Fergus County argus. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1886-1946, 1905-01-11
TELEPHONES
F0RFARMERS
Handy instruments Are Increasing
Throughout the Country and Much
Benefit 10 Derived.
ARE TIME AND LABOR SAVERS
BY Their Use Farmers Can Keep in
Touch With the Markets and Save
Many Useless Trips.

It is estimated that during the last
five years telephones have been put
into nearly 100000 rural homes. The
farmer finds that with the telephone
he can keep in touch with the mar
ket, selling his products or live stock
when quotations are the most favor
able, says the New York World.
BY sparing himself and his help
useless trips back and forth for the
purpose of delivering his products or
of ascertaining the status of the mar
ket, he now saves vast amount of
time in the course of the year. When
he is assured by information over the
telephone that he can sell to advan-
tage he loads up his wagon, and not
till then.
AS illustrating the advantage Of
keeping in telephone touch with the
market, an incident in last years
transactions in broom corn in ILL
nois is related. A prospective rise in
the market was preceded by great
activity on the part of the brokers.
Buyers from the outside began to
clean up the broom corn at $50 ton,
when telephone manager called up
the farmers on his system and told
them the market was rapidly rising.
The result was that before the sea-
son ended they got $24O ton for their
crop. One farmer reports that in ad-
dition to getting nearly double the u.s.
ual work out of his teams through
their being saved futile trips to mar
ket, he has been able to do away with
the hire of two men, as he could spend
more time on his farm and save the
diminished output of the hands at work
in his absence.
Another farmer saved all his build
ings by being able to summon help
quickly from a nearby town and also
from his neighbors, when a fire broke
out. Still another, by getting ply
stefan promptly, saved the life of his
only son when delay OF half an hour
would have been fatal.
In the early days of rural tele-
phone the farmers were content to
utilize their fence wires for intercom-
munication, and in many districts,
particularly in the western states,
this method so reduced the cost of in
stallation as to give many communi-
ties effective service which otherwise
they would have had to do without.
But the farmers are becoming more
fastidiOus. They now want good SER
vice and are getting it.
The systems employed range from
a single line, with from three to four
to dozen instruments connected, to
comprehensive systems covering en-.
tire counties and having hundreds of
patrons. For instance, in Geauga
county, Ohio, near Cleveland, where
there is population of about $4,000,
there are about 1000 patrons, the
number in each township ranging
from so to nearly 400. Great atten.
ton is paid to toll service and the
best construction and apparatus are
insisted on as being in the long run
the most economical.
An example of the village and rural
exchange is New Augusta, Ind. with
seventy-fve subscribers. fifty of whom
are farmers, the most distant being
about seven miles.
When a single neighborhood line
with a few instruments attached Is de
sired, a switchboard is not necessary
The subscribers signal each other di
rect by giving different combinations
of rings.
So easy has the organization of rur
al telephone systems become that II
is safe to predict that within yer!
few years the majority of the 100000
farmers said to be yet unprovided will
telephone service will have followed
the example of their more enterprisint
brethren and brought themselves with
in touch of civilization. If any com
pany wishes to install system, NJ
matter how limited, it has only to com
municate with reputable installa
ton firm to receive he fullest ant
clearest instructions as to how to ge
about it.
A favorite method of organizing i
for the farmers to form cooperative
companies for the furnishing Of sci
vice only to the locality in which tn
subscribers live. Sometimes the sci
vice is furnished by nearby telephOn
exchanges running lines into the rura
districts.
In some places service can be Civ
en- by city companies. In such case
the farmers can form themselves int
a company, subscribe for the stock o.
pro rata or other basis and install tn
system, running a direct line iron
their switchboard to that OF the neal
est town or city exchange.
This is called the community sys
tenn, the heart of which Is the sma
switchboard, from which radiate. J.
different directions, the lines to whlc
the various subscribers telephones al
attached.
COMMISSIONERS PROCEEDINGS
CONTINUED from last week.)
r.. w. Noble. 50.
Phillip Jimmerfield. So