The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-07-29
Wanted-A .JoSeDh.

When Joseph set about gathering stores OF grain
for Pharaoh against the seven famine years which
God had revealed were coming after seven years OF
plenty. he must have imposed hardships on the rulers
subjects. For even in the fertile valley Of the Nile
raising and garnering grain was a laborious under
taking.
The Egyptians prepared the soil with crude plows,
cut the grain with sickles, and beat out the kernels
with fails. IL was all hand work, and backbreaking'
The fear of famine was constant, and 1T was neces-
sary for all but q few OF the people to live on the land.
Men learned how to make farming easier, though
not much easier, through the centuries. but it has
been only within the last hundred years that the
race began 10 free itself from the soil.
A hundred years ago nine out of every ten Ameri-
cans lived On farms-and still used sickle and fail.
The surplus they produced for city jewellers was small.
Then a young Virginian, Cyrus Hall Mccormick,
invented the mechanical reaper in 1881, and a new
era began. The first machine was crude, but it did
the work Of twenty men with sickles. 1t released
armies of men from the soil for work in factories.
The way was opened for ndustrialization
The binder ami thresher followed the reaper and
improvements were made in cultivation Of all crops,
including cotton, corn and potatoes. Engines and trac-
tors replaced draft animals. Todays ten-foot COM
bine." or harvester machine, pulled by tractor, de-
livers the grain in the field ready for the bin and
does the work Oh ISL men WIN Slck1eS ana uallS. Two
men can operate it.
But it brought its problems as well. 1t brought a
surplus of farm produce with which nobody knows
what to do. 1t brought also a surplus of goods,
crowded cities and factories, and unemployment.
1t began an elaborate system of farm financing.
Absentee farming and tenancy, and mass farming
developed and have tended to wipe out the old in
dependent farmer-owner and operated unit, which
was largely self-sustaining. Some fear the direction
Is toward creation OF a hired peasantry.
A little group of serious thinkers will consider these
and other problems at the Institute for Rural Affairs
of the Virginia Polytechnic institute, now meeting.
One day has been set aside to commemorate the hun
dredth anniversary of McCormick's invention, which
had its first successful demonstration nearby.
It is not to be expected that any of them want
TO 20 back to the days of the sickle and fail. That
would be pure p~esSimism.
The world nevertheless is cropping for the answer
TO the problem symbolized by two men in a field with
their ten-foot combine" the problem of hunger and
idleness among millions when the nation has more
food and goods than it can use.
No solution is in sight, but, if it is found, the thing
that is now a problem becomes a blessing for all
time. Joseph met Pharaoh's problem perhaps by tax
ing over grain, and finally herds, lands and money,
and all ate-especially Pharaoh-and he even sold
grain to surrounding hungry peoples less ~provident,
wise and blessed by nature.
We need a modern Joseph to evolve some sort
Of system and regulation for our lean and fat years.