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
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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.