The Bismarck tribune., 1931-05-11
DECLARES FARMER
WORKS AS HARD AS
HIS CITY NEIGHb0R
Asks Why Rural People Should
Have Lower Living Stand
ard Than Urban
FOODSIUFF PRICE PROBLEM
All Other Branches of Industry
Pay Enough to Reduce EN-
pIoye's Work
F00DSIUFF PRICE PROBLEM

Berkeley. Calf, May 1l.-'NEA-
It will be all right for the city dwell
ers to trace hard times and what-not
to the modern ideas" and work dodg-
ing of the farmer.
All right, that is. if and when
The city man farms his backyard,
and Mrs. City Woman bakeS her own
bread, does her own washing. churns
the family butter and does the other
chores to save money.
So reasons Prof. B. H. Crocheron.
who as director of the University Of
CALIFORNIA; agricultural extension
work. has given study not only to the
farm, farmer and farmers wife, but
to the economic relationship between
urban and suburban life.
Good people constantly tell us that
the trouble with the farmer is that he
doesn't raise his own vegetables, keep
a COW, raise chickens and produce his
own eggs, nor do the family washing
at home. They see further causes for
farm problems-and through these an
effect on other classeS-in the farm
er's ownership of automobiles radios,
and liking for motion pictures" de-
clares Prof. Crocheron. They con-
tend that if the farmers and their
wives do those things and few more.
they'll be self-sustaining.
Can't See the Point
But we in agricultural extension
work cannot quite see that this sound
economic philosophy applies only to
the farmers.
why should farm people d. their
own baking or washing any more
than city people? Why should the
farmer grow vegetables any more
than the business man in the city?"
City dWellers enthusiastically set
about backyard farming during the
war, but most of them quit long ago,
Crocheron declares.
They found the effort was great
and the return small - also i took
time from golfing and automt billing,
he contends.
"City housewives could bake their
own bread, do their own washing and
keep a few chickens in their backyard.
Why don't they? Because they have
become accustomed to higher STAN
dard of living. and they are unwilling
to recede.'
Too low prices for foodstuffs at the
point of origin is agriculture main
problem, according to Crocheron. And
there are high priced services coming
between the producer and consumer
to make the price high to the ulti-
mate buyer.
Farm products go by freight over
a railroad that has raised its rates to
pay wages enabling employees 10 buy
bakers bread. They are delivered In
trucks by workmen and driven by
men paid enough so their wives can
send the family wash to the laundry.
The newspaper advertising farm
goods pays a wage scale so its work.
ers don't have to do backyard gar
dening or fire escape chicken raising.
And the chain stores selling the goods
pay wages enabling employees to buy
automobiles"
Prof. Crocheron contends these
higher wages are lone of the elories
of America" taking much drldgery
from life.
Helpful to Farmers. Too
But" he continues, while all
other classes buy bakery bread. send
out the washing. phone the store for
vegetables and get their butter and
eggs in cartons. it seems to us that
these advantages might also be proper
for farmers. Whenever there Is ma
tional campaign for everybody to do
as much of their own work as posi-
BILE, we will be anxious to have the
farmers get in line with the test of
them"
Prof Crocheron points to partial
remedy that is before Individual
farmers having difficulty producing
their own vegetables, eggs and milk,
with their wives doing the baking. the
washing and the churning. thus re-
ducing their living costs.
But the farmers know tnis al
ready concludes Prof. Crocheron.
They don't need city people to tell
them. And they don't like to have
singled out the mote that is in the
farmers eye when 10. there's beam
of considerable size in the city mans
eye"