VACtV, FOUR
THE GAZF.TTlvTIMF.S, IIE1TXER. OREGON, THURSDAY. FEB. 2, 1022.
L. MONTERESTELLI
Marble and Granite
Works
PENDLETON, OREGON
Fine Monument and Cemetery Work
All parties interested in getting work in my line
should get my prices and estimates before
placing their orders
All Work Guaranteed
Maybe She'll Snub Dempsey
The Byers Chop Mill
(FonMrijr ICHEMTP'S MUX)
STEAM ROLLED BARLEY AND WHEAT
After the 20th of September will handle Gasoline, Coal
Oil and Lubricating: Oil
You Will Find Prompt and Satisfactory Service Here
,.. v :" X V If Champion Jack
i : . x, -f- "J Pcmpsey nukes a trip tv
i-- " ij Europe this spring, as
f " V i - 4 planned, he very like! v will
F ' s ? , le snuhhfd hv this little
x 3 J V " - ' 'v S lly ot France. She is
- Jacqueline Carpentier, one-
o : y f year-old daughter of
? X w-SV f 0 rB Ca'pentier This
. ' sS V . . photo was taken on her
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I 3
Community Service I
' '"'''H"""''mn-i . J
I GUI OF I
El
AlER
IS BETTER
V
Holds American Farmer Is In
Death Valley Period.
s
One Dollar
The Auto Repair Shop wishes to announce that
our work on big cars will be ONE DOLLAR per
hour instead of $1.50 per hour, as you formerly
paid for your car repairing.
CONTRACT PRICES ON FtRD WORE
Estimates Cheerfully Given
All Work Guaranteed
Fell Bros.
One Block East of Hotel
Government Agricultural Head
Gives Hopes for a Better
Future, However.
Declares Farms Must Be Plac
ed on Scientific Production
Basis for Results.
s
If a Bank Draft Is LoSl
Your Money Is Not
cA bank draft need not be sent
by registered mail so far as safety is
concerned. The person to whom a
draft is made payable must endorse
it before it can be cashed
If a draft purchased of us should
miscarry or be stolen, notify us and
we will trace it up or issue a duplicate.
We pay 4 per cent on
Sayings Accounts.
FARMERS & STOCKGROWERS
NATIONAL BANK
By H. C. Taylor,
Chief of the Bureau of Markets, U.
S. Department of Agriculture.
Editor's Note. H. C. Taylor,
chief of the Bureau of Markets for
the United States Department of Ag
riculture, is both a scientific and "old
fashioned" farmer. While his years
of specialization and intensive study
have given him a wide background on
which to base theory and practice, he
has also undertaken the task of un
derstanding the actual conditions
ivhich confront the American farmer.
He is recognized as one of the men
nho will light the way for the Ameri
can agriculturist to a future of great
er production and ever reducing ov
erhead. The American farmer is now pass
in? through a barren and inhospit
able waste, a sort of Death Valley
arong his landmarks. Having been
through such experiences before, we
may confidently count on coming
through as we always have in the
past, but we are living in a fool's par
adise if by that token we hope to
come out at the same place we went
in. We might as well admit once
for all that the "good old times" of
American agriculture, the free and
easy times of cheap land, continually
advancing in price, are gone forever.
The change of base was inevitable.
Henceforth, instead of an agriculture
conducted loosely, with one eye on
the increment in land value, we must
have a tight and rational agriculture
cased upon sound agronomy and ani
mal husbandry and a knowledge of
the cost of production and of market
conditions. Henceforth we must con-j
ouct our tarming operations so that
they will yield profits on a farming
nasis, rather than as a side line in a
speculative deal in real estate.
This being the situation, what of
the outlook?
Worst Is Past.
From the purely economic side
the outlook is dark enough, though
mere is reason to believe that the
worst is now past. The consuming
public seems to have no conception
of the plight in which the farmer has
been left by the slump in farm prices.
All that the consumer knows is that
retail prices have not come down to
anywhere near the pre-war level and
he may assume that the farmer is
still getting high prices, when, as a
matter of fact, he is geting smaller
net returns for his product than he
fcot in 1913, and in dollars that will
buy only about half as much per dol
lar as would his 1913 dollars.
