The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1915-03-29
AUS RIA'S FARMS ALM MOST AS BUSY
 AS MR CE E RS
Country Devoting Large Share of Her Activities
 Toward Agriculture.

venice. March 2s-Next to war. Austria hungary Is devoting her greatest energies to agriculture. .'If We can only obtain sufficient labor" says the government. .'the next har vest Is secured < Consequently ev- erything possible Is now being done land. Tens of thousands of boys and. girls have been released from attend anoe at school; married women end girlS are being pressed into serv1ces and adult male workers are as eager ly sought after as are recruits for the armies in the field.
 By . special decree the Austrian BIinzstry Of Education has directed that In the country districts all cliI- dreh In the three higher gradea. that Is Of twelve, thirteen and fourteen years of age. arc to be ercused from school in order that they may work in the fields or at home The school authoE1ties arc instructed to orga- nize this child labor in g. systematic manner, So that the best results may districts where help is most needed. They Ff1I bA formed Into groups in a sort o4 nzl t<ary manner, the elder boys acting az under-offfcers 1t is thouah that khds will encourage the children in working, besides nspir1ng them with patriotic sentiments
 Practically all country children have been brought up to work on the. land, ana there are endless ways in which they can be useful, from pick Ing atsrp1llars or the fr'.at trees to guiding g pzouzh and yoke of oxen Farmers declare that tha modern plough ss 90 lightly built that sturdy boy Of tws1ve years can quite easily wrxk le- Than az to the girls the Mt- He ones can look after Ene babies at kH@ - H.1- r-l@N- and iron. and carry meals to the workers In the neld.
 So many peasants have been called to the army that there is very little adult na=4s labor left in The rural dis- tTaek And the few men whc are to wsSrk. and so far have steadily re- fused to enter into the usual con- tracts for harvest work hoping by waiting to get considerably higher wages. The land owners are furious and threaten that the gpvernne Nnns comes And as matter or fact the state has already empoWer-= ed local aukhor1ttes to force able bodied men Of all classes to work in the ne1ds in case Of necessity for wages at the current rate ln the dls-
 addition to securing all tho la bor possible, the government IS do- Ing It's best 4o encourage the us,e of machinery on the farms Tha ALin+ agreed to subEdize aeed-soWing ma chimes with q grant of twenty dpllars ca clns and. will do the same with har- vsAtAns machines when tn Q crcp9s aa,e ready
 The asld work Of last fall is said to have been very sat1sz aetorlIg perz formed and now 1t la hoped that by ali these expedients the problem Of The spring work will <a1so bes sofved so9 that m the end the next harvest will not 2all Tar below the average
 From the official reports Of the Vienna markets. it appears that many of the n1osz important articles of daily food have more than doubled in price since the outbreak of the war. seven months ago Flour now costs eight cents q pound. and dried peas eleven cents compared with four cents last July. Split peas cost fff- teen cents Lard costs forty cents a pound, which is exactly double the. price whe en 1he war began Eggs now sell at three and four cents each, szf1eEa from ivy Venty -six to thirty ceI1ts d pound according to the cut. and pork from tWenty-four to forty C ents. Horse fzeshs the consumptio of which fs now steadily increasing cam not be bought for less than fen to zi K teen cents pound, as compared with eight cents last summer Sugar has risen very little; costing now eight or nine cents pound, scarcely half a cent more than before the war.
 Bread however has gone LID con- sidefaBly and costs now from four to. six cents pound The quality is. Infserable, as it contains only fiffy per cent Of flour. the remainder be- InH mixture of corn, barley and po- tato meals.
 Petroleum is quoted at eighty cents gallon, as compared with twenty six cents last July; and soft coal has ris- en in the past week to $10 q ton Bofh these, and especially coal, are often difficult, to obtain at any price, owing to the lack of transportatton