nOME AND FARM MAGAZINE SECTION
Editorial Page of Home and Farm Magazine Section
Timely, Pertinent Comment Upon Men and Affairs, Following the Trend of World News;
Suggestions of Interest, to Readers; Hints Along Lines of Progressive Farm Thought.
4
TO ADVERTISERS.
Advertisers In (his locality who wish to
fully cover all sections of Oregon and Wash
ington and a portion of Idaho will apply to
local publishers for rates.
General advertisers may address C. L. Iiur
ton, Advertising Manager of Oregon-Washing-ton-Idaho
Farmer, Orog.mian Building, Tort
land, Oregon, for rates and information.
TO READERS.
Readers are requested to send letters and
articles for publication to The Editor, Or
egon Washington Idaho Fanner, Oregonian
(luilding, Portland, Oregon.
Discussions on questions and problems
that bear directly on the agricultural, live
stock and poultry interests of the Northwest,
and on the uplift and comfort of the farm
home always are welcomed. N'o letters treat
ing of religion, politics or the European jvar
are solicited, for the Oregon-Washington-Idaho
Farmer proclaims neutrality on these matters.
Comparatively brief contributions are pre
ferred to long ones. Send us also photo
graphs of your livestock and farm scenes that
you think would be of general interest. We
wish to make this magazine of value to you.
Help us to it.
BUY IT NOW.
BUT IT NOW. That is the slogan of a
National campaign, unique in charac
ter and far-reaching in results as it
affects the general prosperity of the country,
which lias been inaugurated for the purpose
of inducing purchases of goods now which
must, of necessity, be bought in the Spring
months.
The campaign is general in its requests
and is directed to every one. Especial at
tention, however, is being directed to the
purchase of heavy merchandise, such as farm
machinery, building materials and other
things which are usually bought during the
Spring.
By buying now that which must be bought
later, general business activity will be ma
terially increased and everyone will feel the
beneficial effects. Jobbing houses will be
working under full force and factories will
be working full time with full help. In this
way many men who are now out of work
will be given employment and many families
who are in need of the actual necessities
of life will be provided for.
The campaign does not suggest indis
criminate or unnecessary buying. But it does
suggest economic buying and insists upon
buying now things that must be bought later.
The campaign .should meet with especial
favor from the farmers of the United States.
Government statistics, just issued, show that
the fanners are more prosperous today than
they have ever been 1he 1914 output from
farms exceeded that of last year by more
than $83,000,000 and that while the farm
ers are showing a goodly margin of profit
the merchant and manufacturer are having
a hard time making ends meet. They will
buy many things in the Spring, but if they
will buy them now, factories will be running
full blast and they can do a service to hu
manity. With a general buying of neeessary mer
chandise, business conditions would materi
ally improve, unsettled conditions would be
lessened and confidenee would be 'restored
much sooner than under present conditions.
PEACE IN AMERICAN WATERS.
TUB proposal of South American gov
ernments that naval warfare in the
Old World shall not extend to the new,
or, if it does, shall be excluded from speci
fied zones where the ships of all nations enu
sail on their errands in peace, is an exten
sion of the Monroe doctrine that is well
worth considering. Whether an exception
would be made of the eoasts of colonies be
longing to a belligerent is not clearly speci
fied. But that is a detail that can easily be
arranged.
While the proposition is said to be fa
vored by Great Britain, it, hardly seems
likely that it would be accepted as interna
tional law unless it is backed by the demand
of most of the leading nations of the New
World. Where, as at present, there are ten
belligerents, the refusaj of one or more to
accept sueli a rule might defeat the whole
project. But if Brazil, Argentina, Chile,
Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and the United
States jointly conveyed to Europe the intel
ligence that naval battles are not to be
fought within New World waters, Europe
would have to pay attention to it.
Such a rule would permit European com
merce to come to this hemisphere and trade
peacefully while here. On returning to Eu
rope it must accept the hazards of the war
there. But commerce between American
countries could go on without the surveil
lance of European commerce destroyers, and
would ito doubt be greatly extended.
.Wiry should American waters be made the
hunting ground for the cruisers of Europe?
It certainly seems that the proposition of
stopping it by the united action of American
governments is well worth careful consideration.
' EDUCATIONAL BASIS OF FARMING.
