Norwich bulletin., 1920-10-29

6l per cent in one year.
 In that single state 30 900 hired men had deserted farm work for city occupa- ton. And 2sooo of the houses they used to occupy stood vacants Moreover. 3o,0oO former farmers-owners, renters, etc. had accompanied them in the cityward exodus.
 Are these just figures and meaningless signs to you? Or, as you think them over and grasp their sinister significance, do they startle you wide awake? They ought For they mean trouble trouble all round trouble not only for the farmers I but for the city consumers. The latter arc kicking like crazy steers aDout the | high cost of living. Do they really expect. l that cost to De permanently lowered if the number of producers continues to de- crease and the number of non-productive consumers to increase in the ratio of the last ten years?
 IT it has heretofore taken Ave farmers to feed ten consumers, what will happen when there are only three farmers left to feed twelve consumers? Will the three be able to- shell out many potatoes and | cabbages7 as the five? Will he-twelve
 consumers use up only as many as the ten?
 Neither supposition is reasonable. Water will always run downhill, and no
 stream will ever rise higher than its
 source. Just now potatoes and cabbages
 and onions and some similar products of
 the farm arc low in price. That is, they ..l ape low in price to the farmer. He can
 not sell them at a reasonable profit; usu-
 ally not at any profit. Some of the rain
 bow chasers assert that this is due to
 over-production. when it is instead simply
 the result of profteering greed. Why, the
 total potato crop of New York state, for
 one concrete illustration, is already set
 down as million and a half bushels less
 than last years, with widespread rot threatening a reduction even of that fig
 ure. And the average price offered the
 farmers of the state runs between 70 and
 so cents a bushel, against more than
 double that last year, when the crop was bigger and rot was almost unknown. It , is an insult to any mans intelligence to say, in face of such facts, that the pres : ent low prices of farm potatoes are due
 to excessive production.
 They are due simply and solely to the
 profteers' determination to soak the
 farmer and-skin the consumer! And to their ability, through close or. ganization and larger capital. to coerce , both producer and consumer for their owr advantage.
 The latest statistics put the aggregat. 7 value of farm proper.ty in the whole :. . country at ffty-onc billions of dollars . l billions, not millions, if you please \ This says one authority. lis more thar : the combined capital of all the manufac I turing establishments, all the railways all the mines, and all the quarries 1T the country"
 So? That being the case, wouldn't i
 seem to man uDsa tree. or to one under
 a tree, fE if the farm owners who ar,
 both owners and operators. both capital
 ists and laborers, ought to have at leas
 as much to say about things as the fac
 tories and their help, the railroads ant
 their help. the mines. etc, and their help
 Do they: We'll. you answer that if yor please. l cant trust my typewriter tc : Keep within the bounds of permissibl,
 newspaper English when I think of what
 is, compared with what ought to be, Congresses and presidents fall oveI
 their own feet in their eagerness to mee
 every demand of so-called "labor'-wher
 it is unionized in shops or on railroads ol
 in mines. But they give less attention tc
 the labor and pital' devoted to farm
 work than they do to the rabble of Plume
 or the peasants of Czecho-Slovakia. For seven years the experts of tn, i United States department of agricultur, fhave been keeping close watch of ever,
 operation on 1855 representative farms 1T lAe three farming states or ono, Indiana
 and Wisconsin. They have noted ever, l cents expenditure and every cents in
 come And now they report of the farm CTS on these 1S5 representative farms il r three separate farming. states that "th, t most of them are making less than $50t ] ] cash each year, Only 9 in the whol. !; lot have attained an income of as mucl , as s1,0o0 a year. and 37 have failed o any cash income at all. These last sim | ply worked for nothing and boarded I themselves. Nived turnips and corn ,, bread, doubtless
 Yet I read the other day the assertion V of social worker in some city tha T the smallest cash income on which it wa .e possible for an ordinary family to liv
 was S2,200 a year Here are 1855 promi
 nent farmers in three farming states tn n best paid of whom are living on s1 20 4. 3 year less than. that, and a fifth of ther
 on $2.30o less,
 e Several years ago the best posted farm l. CT in my home town-which is solely
 farming community-stated his firm be