Take a concrete example. The U.
S. Department of Agriculture has
made an annual analysis of the busi
ness of 1000 representative farms in
central Indiana for the past eight
in 1913 the average net hv
- IF YE HAVENT
SUFFERED YE HAVENT
LIVED
. j
J Rxt--
situation from that of human life on
the farm in its relation to what we
call economics, we find that the situa
tion holds promise strangely in con
trast to the present unhappy condi'
tions. It may sound paradoxical to
say that the economic crisis through
which we are now passing promises
in the long run to make for better
farm homes and a higher standard of
living on the farm, but there is an
aspect in which our present loss
seems to foreshadow decided gain in
mat respect.
We are all familiar with the farm
er, of that type so familiar in the
past, whose only idea of efficiency is
to rob the soil to the limit.-and whose
c-nly idea of a way to use profits is to
invest them in more land, and still
more land. Strangely enough, this
course, which would seem to lead at
least to financial prosperity, serves
tn defeat its own end. The continual
effort to invest farm profits in more
land tends to bid up the price of land
beyond the level justified by return
rom the land, and thus to increase
years.
come of these farms, the return forj'he cost of production by increasing
both labor and capital, was $1,503. In the charge for the use of land. At
1920 the net income was only $1,269. i the same time the effort to justify
However, this falling off does not tne investment tends to increase pro-
measure the actual decline in the far
mer s income, tor in 1920 wholesale
prices of commodities other than
farm products averaged more than
two-and-a-half times as high as the
corresponding prices in 1913. That
is, it took at least $2.59 of this 1920
income to buy what a dollar would
have bought in 1913. Consequently
with a total smaller by over $200,
and a dollar shrunk to forty cents.
the average 1920 income of the
group or tarms in question would
cuy not more than one-third as much
would the average for 1913.
Since the current year, thus far,
certainly has been no more favorable
to the farmer than was 1920, we may
gain from the plight of these Indiana
tarmers a fairly good idea of the
plight of the American farmer at
large. It should be borne in mind in
this connection that the above com
parisons are drawn on the basis of
wholesale prices, that the farmer cus
tomarily buys at retail and sells at
wholesale, and that retail prices are
still relatively very much higher than
wholesale prices. It is also important
to note that, though wholesale prices
have fallen since 1920, the prices of
farm products hace tallen much tai-,
ther than those of other commodities.
With these facts in view, it is clear
that we have not shown the condi
tion of these Indiana farmers in its
worst possible aspect. Some farmers
have doubtless done better in the
past year and a half than have these
men; many, especially in the South
certainly have not done so well. On
the whole.I think we may say that
the above is a conservative statement
of a representative situation.
Is it possible to glean any comfort
from such a situation?
From the strictly economic stand
point it takes very close study of the
price curves, and perhaps a bias to
ward optimism, to detect signs of im
provement, but it begins to look as
though the farm price curve has
dipped as low as it is going on this
swing.
More Optimistic.
There is another point of view,
however, from which the outlook is
more definitely encouraging. If we
turn for the time from the cold, sta
tistical viewpoint, and consider the
duction irrespective of market de
mands. Thus we have a vicious cir
cle about which the farmer chases
the will-o'-the-wisp of profit, only to
find that his effort has increased the
price of land and lowered the price
of the products of the land.
The day of this kind of farming is
about over. The farmer of the new
day knows that such tactics are those
of the dog chasing his tail; that in
effect they serve to put him in com
petition with himself, and that they
lead periodically to agricultural de
pression. He knows that farming is
a fundamental industry, that the
laborer is worthy of his hire, and that
he is entering upon an era in which
sound agronomy and sound business
practices must prevail over the hap
hazard methods of the soil-exploita
tion era of American agriculture
Knowing this, he will realize that the
steady flow of profit necessary to the
successful prosecution of his busi
ness and the happiness of his family
will depend on the way in which he
gauges his production with reference
to demand, and on the efficiency with
which he grows and markets his
products, rather than on his skill or
luck in handling real estate.
