The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-08-18
(Oranue Judd Farmer)

Over across the field on the section
line road is little clump Of trees, a
| few broken down box elders and some
ragged apples, the latter over-grown
and crusted with San Jose scale. The
corn grows a little taller and greener
in one place, than in the rest Of the
| field.
Dad, did somebody use to live
there?" inquired the boy. as he and
his father were going out to work one
day. The father thought minute,
and said. why, yes. son. there used
to be a house there about twenty years
ago. The folks moved away to town.
and the buildings were finally torn
down when the Williamsons bought in
that quarter section"
| The father was President ]. R. How
ard Of the Iowa Farm Bureau Fedora
ton. He told of the incident during
the hearing at Chicago last week.
when, for one afternoon, the discussion
veered away from control of the pack
ers and took up the question Of the
high cost Of living
| Many Move From Farm.
| after the boy brought up the ques-
tion," said Mr.. Howard. II thought
over the changes in ownership in our
neighborhood since I could remember.
and found there were not less than
forty such places almost within the
circle Of the horizon. which had been
| sold out because the folks had gone
away-gone to some other place or
moved to town.
Possibly, he suggested, there is some
connection between that and the pres
ent nationwide complaint about the
cost of food. Possibly there is a rela-
fino hot ic of
farm population and the increasing de-
pletion of the national reserves of food
Farmers. Work Harder Each Year
I'VE worked harder last year than
we ever did before" continued Mr.
Howard. I'VE worked harder the year
before than we ever worked before
| know several farmers who are leav-
( ing their farms after this year. These
men are not leaving because they have
made enough money to last the rest Of
their lives, but because they can find
other labor which does not involve
such hard work or such long hours"
! Charlie Borgelt of Illinois took up
the same subject. They are leaving
the farm right along, and don't know
as you can blame them" he said
What is there to make a boy stay on
job that takes the hardest kind of
work for twelve or fourteen hours a
day, when he can go to town and make
good wages and work only six or eight
hours, and take it easy. OF course he
isn't likely to come out as we'll later
on, but the young folks can't be ex-
pected to take the same point of view
as us older fellows.
Old Timers Can Stand It.
"The hours don't ever get too long
for us old timers, for we have been
used to hard work all our lives and we
don't mind. But the young fellows
see their friends in town having an
easier life, getting ahead, and they
can't be blamed for getting discomfort
ed
And what a difference there is to
the women folks and children. Our
children learn to work in the fields
when they are barely big enough to
climb into a wagon, and they do work
Thousands of them, when they have
a right to be playing or going tc
school, taking life a little more delibe
rate, the way children in the cities do
And our women folks, just like the
men, work on the we'll known eight
hour schedule of the farm, eight hours
before dinner and eight hours after.
The Secret Of Shorter Hours.
81 wonder if it is the way the Lord
intended things, that in the cities and
the general field Of industry the work
ers should make a living by working
only eight hours day. or less, while
out here in he country we must put II
| nearly twice that much, and harder
work Somehow it seems as if there
must be one of the secrets Of this SO
called high cost of living in that
al, ~ TrI @1y
up. "In our town one recent Saturda.
, the grocer was paying forty cents TO
2 ieggs. We loaded case and took then
in, and when we got paid for them i
< figured up to only thirty-five cents in
, stead Of forty. The grocer said tina
was the price they were paying. AN
a girl who was clerking there confide
in me that the price had been fort
! cents until noon, as the grocer sal
there wouldn't be many farmers