Polk County itemizer., May 07, 1914, Page 3, Image 9

HOME AND FARM MAGAZINE SECTION
Home and Farm Magazine Section Editorial Page
Suggestiona From Our Associate Editors, Allowing for an Interchange of Views, W ritten by Men of Experience on Topics With
Which They Are Fully Acquainted—Hints Along Lines of Progressive Farm Thought.
THE STOEY OF A FABMEB BOY.
HE world worships at the
shrine of Success.
What are its secretst How
to attain itf
Let us study the life of one suc­
cessful man.
Born on a farm in 1863 this
boy saw developed a passion for
things mechanical.
To follow his natural bent he
entered a machine Bhop at the age
of sixteen, as an apprentice.
At the same time he worked
nights with a watch and jewelry
repairer.
Yes, Henry was sixteen year of
age, but instead of “ sparking”
the girls, going to shows and
dances, Henry went home, tired
and dusty from the machine shop,
and then helped the jeweler at
night.
He could look out and see the
bright lights—the girls passing and
smiling coquettishly at the little
studious drudge.
But Henry toiled on.
He loved machinery.
Nine months as an apprentice
and Henry went to work at a
steam engine factory.
In two years he was master of
the machinists’ trade.
Then he started out to sell the
Westinghouse portable steam en­
gine. This he did in summers.
He soon got an idea. He would
invent a portable farm locomotive.
At the end of two years’ work
of this nature H enry’s father gave
him 40 acres of land. This 40
acres was largely forest land, and
young Ford bought a circular Baw-
mill, rented a portable engine to
drive it, and went to work for a
Harvester company, setting up and
repairing portable farm engines in
the summer and ran his saw mill in
the winters.
At the end of his twenty-fourth
year, he married. Immediately fol­
lowing his marriage he built a
home with his own lumber on his
farm, did some farming, sawed
and sold lumber, and began to build
a steam road-carriage in his leisure
moments.
Henry was not lasy.
Boiler after boiler was tried for
this road-carriage, but none of
them ' was entirely satisfactory to
their designer, who, concluding that
the steam engine was not the best
driver for a road passenger vehicle,
finally abandoned his first and only
steam-car when be was twenty-
six.
Bat he was not discouraged. He
didn’t cuss the government, or the
times, or his neighbors for his
failure. At the same time he gave
up his life as a farmer, moved to
Detroit and obtained employment
as engineer for the Detroit Edison
Illuminating Company, attaining
the position, eventually, as chief
engineer. This position he held for
seven years; his nights were spent
in bis little machine shop in the
barn back of his home.
Henry was still working nights.
In that barn shop Henry built
the first Ford gas engine driven
passenger ear. This first Ford ear
was placed on the road in the early
part of 1893, ran well, and conld do
25 or 30 miles per hour.
In 1895 Henry Ford began his
second gas engine ear. This was
placed on the road in 1898. In the
same year Mr. Ford left the Edi­
son Company and the Detroit Au­
tomobile Company was organized
in which he held one-sixth of the
stock and drew a salary of (100 a
month as engineer in charge.
One hundred dollars a month for
Henry Ford!
But Henry d id n 't kick. He still
worked.
In 1901 he left the Detroit An-
tomobile Company (which after­
wards became the Cadillac Auto
bile Company), bought a shop, and
began the construction of a four
cylinder ear; this sms on the road
in 1903, and was built entirely
T
without assistance. He promptly
organized the Ford Motor Com­
pany, holding 25} per cent of the
$100,000 capital stock, and the first
Ford car known to the world was
placed on the road in June, 1903.
In 1906 Mr. Ford realized that he
needed absolutely free control to
carry out his policies, and bought
up stock to bring his holdings up
to 51 per cent of the entire shares.
Later he increased ins holdings to
58} per cent of the $2,000,000 capi­
tal stock.
Yes, Henry got there, all right.
But he worked, and rich as he is,
he is working yet.
Maybe the secret is this; Henry
liked to work.
VACCINATE YOUB TBEES.
