The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1919-04-21
1.-THE CHICKEN WAS SICK, OR
THE FARMER WAS SICK

more money than he used to get.
The higher cost of living means,
among other things, that the farmer
who used to be on the verge Of bank
ruptcy, loaded with mortgages and
worries, is getting great deal more
than he used to get, and is happier
than. he used to be.
To emphasize the farmers poverty,
they used to say that when the farm
er, ate chicken, "the chicken was
sick, or the farmer was sick"
They meant chat the farmer would
not eat a chicken unless he himself
were i'll, or unless "the chicken was
sick" and he had to be eaten to pre-
vent its dying and becoming total
loss.
Conditions have changed for the
farmer. He now eats chickens that
are hardy and flourishing. He no
longer lives on SKINNED milk and
salt pork.
Agricultural machinery and agricul.
tural science, taught in hundreds OF
admirable colleges, enable him to
grow one hundred bushels where he
used to grow fifty-and he gets more
for each bushel.
Better roads-due largely to the
automobile 1t easier for him Ia
get his goods to market.
Farmers unions, oranges, and 9th
er organizations have enabled the
farmers to work together instead Of
being cheated separately--that has
made better prices for the farmers
and better profits.
The rural free delivery, carrying
the news Of the day to the farmers,
including the latest ideas in agricul
ture, and the latest prices of his pro
ducts, have protected him against dis
honest dealers.
The telephone, connecting the farm
and the store, has saved the farmers
time-and with the farmer especially
time Is money.
The telephone and the rural free
delivery, by the way, have also cut
down by about one.half the amount Of
insanity among farmers wives.
The farmers wife was once poor,
WORKOUT woman before she had
reached thirty. Eighteen hours a day
was her days work in summer. And
her husband was little better of. The
only excitement in the old days was
the camp meeting, or some highly
beneficial, but slightly doleful, prayer
meeting once a week.
Now the farmers wife, when her
husband is an able man, has her lit
erary and social club. Her daughter
is lightly touching real piano with
Intelligent fingers, and her grown-up
son is working a mechanical musical
instrument with his heavy feet.
There is a red automobile in the
barn, the folks" 60 into town to at
tend theaters, public meetings and
look around generally.
The life that once was the saddest,
the hardest, the least remunerative OF
all, the life OF a farmer, the life that
was led In ignorance Of the outside
world. and of true farming itself, Is
rapidly becoming a life of independ-
ence, Of happiness, life guaranteed
against want, a life that is really
worth while, and toward which the
weary jewellers in the cities begin by
the millions to turn longing eyes.
When you think of the high cost Of
living, remember that, in part at
least, the meaning Of the higher
prices is that the farmer is beginning
to get something for his work.
No man grudges, or should grudge,
him that. When you read that pork,
Give weight, cattle ION the hoof,"
sell for prices higher than were ever
known before. you are reading that
the men that actually produce the
animals are getting something for
their trouble.
The duty of the citizen is to make
sure that the money spent on higher
cost of living actually goes to the
man who does the work. The prob
lem is not to cut down the farmer,
not to put potatoes back to thirty