J
Home and Farm Magazine Section Editorial Page
Timely, Pertinent Comment Upon Men and Affairs, Following the Trend of World Newt; Suggestions of Interest to Beadexij
Hinti Along Lines of Progressive Farm Thought
HOME AND FARM MAGAZINE SECTION
TO ADVERTISERS.
Advertiser in this locality who wish
to fully cover all sections of Oregon and
Washington and a portion of Idaho will
apply to local publishers for rates.
J General advertisers may address 0. lu
Burton, AdvertiNing Manager of Farm
Magazine Co., Publishers Oregon-Wash-
Ington-ldaho Farmer, 411 Panama Build-
ing. Portland, Oregon, for rates and 1-
formation.
TO READERS.
Readers are requested to send letters
and articles for publication to The Edl-
tor, Oregon-Washington-Idaho Farmer,
411 Panama Building, Portland, Oregon.
Discussions on questions and prob-
lems that bear directly on the agricol-
tural, live stock and poultry interests of
too .Northwest, and on the uplift and
comfort of the farm home always are
welcomed. No letters treating of rell-
gion, politics or the European war are
solicited, for the Farm Magazine pro-
claims neutrality on these three matters.
Comparatively brief contributions are
preferred to long ones. Send us also
photographs of your live stock and farm
scenes that you think would be of gen-
eral interest. We wish to make this
"Magazine of value to you. Help us to
do it.
MADE IN U. S. A.
A
M ERICA'S opportunity to gain a fore
most place among the mercantile
nations of the world, if not the fore
most place, has now arrived. To make this
assured the eo-nperation of everyone living
within the borders of this nation is needed
as well as those with whom the United
States will trade. Not only should "Made in
U. S. A." be stamped upon every article of
merchandisC'that is shipped from America,
but every citizen of this great nation should
insist that this insignia be upon every article
he buys for personal use.
What is the famed Parisian model in
many cases but a poorer example of material
and workmanship than can be turned out in
the United States? Is a thing stamped
"Made in Germany" any better than the
same thing made in America t Even though
this may mean that the price is somewhat
stiffer on American-made goods they should
be given the preference, decidedly.
When one considers that for every dollar
spent in the United Slates -he receives a part
of it back in taxes, or some other indirect
benefit, one will not consider it so much of a
bargain to pay slightly lower prices for
something made abroad. The more money
spent in the United States the more prosper
ous you will be, no matter what your occu
pation. Do your share toward spending
your money in this nation.
What is considered in a largo way as af
fecting the interests of a nation may be con
fined to a single section, district or state.
The benefits are practically the same. What
goes into taxes in your own locality is of
benefit more directly to you than the money
given taxpayers outside your immediate dis
trict. Let "Made in Pacific Northwest" be as
much of a slogan to you as "Made in U. S.
rA." is to the nation. By virtue of the same
Identical argument you gain more personally
by spending your money in the Northwest
than if you spent it in any other section of
this nation. Yet it follows that money spent
anywhere in the United States is of more
benefit to you than sums spent in foreign
nations for foreign goods. The United States
is big enough to make enough of everything
for her own consumption. The Pacifie North
west can produce all of life's necessities and
many of her luxuries.
Buy in the Pacifie Northwest, United
States of America.
DIVERSITY OF CROPS.
THOSE sections of the country that per
sist in the raising of a single crop wQl
be overtaken by disaster sooner or later,
says the Iowa Farmer.
"The situation in which the cotton plant
era now find themselves is only an illustra
tion of the danger attendant upon any farm
enterprise and business based on raising a
single crop," said Professor Spillman, chief
of the office of farm management "It may
run along very well for a while, even for
many years, but some disaster will undoubt
edly overtake it. Our study and investigation
have amply demonstrated that it is never
safe to build agriculture on any one thing.
"The wheat growers of the Pacific North
west had no better resourve than wheat In
1893 the crop was ruined by untimely rains.
In 1894 they experienced the panic, and the
price of what fell so low as 18 cents per
busheL The next year it rose to 25 cents a
bushel and in 1896 was boosted up to 85
cents. During that period nearly every bank
and every commercial house in that region
went broke. So many mortgages were called
on farms that the price of farm land, which
had been $40 to $50 per acre, fell as low as
$10 and $12. The Pacific Northwest for
years past has not been depending on wheat
alone. The farmers learned a costly lesson.
"The same thing is true of the rice pro
ducers in regions where no other crops were
raised in large quantities. Farmers who
grow nothing but rice have met with two
or three eras of prices away below the cost
of production, and financial ruin has fol
lowed. '
"Every region that has but one great
agricultural enterprise has suffered more or
less the same way.