D
ON’T brother about smudge pots
to protect your trees next
spring from early Bpring frosts.
Just vaccinate them.
That is all that is needed.
At, least, so says Dr. Paul 8.
Hunter, of Denver, secretary of the
Colorado State Board of Health.
Unfortunately, Dr. Hunter has
not his vaccine ready yet.
He nopes to develop a serum from
the sap of the hardy mountain
columbine.
We maintain an opjn mind.
Maybe, Dr. Hunter is right, but
—we intend to have our smudges
ready next year.
ABE FABMEB8 INEFFICIENT?
FRANK A. VANDERLIP,
M B. president
of the National
City Bank of New York,
awoke the other morning.
He remembered clearly he had
spoken at a dinner the night before
of the American Cotton Manufac­
turers’ Association.
But we fear it was not until the
papers came to his bedside that Mr.
Vanderlip realized—or remembered
—what few remarks be had made
at th at social gathering.
Thus did the papers quote Mr.
Vanderlip:
“ Ignorance
and
inefficiency
among the country's farmers, rather
than big business, make up the
fundamental cause of the high cost
of living.”
Interesting, isn ’t itf how these
magnates always slough it off onto
the farmer. And at a big dinner,
too. But to resume with Banker
Vanderlip's remarks;
“ Land is being utilized with but
40 per cent of efficiency, yet the
farmer is not held culpable—he is
not answerable to society, as is the
railroad manager who produces any­
thing less than 100 per eent.”
Then Mr. Vanderlip, who is a
banker, let us again remind you,
went on to read a kindly little
homily to farmers. He advised they
be intelligent, thrifty and efficient,
and that they conduct their busi­
ness intelligently.
Altogether, Mr. Vanderlip made
just those remarks we should have
expected from him.
Of course, this is all very well,
but—
Seems to us that sometime ago an
old Roman writer said:
" L e t the shoemaker stick to bis
last. ”
Which being interpreted means:
Mind yonr own business.
Probably, if seme of the leading
farmers of the Northwest were to
tell Mr. Vanderlip that—
“ Ignorance
and
Inefficiency
among the bank presidents of the
country are responsible for the
many bank failures that oeenr from
time to tim e,” we believe Mr.
Vanderlip would find the shoe on
the other foot.
Of course, from the standpoint
of Mr. Vanderlip, farmers are in­
efficient for they do not—
Sell out their forms at 10 times
their real value to a corporation,
holding, however, a controlling in
terest in stock.
Then proceed to turn over the
farm management to still another
company, making the original cor­
poration a parent organization.
Next dispose of bonds covering
the farm, stock and everything else
possible to bond, and sell more
bonds covering the “ assets” of the
individual corporations.
(This might be “ efficiency,” but
it would also make the 2-cent egg
cost the consumer at least 10 cents).
However, as Mr. Vanderlip has
brought up the question of the re­
sponsibility for the high cost of
living, we propose to tell him a few
home truths.
Money to the speculator at 5 per
cent and to the farmer at 10 per
per cent—loaned by Mr. Vanderlip
and his fellow bankers—helps to
make farm produce more costly.
High freight rates (to make that
100 per cent efficiency Mr. Van­
derlip was talking of) aids a little
more in raising the cost of living.
The inefficiency of Mr. Vander­
lip ’s railroad friends who force
their roads to pay dividends on
watered stock is a factor helping to
make freight rates high.
As a matter of fact—and in sober
earnest—the farmer is no worse,
and possibly no better, than the
rest of humanity.
There are good and bad farmers.
There are farmers who farm by
rote and farmers who farm with
brains.
Our agricultural colleges are help­
ing the farmer to farm with brains.
All in all, the farmer is solving
his own problems.
But he is not likely to look to
advice from Mr. Vinderlip.
SPRING BO AD WORK.
R
OAD supervisors and engineers
are now getting ready for the
spring road work, the annual cam­
paign of this time.
How many of them study the
subject scientificallyf
In many sections it has always
been customary to scrape or shovel
the dirt, mud or dust from the gut­
ters into the middle of the road.
