The united American : a magazine of good citizenchip., July 01, 1925, Page 16, Image 16

THE UNITED AMERICAN
Page Sixteen
first year’s payment, and the farmer has the crop of
lambs and a one-third of the cost of the old sheep paid
for. They are all satisfied, and more are being
encouraged to stock their farms with sheep to help
meet the nation’s wool shortage, which has been
brought about by a reduction from 60,000,000 sheep
in the United States in 1900 to less than 40,000,000
today. More than half the wood used in America
today is imported.
As a result of North Dakota’s growing interest
in combination live stock and grain farming, the out­
going shipments of live stock have been greatly
increased in recent years. Revenue is already pouring
into the state from the meat animals that have been
sold. Last year a total of nearly 20,000 carloads of
cattle, hogs, and sheep was shipped to central markets,
and it is expected that this figure will be more than
doubled within a few years.
•
*
•
Another evidence of the effects of the new farming
system is found in the fact that big creameries have
had to be built to take care of the surplus cream that
is being produced in the state. During the last three
years several big creamery plants, as well as small
plants, have been built, including big ones at Fargo
and Grand Forks and at Moorhead, Minn., just across
the state line. Several centralized collecting stations
have been established to take care of the chicken and
egg production on North Dakota farms.
When farmers got interested in the “grow your
own” plan they began to search the timber along the
streams on their farms for wild honey bees with head­
quarters in old hollow trees. That has resulted in
the starting of many home apiaries, and last fall for
the first time farmers in this state produced enough
surplus honey from the wild colonies of bees to ship
it in carload lots.
Hundreds of carloads of poles and posts have been
shipped from Minnesota to be used in building sheds
and barns for the cows and hogs and sheep.
To encourage this, railroads reduced freight rates
on posts and poles forty per cent. One Minnesota
farmer has sold more than 70 carloads of posts and
poles during the last year, and the demand has been
so great that railroads have extended the time limit
on their rate reduction schedules, to aid the North
Dakota farmers in providing shelter for their new
flocks and herds.
An illustration of how the hog population is being
inceased is found in Grand Forks country, where there
were only about 16,000 hogs five years ago. Today
there are more than 22,000. Wheat acreage in the
same county has been cut from 282,000 to 186,000
acres, which illustrates the swing from wheat to other
crops.
•
*
•
Farmers are so convinced that the diversification
plan pays that they have introduced several new corps,
including sugar beets, in the Red River valley. In
small fields of from five to six acres, farmers in the
valley last year produced more than 60,000 tons of
beets, which had to be shipped to a factory at Chaska,
Minn., near Minneapolis. Beet growing has increased
at such a rapid rate in the Red River valley that a
JULY 1925
factory which will cost $2,500,000 is being built at
Grand Forks, N. D., to take care of the 1926 crop.
The big wheat farms in the state are being cut
into smaller units. The average sized North Dakota
farm today is about 480 acres, and advocates of the
new system say 240 would be enough. North Dakota
now has about 75,000 farm units, and leaders of the
diversification farming plan think there should be a
further reduction in the size of the farms to make
150,000 units. In the eastern part of the state farms
are being broken up into half and quarter sections.
The increased prosperity of the North Dakota
farmer under new scheme of agriculture is reflected
in the state agricultural college’s enrollment. During
the last four years, when practically every one of the
other similar land grant colleges have suffered a great
reduction in their attendance, this school at Fargo has
increased gradually, climbing from an enrollment of
1,123 in 1921 to 1,620 at the close of the last year’s
session.
THE ENGLISHMAN’S “H”
TT HAS BEEN alleged, with some show of evidence,
1 that certain Englishmen often use the aspirate
when the language has not been hard-hearted enough
to make an extra breath necessary; also that they
coolly ignore the presence of h’s where correct usage
demands what a Cockney bricklayer slightingly referred
to as “more wind.” The subject is a little inflammable,
but it has always piqued American curiosity. England
is the home of the aspirate. Why, then, do many of
its inhabitants, otherwise conservative in nature, ride
roughshod over a rule, or rules, which they inherited
from past, and incidentally handed over to us ?
This is a question raised by a friendly nation in a
friendly spirit. In some respects it would appear to
be a literary question, having also direct connections
with social psychology. We feel sure we are not mis­
taking in saying that the answer cannot be found in
a study of English education. It goes deeper down.
We suggest that the answer is found in one word:
aversion — conscious and subconscious.
Boys and girls at English public schools will learn
the rules about the aspirate in ham and in honor.
They will even aspirate correctly when heading aloud.
But they will not do so in conversation. They con­
sider it an affectation — an effort to be “uppish.” They
look down upon the “h” as a nonsensical thing in itself;
and, as the “classes” seldom omit an aspirate, or mis­
place one, the “h” thus becomes a boundary line
between two sections of society.
Precisely at this point it becomes evident that the
Englishman’s hoity-toity treatment of the aspirate is
not entirely a matter of grammatical ignorance.
Indeed, many who transgress know the rules well
enough, but all the same they refuse obedience. Why ?
Because ih the “set” in which they move it is the cus­
tom to drop the “h,” just as in the smart set it is (or
was) the custom to drop the “g,” so that hunting
becomes huntin’. If George, a carpenter, calls to Harry,
saying, “ ’Arry, ’and me the ’ammer,” he is speaking
the proper and respected lingo of his class. But if
he said, “Harry hand me the hammer,” Harry would
stare in astonishment, then shout to his comrades, “Sy,