begun to influence
the output, the grower of wheat generally is getting from 25 to 4 0 per cent,
more this year for his product than a
year ago.
"From now until the snow flies the
harvest line will move more rapidly
northward. Its extreme limit will this
year go somewhat farther North,
thanks to the Saskatchewan wheat-
grower, than ever before. For wheat
is a pioneering crop and lays the foundation for the flrmer grasp of man on
the problems of' developing the resources of nature. Higher values have
pushed out the domains of wheat-
growing, and the harvest line this year
will be flung out a little farther than in
any earlier year of the world's wheat
industry."
Barley Growing.
Editors   Indiana   Farmer:
In looking over some old copies of
the Farmer today my attention was
called to an article on barley raising
by John Stine of Edinburg, In which
he gives his experience with both fall
and spring barley. I have never had
an y experience with spring barley,
but have had with fall barley,
and in that I was well pleased,
both in quality and quantity. I
will give my experience. In the fall
of 1891 I sowed five acres (drilling)
used seven bushels seed, sowed first
days of September on high sandy and
clay land, mixed, that had been in
wheat the year before, where I had
thirteen bushels, of wheat to the acre,
and to my great surprise I had 45
bushels of barley to the acre, machine
measure. It was the bearded variety,
and the beards were as long as my
hand   and   as  sharp   as   briers. The
straw was soft as oats, and not as high
as wheat by almost a foot. Harvested
the barley the 13th of June and wheat
just two weeks after. Wheat in the
same field and the same kind of
ground made 13 bushels, the same as
the year before. Sold wheat at 68
cents and barley at 55 cents, 48 pounds
to the bushel. In harvesting the barley my men that did the shocking used
short handled pitch forks, as they did
also in the stacking.
I sold a large part of my barley for
seeding, and nearly everyone made a
failure in raising barley, for the reason that they didn't sow early enough,
and some almost swore in their wrath
they would never try barley again. The
sowing to insure a good crop must be
done early, not later than the 20th or
25th of August and must be on dry land
(sandy or loam). Wet sprouty land is
not in it, neither i.s late sowing. It
will be remembered that the fly that
works on wheat doesn't trouble barley.
Barley is not a hard crop on the
ground, but will make a good crop on
ground which is not first class for
wheat.
The grain is first class feed for any
and all kinds of stock, and ground with
corn equal parts, there is no better
feed for milk cows. Barley made good
bread in Bible times, and I don't see
why it would not now as well; and all
kinds of stoek will eat the straw in
preference to any other straw.
Barley in the shock or stack will
shed water better than any other grain
it is a little late to get the seed and
sow now. They that make the test
will be pleased in more ways than one,
and don't forget it. Henry Baker.
Worthington.
Indiana State Fair opens on Labor
Day, Sept. 6. The marvelous develop-
ment of the last decade assures marked
advance in this year's show, according
to Secretary Downing. We predict
that Indiana farmers and manufacturers, will take most of the prize money.
Everyone should attend this great
Fair.
The Payne tariff bill passed the
lower house of Congress, July 31, and
the Senate, Aug. 5th, and was signed
by President Taft the same day. It
is now the law, and will no doubt
bring some relief, tho not what most
consumers had hoped. The immediate effect will be to start the wheels
of trade and commerce. Manufacturers, importers, etc., now know what
to depend on in the way of prices and
will at once start up business in their
several lines.
A report of the summer meeting of
our State Horticultural Society will be
published in our next number.
Gas wells have recently been developed in Gibson county with a total
capacity of over 20,000,000 cubic feet
per day. Why don't the owners pipe
it to this city?
.