The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1943-03-12

dSer is not nlmSelf TO blame II som
) undertakings have been called int
question. 1t seems a mistake ha
been made in combining the two job
OF hog raising and chicken raisin
and placing them both under on
head, with the result that egg produe
ton fell off badly and some loss wa
experienced among the hogs. Thi
combination was made presumably il
the interests of economy, to save tn,
wages of one man. But the man nov
in charge of these two jobs had hat
no experience with chickens, whereas
he is good hog man. And the mar
in charge of farm operations would
do much better, it seems, looking aft
er the chickens But, as things have
turned out, the former head of farm
operations, who was considered an ex
cellent man in that position, had to
be dismissed about a year ago be-
cause of drunkenness, and the man
in charge of chickens shifted over to
that job. So this difficulty in farm
management may be attributed to
poor judgment or necessity, as one
may feel inclined to think or as furth-
er information on the subject may re-
veal.
Considerable talk has been occa-
stoned by certain other farm mix-ups
also, and should be explained here.
One of these has to do with the hay
contract that was entered into last
summer with the owner of a ranch
some miles away. A crew of patient
help was taken to this ranch to put
up the hay on shares. Bad weather
set in; the crew spent several weeks
there; and when the hay was stacked
the institution could not use it to adj
vantage, partly because of the poor
quality and partly because it was too
far away So the hay was traded to
the ranchman who owned the place
for price of $3.50 a ton, and beef
cattle was taken in pay. Some diff
Guilty arose over this with other stock
men who had been promised the con-
tract of furnishing beef to the insti-
tuition. But the matter was settled
when the institution agreed to use
this beef obtained on said trade, only
as extra rations for patients and en-
ployees, and not as a replacement for |
The beef the institution had agreed |
20 buy.
Another deal which caused still
more talk was that regarding the po-
atoes. This deal seems to have been
made by the state purchasing agent,
md not by the business manager at
Ill The arrangement was made with
! ne1ghboring farmer that he could
row certain acreage of potatoes
or the institution, place them on top
he ground at digging time for SOC per
hundred pounds, and the patients
you'd pick them up and place them
n the cellars. This man, according
0 accounts, was late in getting his
otatoes in the ground Then he
yatered them too much in the late
ummer in an effort to put all the {
rowth on them he could, with the t
esult that they did not ripen This /
Gay ~ tHO ui6SlhS uuIu ueSZluS
FEATHER came He managed finally
, get portion of the crop dug, and
ne institution picked these up and
aid for them as agreed although r
ley were watery and of poor quality. {
he others were frozen in the ground, r
18th loss not only to the farmer Y
ut also to the institution. Because 4
le institution then had to purchase +
s remaining supply of potatoes at /
L.50 per hundred 6
There was a little difficulty also q
bout some carrots raised by this q
lme farmer. The farmer was to h
ant the carrots; the institution was ;,
thin and care for them; and the J,
rmer then would dig them in the 9