Slump Brincs Good
From this viewpoint, at least, the
agricultural slump is not an unmixed
evil, since its tendency is to shake
out of the running the type of farmer
whose influence has tended to keep
down the prices of farm products and
lower the standard of living on the
farm. To the progressive farmer, who
certainly has been hard hit by the
slump, this may seem poor consola-
tion now, but as the situation devel
ops it seems likely that the advantage
will swing more and more on his side.
The farmer who is fitted to cope with
the new situation is the farmer who
is able to adjust himself promptly to
the new conditions, and who sees
that, in the long run, the cause of
agriculture and of rural life in genep
al is served by maintaining or raising
the standard of living on the farm,
rather than by using all surplus profit
to bid up the price of land when there
are more bidders than the profits of
tne son will justify.
After all, better living is the true
goal of the farming business. There
i
Poem ty
yjUncle John
" ' " "
THE NATIONAL TARGET.
it tne resident is silent hes a
sneak. . . If he does a lot of talk
m , he's a fool. . . . If he hap
pens to be honest, he's a freak, or
hasnt got the jedgment of a mule!
If he irritates the bosses he's a crook.
If he does a thing, he never gets it
right. . . Whichever way he turns
he sees a spook, and dreams about
the devil every night. . . . If he
hould get to feelin' jestly proud of
any noble plan that he has sprung, it
brings the maledictions from the
crowd, that figgers every day to get
him hung. . . And, when he sends
a message to the whelps that prac
tice all the deviltry they can, the pea
nut press pulls off is coat an' helps
tc crucify that poor, tormented man!
... I reckon that there never was
a soul, that gets so little comforts out
of life, when every moral polecat
leaves his hole, to hurl a batch of
venom at his wife. . . . I'h hate
to be the President-elect; I wouldn't
be the President that was. . . .
I'd be so hard to deal with, I expect
I'd make 'em go an' wash their dirty
paws. k . I wouldn't be mal-'
treated by the mob, that every brand
of hellishness creates. ... I'd
sooner tackle any other job, than
President of these United States.
is no more biting commentary on our
modern life than that cvnical anhnr.
ism to which it has given currency
ousmess is Dusiness. I hat business
should become "its own svnonvm "
as some one has put it, is a shameful
tning, and the farmer who thinks of
the farmine business as fiavin? nn
object beyond mere financial success
is in a tair way to miss the best of
life.
There is a ereat class of forward.
looking farmers in this countrv who
know better than that. We may rest
assured that these men. in workino
out the vexing problems that the ag
ricultural slump has spawned, will
not be so foolish as to forget that the
question of the financial future of
American farming is inextricably
connected witn tne Question of h.
tei living in the farm home and the
farm community.
Max Gorfkle, PenJleton business
man, was in this city a short time on
Saturday last, attending the meeting
of Morrow county sheepmen. Max
reports that business with him has
(been very dull during tre past year,
the bottom dropping out of hides and
junk, and he is experiencing a hard
time "coming back." He is happy,
nevertheless. He is the father of a
bouncing boy, now one month old,
and is making no complaint.
Tom Boylen, one of the leading
sheepmen of Umatilla county, was
in Heppner on Saturday attending
the meeting of Morrow county wool
growers. Miss Margaret Crawford, who is
teaching near Morgan, visited with
her parents in this city on Saturday,
returning to her school work on Sunday.
you're a fine
loomng boy '. !
fCW" C'HON IN AN WAIT fj I
J I POP'LL BE HOME f . ii-
- SWEET AIM C83 L TtOr
f "1 DO VOU TAKE AFTER I ll PTT' BUT H5 TAKES 1 1 I I
YOUR rATHER?? AFTER ME 50METIMLS!
Hardware
IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIMIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII
We have it, will get it,
or it is not made
Gilliam & Bisbee
nam
ll
d.& A
V w
This new
sugar-coated
gum delights
young and ol
It "melts in vour
'
mouth" and the cum in the
center remains to aid digestion,
brighten teeth and soothe mouth
and throat.
There are the other WHIG LEY
mends to choose from, too:
Heppner
Oregon