FARMING in this day and ago is based
upon.education, and education not only,
in agricultural hut in social and eco
nomic lines. Read what Profitable Farming
in a recent editorial, has to say along this
line :
"There was a time when farming was con
sidered largely a matter of physical foree.
When the land was young and iu its primeval
'richness, there was not much attention given
to the studies of conservation of either soil,
or crops or feed stuff. With land of a value
of only one-tenth to one-third its present
value, with a single farm animal considered
of no great importance, with labor a simple
matter and of but an inconsequential ex
pense such important elements now neces
sary in this intensified age, of such crying
needs and requirements it's different now,
much different.
"Farming has not been considered as a
business until within the last two decades,
and it is only and really within the last
decade that we have begun to feel the im
perative necessity for a greater admixture
of brain work.
"It is only within the last two or three
sessions of the National Congress that appro
priations of any extent could be secured for
any but just ordinary work. Now we have
not only greatly enlarged appropriations for
properly carrying on of the various forms
of research work, and solving of the vital
poblems, but a multitude of such which
we not many years ago thought quite beyond
necessity. This is also likewise true of the
appropriations and research work of the
various state departments of today.
"Many of the state agricultural colleges
are carrying on, in behalf of their own com
monwealth, agricultural extension work and
of much greater magnitude than like work
formerly carried on by the Federal depart
ment. It has also been found that much of
the work carried on by a single state depart
ment could only be made adequately suc
cessful when these various units of endeavor,
or when the work of the various states, could
be more closely co-related and more effect
ively co-operative, and here the Federal
Government has again extended in domain
of influence and its financial assistance 'jy
doing both general and joint work with the
various states in many of these pursuits.
"The more recent Lever bill, in which
fie Federal Government joins with all the
states in co-operative agricultural extension
work, is a most distinct sample of the very
latest of such co-relation, and the practical
nature of this work insures, to our mind,
sueh unusual good returns for the expendi
ture that it will doubtless lead to further
National and state co-operation more ex
tensions into other lines, and accomplishing
ok resulting in first aid to many problems
which are now becoming serious in American
farm life.
"A survey of the present rural social
atmosphere will compare favorably in prog
ress with that of city life, and in mechanical
progress and improvement in product will
far exceed in percentage of increase that of
city life.
"It, is also encouraging that the increase
of social corruption has not been so great as
in the city environment.
"As without doubt much of the increase
of crime in the city life may be directly or
indirectly contributed to by the high cost
of living and the difficulty of obtaining
same, it is a broad, wholesome view that all
increased crop production will revert in
benefits quite as much' to the improvement
of the city life as to that of the rural.
"We may also be well impressed with the
beneficial change in city-bred hearts and
minds who do not now look upon a farmer,
and his folks in the same apathy that was
so common and derisive not so many years
ago.
"Just as the child who gets his regular
voluntary and liberal allowance from the
parent is not so realizing of his dependence
of city folks upon our agricultural basis of
living. . x
"Now, however, that weare searching foi;
products rather than our products searching
for a market, we are becoming immeasuiN
ably closer together and into a more common'
social atmosphere,1 and of a more general
appreciative interest in each other."
THE WILD AND WOOLLY.
"H"
E leaves for the frontier, the thick of
the tight, where evil' is firmly en
trenched," said the bishop of Ohio la
a sermon at the consecration of Dean
Sumner, of Chicago, as bishop o Oregon.
The gentleman evidently believes Oregon ig a
very tough state, devoted chiefly to Indian fight,
ing, cattle-stealing and the game of poker. He
does not know there are fewer Illiterates In Ore
gon than in any other state of the Union. Ha
does not know Oregon was the first state to en
act a minimum wage law for women, that we
pay widow's pensions, Inverted initiative and ref
erendum, blazed the direct primary trail and
that the people In November voted against the
saloons by some 30,000 majority.
Before he delivers any further sermons about
the "frontier" and the "thick of the fight" the
bishop of Ohio Bhould buckle on a six-shooter,
tako a chew of tobacco and come take a look at
this land of evil. East Orrgoninn, Pendleton.
We should like to add by way of further
comment that if the bishop were to equip
himself as suggested and come to Oregon,
Washington and Idaho and make & careful
investigation, he would find that the laws
of these threo states are several years in
advance of those in the. territory where her
happens to sojourn at present. lie would
also find that the standard of education is.
higher, that law enforcement is a- known
quantity and that the moral standing of the
people in general is far higher than in hi?
"neck o' the woods." "