The Hood River glacier. (Hood River, Or.) 1889-1933, 1917-05-10
LABOR PREPAR-
EDNESS MEETING
VALLEY WILL NEED BERRY PICKERS
School Children and Honor Guard Girls
Will Help to Fill up Vacant
Ranks This Spring

the minds of Hood River business men
and apple growers, a meeting, .charac-
terized by its seriousness, was held
Friday night at the Commercial club.
| Ii. G. Miller, assistant to j. w. Brew
er, of The Dalles, who is organizing
the forces of Gillian, Sherman, Wasco,
Morrow and Hood River counties for
maximum food production, addressed
fruit sales agency representatives,
orchardists, business men and their
wivse and members of local food pre-
paredness committees.
AS was shown at the meeting, Hood
River is going to meet with serious
labor problem when the strawberry
| harvest comes on. Although the stu
dents of the local schools, which will
nave closed this season before the ber-
ries rlpen, will be available for berry
| picking, the demand for outside labor
will be as acute as in former years.
| Adults of the valley will be needed to
care for orchards and to cultivate the
| greatly increased acreage of such
CROPS as potatoes and beans.
I In order to appeal to city residents
who may participate in the strawberry
4 ba1 tCSb IOi tilC OutliS ~ may
local berry growers are making more
adequate preparations than ever before
to provide their harvest hands with
comfortable quarters. A. W. Stone
says that the weather of the approach
ing berry harvest, because of the late
ness of maturity of berries, will in all
probability be better than in former
years, when the rains that usually pre-
vail in late May have disconnected
transient harvest hands and injured
the berries.
From my observations of past sea-
sons, says Mr.. Stone, Il would pre-
diet that our harvest the coming sum-
mer will be characterized by good
weather"
Local participants in the berry har-
vest will in all probability be limited
to large extent to women, girls and
small boys. Prof. Mclaughlin says
that all of the boys of the high school
and older boys of the grades have al
ready secured places for ranch work
this summer, and will leave immedi-
ately for the fields as soon as school
work is over. AS they are needed, a
number of the students will probably
drop out before school work is over.
The members. of the Hood River
Girls Honor Guard, who now number
l08 and who are working some tracts
of vegetables in and near the city,
have offered their support in harvest
/ ing the berry crop.
Il The Apple Growers Association is
again expecting a beneficial assist
ance from the employment agency of
the United States immigration Bureau
of Portland, which last fall furnished
the cooperative organization with 1,70O
men for apple harvesting.
"The war in which the United States
is engaged with Germany will be won
by the farmers of this country" is
the way the existing crisis is summed
up by one of the best authorities of
the country.
1t is hard to convince the people that
a shortage of the foods necessary to
sustain life can exist in this land of
plenty, but such condition stare the
people in the face at this moment.
This unbelief is caused by the fact
that heretofore with money in his poe
ket the consumer could go into the
public market and fill the household
larder with the best products of the
field and orchard. A different situation
now threatens. Without doubt pros
perity among the wheat farmers now
exists and there is plenty of money on
hand but of what good is this money if
it has no purchasing power? If the
rancher cannot get his winter supply
of canned goods what is he going to
eat if he has the money to buy any
thing that his appetite might crave?
The canneries of the United States
at the present time are facing tin
can famine that is without precedent.
1t is estimated that this industry at
the present TINE is 5000, 900, 900 cans
short for the coming year. There is
absolutely no indication that this short
age can be eliminated, therefore peo-
pie who have heretofore depended on
canned products for their winter sup
ply of vegetables and fruits are in
danger of being deprived of that source
of supply.
1t is being urged by representatives
of the United States Department of
Agriculture under the supervision of
the Oregon Agricultural College with
this institutions s president, DR.. w. j..
Kerr, in charge, that every family in
the state.wherever possible plant and
produce enough vegetables to supply it
during the coming winter so that there
may not be a shortage. If such action
can be brought about it will relieve
that situation and allow the huge sup
ply that otherwise would be consumed
by the farmers and city people in the
winter time to go to the centers where
it is impossible for the householder to
grow his winters supply of vegetables
owing to lack of land.
During the past week the message
of ''food preparedness" has been
preached in this county by representa-
tives of the government and the agri-
cultural college and an organization of
what is known as an Agricultural De-
fense Council is being perfected. Lo-
cal business and professional men,
members of the Red Cross, the Girls
Honor Guard, teachers, superintendent
of schools, newspaper men and promi-
nent farmers are taking an active in
terest in the work.
Saturday, May IL, has been desig-
mated as Agricultural Defense Day.
On that day, in every community in
Oregon will be held meetings at which
will be presented statements by agri-
cultural authorities and statistics re.
garding the food shortage of the world.
1t is expected that every patriotic
citizen will do his duty and be present
at the meeting which will be held ir
his particular district and that, having
heard the message will go, do his part
in the campaign for the production of
more food stuffs, for the conservation
of that produced and the solution OF
another problem which will confront
him later, the labor question.
The solution of the shortage of labol
I which now confronts the farmer is t,
be attempted and every farmer car
help by being present at the meeting
May IL to receive the blanks whicl