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About The gazette-times. (Heppner, Or.) 1912-1925 | View Entire Issue (March 5, 1915)
HOME 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 this locality who wish to fully cover all sections of Oregon and Washington and a portion of Idaho will apply to local pub lishers for rates. General advertisers may address C. L. Bur ton, Advertising Manager of Oregon-Washington-Idaho Farmer, Oregonian Building, Port land, Oregon, for rates and information. TO READERS Readers are requested to send letters and articles for publication to The Editor, Oregon-Washington-Idaho Farmer, Oregonian Build ing, Portland, Oregon. Discussions on questions and problems that bear directly on the agricultural, livestock and poultry interests of the Northwest and on the uplift and comfort of the farm home always are welcomed. No letters treating of religion, politics or the European war are solicited, for the . Oregon-Washington-Idaho .Farmer .pro claims neutrality on these matters. Comparatively brief contributions are pre ferred to long ones. Send us also photographs of your livestock and farm scenes that you think would be of general interest. Ve wish to make this magazine of value to you. Help us do it FARMER AS ULTIMATE MARKET. MORE than ever before, the manufac turer, the retailer, and the politician is looking to the farmer as one upon whom their prosperity depends. He is the ultimate market for manufactured goods; he is the ultimate market for a politician's wares. The manufacturer who doe.s not make good with the farmer, the retailer whose policy does not please the farmer, the politician who neglects the farming in terests soon learn of the power wielded by, the man on the land. The farmer is increasing in numbers, as he is also increasing in wealth. The farmer is a man with whom business men of the city like to deal. Not that they think that be cause he is not living in a metropolis that he is an "easy mark" for shady deals, for they know better than that from experience, but because he is good pay and a pleasant cus tomer. No one has been quicker to sense the importance of the farmer than, the wily politician. Today it is not the man who breezes about with a glad hand extended to the farmer, the man who kisses their babies and talks stock and agriculture with those in rural communities that wins, by those methods alone, in the polit ical world, but it is the man who has the ability to make good his promises and integrity to do so. The farmer has been coming into his own for many years. It has been slow, but we may confidently say that he has "arrived." " TAKE-IT-BACK DAY." THE citizens of a small town in Western Kentucky had a unique festival re cently. They call it " Take-It-Back day." On that fixed and formally proclaimed day everybody who had borrowed articles was supposed to take them back where they belonged. The man who borrowed his neighbor's lawn-mower last Summer and forgot to bring it back was to take this day off for the return of the borrowed implement. His wife, who had borrowed her neigh bor's cookbook, was to take that back. Their neighbors, who had borrowed the snowshovel last Winter and the nutmeg grater last Spring, were to exchange these articles for their own belongings. And then, of course, everybody would be ready to start in on another year's bor rowing. Not a bad idea, at all. Thnre is a good deal of borrowing in small towns. It's a sort of social function, in a large way. Bor rowing is often done when the borrowed article is not needed; but when the borrower feels the need of a little social exchange and makes the borrowing the excuse for it. Bor rowing, too, is made the vehicle for exchang ing the latest news. Mrs. Housewife, hear ing the latest bit of scandal, must hasten to Mrs. Neighbor's house to tell it, professing, though, that she is there to borrow Mrs. Neighbor's famous recipe for layer cake. It's a very pleasant custom, too, in many of its aspeets. It is the medium whereby the newcomers in the neighborhood get ac quainted and are gotten acquainted with. It is the peace overture that has patched up many a quarrel. Unhappily, too, it is the occasion of many another quarrel, because borrowers are sometimes not returners. The "Take-It-Back" day, then, is a social reform move ment aimed at robbing the borrowing prac tice of some of its annoying features. There fore it is a good thing. We wonder the information at hand does not disclose whether "Take-It-Back" day applies to books and money. Probably not. That's asking almost too much. FIGHTING THE MAIL ORDER. (Editorial In Lebanon Express.) TEN mail sacks filled with Sears, Roe buck & Co. catalogues was one of the interesting items in the day's work at the Albany postoffice recently. These cata logues will find their way