And after the first heavy rain­
storm, things are just as they were,
or even worse than before.
The United States Department of
Agriculture, as well as many agri­
cultural colleges, has issued a num­
ber of valuable bulletins describ­
ing the exact kind of treatment for
each exact kind of road.
Every available scrap of such
literature should be studied by road
builders.
As well as the articles in your
farm papers.
Then we shall not hear of the
supervisor who would persist in
putting the wrong kind of gravel on
his road; the gravel that would not
bind and that turned to sand.
We would not bave one stretch
remarkable for ¿ts goodness and the
next remarkable for its vileness.
We should have better roads, the
kind of roads we are paying for.
And there would be no “ mud
tax ’ for the farmer to pay.
Each road is an individual prob­
lem. It shonld be so studied.
WHO ARE THE WINNER*?
VANDELIP, a New York
M B. banker,
blames the farm er’s
ignorance for the high cost of Ilv-
ing.
Mr. Vanderlip evidently is not
swnre that it is the fanner and
the former farmer and the farm er’s
sons who are to be found in all
ranks of industry, showing the Van-
derlipa how to be efficient sod less
ignorant
Abraham Lincoln was a farm er’s
boy. 8o was Andrew Carnegie. So
was Henry Ford.
They are too numerous to men­
tion—these farmer boys who are
showing business men how to be
effieient.
THEY KNEW HOW.
T
HE OTHER day wo took a trip
with one of those excursions
of city men off to build roads for a
day.
We appreciated the interest they
were showing in good roads—an in­
terest which has spread all over the
Northwest—but we did not think
there would be much real work
done.
Said we:
When these chaps get out on to
a road they will hardly know the
handle from the blade of a shovel;
they won’t know how to hold a
pick, or push a wheelbarrow.
We were wrong.
Horribly wrong.
Nearly everyone of those chaps
working on roads knew how to
wield a spade better than our hired
man.
And they did far more work than
he ever did in the same time.
When the day was over, they
weren’t tired out, their hands
weren’t covered with blisters. They
had almost enjoyed themBelves.
So we dug into this thing. This
was what we learned.
Ninety per cent of these bank­
ers, merchants, real estate men,
railroad men, advertising men, or
what not, were not new to the game.
Most of them had plowed behind
old Black Bess.
A big percentage of them had
dug potatoes out of the 40-acrs
patch.
They were farm ers’ boys come to
the city.
Why shouldn’t they know how to
hold a spadet H adn’t they done it
often enough a t home!
And why should they get blisters,
although they didn’t wear gloves!
Who ever heard of a farmer with
blistered hands!
To them this work on the roads
was a great, human experience. A
greater, human experience, perhaps,
because there was no tomorrow.
They were getting back to first
principles. They had brought vivid­
ly back to them the days on the
farm.
That is why they enjoyed the
road bosses ordering them about
viciously.
They heard the call of the soil
again.
CLEANLINESS IS COMING.
/*LEA,\LINESS is coming.
wT Every day we are appreciat­
ing its importance.
Clean hands, clean thoughts, elean
lives.
Then Godliness.
Every day we learn something.
Dr. F. H. Orton, of the Minnesota
University faculty, utters a sur­
prising statement when he says:
‘The month is the greatest portal
of entry for infectious diseases in
the human system, with the excep­
tion of the sting of insects.”
Sounds startling, but we believe
the doctor is right.
“ Dr. Osier has declared,” eon
tinues Dr. Orton, “ that if he were
asked what was doing greater harm,
alcoholism or the unhygienic mouth,
he would say it was the unhygienie
mouth. ”
What a simple thing it is too,
to have a elean mouth.
And, by the way, we should all
visit the dentist once in a while.
The time to go is before the tooth­
ache comes.
And we should pay him ungrudg-
ingly.
The dentist has to live and he Is
doing good service in the eause of
public health.
T 19 a wise farmer who knows it
is hard to invent an excuse
without infringing on the other fel
lows’ patent.
I
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P
USH and pull are a hard pair to
beat—th a t’s why so many
farmers are riding i i automobile*.