The Ely miner. [volume] (Ely, Minn.) 1895-1986, 1943-05-06
ADVANTAGES OF FARM
IN sRATIONED DAYS

ADVANTAGES OF FARM
IN 'RATIONED DAYS
IN MANY CITIES you 60 to the
market with the hope of getting
something for the family table. It
is not question of selections-it is
case of accepting, with thanks,
whatever you can get. In limited
quantities, you can find canned fruits
and vegetables-about half the guam
tity the family had in pre-rationing
days. In the line of fresh vegetables,
you may find one or two varieties,
but more often there is none. In
meats, you may get sirloin steak
at one time and nothing better than
neck bones another, but frequently
it will be none of any kind. You do
not ask for beef or lamb or veal or
pork. You ask only for meat, and
are pleased at your good fortune if
you get any.
How different on the farm in these
war days. Mother canned the fruits
and vegetables for the family. In
the cellar are rows of peas, toma-
toes, corn and all the other good
things produced in the garden. In
the bins are potatoes and apples,
and on the fruit shelves are peaches,
cherries, plums, berries and other
fruits, with jar after jar of mothers
preserves and jellies. In the barn.
yard there is always a fat chicken
for the family dinner. There is a
hog from which can come roast pork,
chops, spareribs, bacon and hams,
as well as the makings of sausage.
There is lamb and veal and beef.
You have eggs when. you want
them and as many as you want.
You eat butter on your bread, the
kind of butter only mother can
make, and you do not have to be
satisfied with oleomargarine, or per-
haps nothing.
That old wood heater and the
kitchen cookstove filled with the
product of the wood lot provide the
degree of heat you enjoy and you
need not shiver with the thermom-
eter limited to 60 or IS degrees.
Under any conditions, there are
many compensations for those living
on the farms, but hard as the war
rationings are for all of us, the farm
families have the best of it in many
ways. They do not have to carefully
count rationing points in order to
determine what they will eat-if
they can get it.
YOU CAN HELP
1T IS REMARKABLE what even
few square feet of ground can do
in alternating the food shortage. Last
year four tomato plants in a space
of two by ten feet provided practical
ly all the tomatoes the family need
ed throughout the summer. The
space between the curb and side
walk in front of your home would
provide much of the vegetable sup
ply for the summer.
TWO METHODS
OUR WAR EFFORT might have
been equally successful had we
started with the purpose of maxi
mum production at the lowest pos
sible cost, instead of maximum pro-
duction at the highest possible cost.
Out of such a program we would
not have had the serious danger of
imitation; we would not have made
millionaires of labor racketeers; we
would not have ahead the long years
of "sweat and tears" while we pay
off, during a defation period, the
terrific debts we contracted.
BACK TO EARTH
I HAVE BEEN BACK for brief
period to that big city wilderness
from which 1 escaped year or more
ago. 1t took but few days to make
me homesick for the sight and smell
of Mother Earth, uncontaminated by
the CRIME and SCOT and filth of the
city streets. I wanted to be back
again with the friendli1ess and
cleanliness of country town.
JACK LONDON wrote stories of
the savages on Guadalcanal island.
He must have met the leathernecks.