The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1920-06-02
CURRENT COMMENT
Pennsylvania Idle Farms.

From Chester county, Pa, there
| comes to us a paper containing de
tailed statement Of the alarming con.
ditions which prevail in famous re.
gion which long has held the highest
place in the nation for the produc-
tiveness of its farms. The editor of
the Oxford Press shows how acute is
the situation produced by the short
age of labor available for service ON
the farms, how the number of aban.
doned farms is increasing in a section
where farming should be an ATTRACTIVE
occupation if anywhere in the United
States, with great cities close at hand
and every modern comfort and utility
within reach; how where once one
Travelled for miles with well kept and
fourishing farms on both sides of the
roads he finds now the lands in grass
or abandoned to weeds.
In Lancaster and Chester counties
and throughout southern Pennsylvania
old and decrepit men are trying at
least to care for the stock on the farms
which their sons have left in response
to the lure of the city. II some farms
are operated to full capacity, others
are tenantless or half cultivated, max.
ing the average of cultivation far be-
low what it should be in such farm
ing paradise. In the rich belt OF land
surrounding Philadelphia one sees, for
instance, farm that few years ago
produced 1900 bushels of wheat and
to-day is given over to desolation
The state of Delaware and the eastern
shore of Maryland show one third
shortage of farm labor and CORE
spending reduction of crops. Lower
New Jersey averages a quarter de-.
crease, which amounts TO "a third in
Cape May county. The huge truck
patches, aggregating tens of thousands
of acres, in these fertile regions are
hard hit by prevailing conditions, es
pecially by the loss of plain labor.
Against such a background stands
out with peculiar distinctness the
story of one young man in Lancaster
county whose Woodworking devotion
may well be cited for the emulation of
the rest of the country in these days
of prospective food shortage. He is
an agricultural college graduate who
sticks to the farm in spite of the offer
of an instructorship by his college. He
is intelligent and earnest, well aware
of the seriousness of the problem
which the agriculture of the nation has
to solve, And all alone he is working
his s00-acre farm. Hired help cannot
he had; he has no grown children; he
depends entirely upon himself. His
neighbors are proud of him. He does
not know what the autumn will bring,
but he keeps on the job early and late,
using all his brains and gumption.
No wonder the dean Of the Della
ware Agricultural college says food
stuffs are going TO be scarce and high;
no wonder the Pennsylvania secretary
Of agriculture declares that "the farm
labor shortage is one of the most Sc
rious things confronting the nation.
The Oxford editor is of the opinion |
that industrial America does not know |
what is happening TO agricultural
America, but that industrial America |
will have TO pay the price. All honor
TO the man who all alone undertakes |
10 run a farm. His example ought at |
least 20 stir lot of New Englanders
10 90 back to their abandoned garden /
patches. Boston Herald.