' ' The evident thing that the south must do
is to produce enough of all the things her
wonderfully rich soil can produce to meet
her home requirements. That is what the
office of farm management has been urging
on the south.'
HOMES OF THE NATION.
SOME of the discussions at the meetings
of the International Purity Congress,
.which was lately in session in Kansas
City, are of dubious merit because they have
more the color of pruriency than of purity;
but one speaker there, John B. Hammond of
Des Moines, raised a point that is of the
highest importance.
He said that "the constant diminution of
home ownership among our people and the
destruction of the privacy of the family life
is the greatest menace to our free institu
tions today." So far as. the superlative is
concerned, that is lightly used by many
speakers, and seldom with duo care. There
are other "menaces to our free institutions,'!
many of them; yet somehow our free insti
tutions seem to bear up. Whether or not
the decline in home-owning is the greatest
of these menaces is not important. It
enough that it is a menace.
Mr. Hammond went on to say that about
70 per cent of the American people are ten
ants, and dependent upon speculators for
the roofs that shelter them. "Thirty-five per
cent of the families in our cities move once
annually." He detects a connection between
this fact and the scandalously high divorce
rate and scandalously low birth rate.
It is not hard to suspect such a connection.
The tenant home is often lacking in the real
home spirit which lacks much when it lacks
a sense of permanence. Those who dwell
there doubtless do the best they can to make
it a home; but it is hard. It is especially
hard when no children are there, and the
stork avoids the tenant home. Cafes rather
than cradles are its familiars.
What to do about it! Mr. Hammond
would 'exempt the home from taxation;
which isn't a bad idea at all. To free home
steads up to a certain value from taxation
would be a fine encouragement to hon
owning. . Our legislators might give it
thought He would also regulate tenement
rents, whieh is not so appealing as an in
ducement to home-owning unless he regu
lates rents up to a prohibitive point. And
that, of course, much as landlords might en
joy it, is not practical.
The trouble, though, goes deeper tfcaa
that Decline in home-owing probably knl
due to a decline fa the desire for home-ow
ing. In part it ia due ni vary large Pff
indeed to the prevailing extravagance.
Owning automobiles, dressing up to the
handle, and living up to the last nickel, keep
many people from owning homes who ought
to own them,
Bui on the whole the fact that fewer
people than of old can afford to own their
own homes has a good deal to do with it,
too ; though not nearly so much as the insane
emulation of the rich which ia making this
so improvident a people.
The menace of tenantry ia very real A
nation of tenants is a nation lacking real
home -life. A nation lacking real haras Ufa
ia a nation threatened with loos of good
citizenship.
Any practical measure that will inereaaa
home-owning ia good for the nation, good
for the community, good for society, good
for the individual
LORD ROBERTS.
IN THE DEATH of Lord Roberta Greet
Britain mourns the loss of the foremost
soldier of the age. Sir Frederick Sleigh
Roberts, "Bobs," aa he was affectionately
called by the people, was possibly the most
idolized figure in English public life. A
soldier and the son of a soldier, hk trade
was war, and in the war. service of hk
country he developed the qualities that ex
cel No end of eulogy might be written con
cerning the intrepidity and the heroism that
have been manifest in Lord Roberts' aoldiav
ly career; and especially in his Indian cam
paigning that began when he had barely
passed to man's estate, and lasted with slight
intermission until 1893. Much of the story
of Lord Roberts' service in India reads like
a romance.
It is fine stuff that such men are mads
of,, whether or not we may think and con
tend that it could be put to better use than
in the trade of war. It is for dnty splendid"
ly done that the sober and reflective esteem
of the world is bestowed on such men. They
are of a high type, and under most exacting
conditions and in most exacting circum
stances they prove their worth. The honor
that is due to their memory is given with"
out grudge.
Boisus Thompson, an T W. W., has con
fessed to firing a theater in Tonopah, the
blaze destroying sixteen dwellings in addi
tion to tho place of amusement Boisus ia
now in line for a presidential nomination
at the hands of his party.
New -York's board of education is em
barrassed by protests against the rule that
forbids women who become mothers to con
tinue in employment as teachers. It looks
at a distance hke a case where education
and enlightenment had parted company,
Possibly it will not be very long when dis
appointed investors may be heard talking
about how cheap they could have bought a
few bales of cotton in 1911
It must be depressing to an industrious
statesman to hear how much more money
he might have made, with far less work, by,
becoming a moving picture actor.
Fortunately America is not expected to
linger on the verge of prosperity as long aa
England onee lingered on the verge of war.
That beautiful sentiment, "There is glory
enough to go round," never made much of
an impression on Mexico.
Califomians are heard to brag of theii
splendid climate. We venture to suggest
that any Califomian who has spent the past
few months in the Northwest has revised
some opinions.