into hundreds of rural homes, and in due course of time the parcel post will be delivering various arti cles of merchandise at the farm homes. Many will argue that the goods are sold cheaper, when often close inspection will prove that the goods are cheaper in quality than those offered by the home merchant. There is no doubt that many thousands of dollars are sent out of Linn County every year to the Eastern mailorder houses that should remain at home. What is the secret of their success in attracting the trade? It .is liberal advertising, and if the home mer chants would study the proposition from this point of view and present their goods in the same attractive manner the order of things would change to the advantage of all con cerned. The farmers are busy peopl,e and it is muchs earier to scan the pages of the news paper or turn the leaves of a catalogue, then make out an order for the articles needed, than it is to drive to town and shop in per son. Chicago is only a few days farther off than their usual trading point, naturally the order goes there. The home merchant who advertises intelligently and systematically will not have long to complain of the mail order houses. THE HOBO DEFINED. IT IS commonly understood that a l.obo differs from a tramp in that he wants work ; at least that he professes to want it. As he puts it himself, he is an itinerant worker who, if he does not find employment in one town, travels to another in search of it. A newer definition is that offered by a member of the profession temporarily in New York. He says the word hobo is taken from the two Latin words, "homo," man, and "bonus," good. It' means, therefore, good man, a man who will work when he has a chance. The accuracy of this philological information is open to some doubt, but at least this particular man is living up to the name by directing a gang of hoboes in the work of remodeling and repairing a house which has been turned over to them by a benevolent citizen to be used as a hobo hotel a place where they can stay in decency and comfort while hunting work and for whose accommodations they will pay as they are able. Already they are showing -their earnest ness and self-respect by offering to pay by some form of labor for the unsolicited gifts of furniture, food supplies, etc., that have come to them. The workings of the-hotel scheme will be a good test of the sincerity of their assertions that all they want is work. In Philadelphia is another group of fifty or 100 men who call themselves hoboes be cause, as one explains, their work, when they have any, is of a kind that compels them to wear old and often soiled clothing. Dictionaries make the term hobo practi cally synonomous with tramp, and declare, its origin to be obscure, but it is perhaps only fair to let the members of the fraternity; fix the definition themselves; they ought, however, to get together on the subject and avoid confusion. WAR'S WASTE OF INTELLECT. THOMAS A. EDISON says that ways will bo devised before long to protect war ships from torpedo or submarine at tack. It is not inconceivable that invention will make cities immune from air attack. The chemistry and mechanics of war pro duce a constant game of wits, to which the brightest intellects in science and invention are directed. . ' But here, as elsewhere in the effects of war, appears a vast, even criminal waste. We deplore war for its ruthless sacrifice of life and its wanton destruction of property. But what if all the brain power laid on the barbaric altar of professionalized battle making were turned to the paths of peace! Instead of bottling up energy in harmless looking substances that explode with tre mendous force, suppose that energy could be converted into heat, light and power. How much better off the world would be if the sum total of brains devoted to contriving machines for wholesale killing could work uninterruptedly at the conservation of life and energy! i War as a business deprives the working world of many minds that ought to be elevat ing civilization, not destroying it. ' In putting in a furnace be sure and get a size larger than you think you need. Ar range for good ventilation, nave the cellar deep where the furnace stands. j: Argentine has borrowed $15,000,000 from American bankers. "Seeing America first" is becoming a sjogan for a number of other countries. , General Von Hindenburg has requested the German women not to send him anj more love letters. Surely that is not a call to arms. Two officers who jumped parole were ordered back to Holland by Kaiser's Gen erals. That's sportsmanship. ' There arc a lot of individuals whose only method of taking vacation would be to go to work. Weighing bread is an uncertain test, for the heavy bread is the worst. Much of the Billy Sunday language is merely slanguage.