y bootleggers rich, and in paying his to the conductor jokingly said, e sure you turn that in, old timer." conductor assured Cook H that he ld turn it in, considering the incident re as a passing joke than anything . On the back platform was a nonmissioned officer of military police ose knowledge of the English language 3 very deficient. He assumed that ok H and the conductor were quarreland rushed in, pistol half drawn, to e charge of the situation. Cook H, re amused than offended, began to id" the military police. As a result ok H was 66 jugged" and charges wn against him. I later tried the case my capacity as summary court. Cook

H was acquitted and the summary court recommended that men deficient in knowledge of our language be not detailed on military police duty.

Cook Ctanked up up" on flavoring extract, Jamaica ginger, Worcestershire sauce, or anything else which had either a real or imaginary kick in it. He was a "regular customer" in my court, and spent most of his time in the guardhouse. I knew, as he well did, that the only place to keep him out of trouble was the guard-house. He did not have will the guard-house. He did not have will power enough to change his habits, so in justice to the service and mercy to him I changed his habitation.

It is my honest belief that any officer who serves as a summary court or as a

member of a special or general court martial should, as a matter of duty, temper his judgment with mercy, wisely administered, after placing himself as nearly as possible in the shoes of the offender. He must take into account extraneous and related circumstance as affecting the mental or physical condition of the accused man at the time.

Rigid adherence to the letter of our law is bad. The court should remember that "the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life." The best study of mankind is man. A student of man will not follow the letter and ignore the spirit. He will be fair to the prisoner, to himself, and to the service, and merciful justice rather than vengeance will result.

The man who actually tills the soil is the man who is the foundation of our whole social structure, and if the life of. the community is such as to eliminate him, all the rest of the community will pay in the end for his elimination.

-Theodore Roosevelt.

SET out on a two months' journey of some 3,500 miles through New England, New York, and Pennsylvania in effort to find out to what extent contions are tending to eliminate the man ho tills the soil. I talked to hundreds farmers, farm help, and farm leaders. What these men and women have told may be enlightening and educative, t certainly is not entertaining..

I have been informed by unquestioned thority that New England now imrts from the South, West, and forcountries over eighty per cent of its d products, amounting to over $500,0,000 annually, and that the ten Eastern ates combined hand over to the South,

BY J. MADISON GATHANY

At The Outlook's request Mr. Gathany during the summer made a personal study of farm conditions on the North Atlantic seaboard, traveling many miles by train," motor car, and on foot to obtain the facts presented in these articles. He interviewed farmers,. farmers' wives, hired workers, and heads of farm bureaus and ex-. changes, and talked to merchants, bankers, and manufacturers in the States of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania; and he interviewed numerous farm authorities from Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire.

-THE EDITORS.

the West, and foreign countries each year more than $1,250,000,000 for foodstuffs. The most lamentable thing about this astonishing statement is that these ten States, if properly cultivated, could raise more food than the people of those States consume. And all the time the great army of agricultural non-producersmiddlemen, merchants, bankers, professionals, transportation workers, and the like-is rapidly increasing.

A companion statement fully as astonishing is that more than 5,000,000 acres of land that once were under cultivation in New England are now idle. Transportation charges must be paid upon that $1,250,000,000 worth of foodstuffs brought into the ten Eastern States. This means increased cost of living for the consumers. The recent rise in freight rates will add still more to the burden.

ON THE ROCKS

"Farming only gets attention," said a Massachusetts farmer, "when things go

May D. Hepper, New York City

so bad on the farms that their condition becomes a matter of news. That is one of the troubles with farming. It is not on speaking acquaintance with the rest of the world. A lot of people seem to think the food production problem came upon us overnight. But it's no such thing. Agriculture has been steadily declining since the Civil War," said the farmer, pausing in his hoeing.

"In 1915 the Associated Industries of Massachusetts reported that from 1860 to 1910 farm land under cultivation in New England decreased 42 per cent, and that the population of 828 rural towns decreased 82 per cent, while the population of New England as a whole increased 110 per cent. The investigators also found that between 1840 and 1910 sheep decreased in New England from 4,000,000 head to.. 430,672, a loss of 89 per cent. Milch cows in Massachusetts decreased over 24 per cent from 1890 to 1913, while the population increased 59 per cent. In 1915 another investigation showed that staple foodstuffs in New England cost 47 per cent more than the same articles cost in five States of the Middle West, due to the absence of a food supply near at hand. Yes, New England farming right now is on the rocks. Farm wages in the United States now are more than 200 per cent above what they were in 1910, and still this increase has not been sufficient to meet the increased wages in other industries. Fifty of the necessary articles which the farmer must purchase in order to farm it at all cost fully 221 per cent more now than in 1914, without a corresponding increase in the price of the farmer's products. With such conditions facing him, the farmer did not dare to pay his hired men more, and of course they left him."

"Is

I asked a farmer in Connecticut : not the fundamental trouble with agriculture in New England an inherent natural difficulty, a question of the lack of good soil?" "No, sir," was his quick and positive response. "There is no better soil anywhere in the world. Of course there are plenty of ledges and boulders,

and acres that are worn out because they have been over-cropped and maltreated, but all of the New England soil responds quickly and bounteously when it is treated properly. The rainfall is abundant and well distributed. Fruit trees grow vigorously, and there are few spots on earth where apples take on better flavor. Nowhere can better hay be grown. Pasture lands will more than meet you half way when treated correctly. An almost limitless number of cattle and sheep could be raised. New England is capable of producing limitless quantities of corn, apples, potatoes, onions, lettuce, asparagus, strawberries, peaches, barley, wheat, tobacco, carrots, beets, radishes, tomatoes, and grapes. Good farm lands are relatively cheap, and this section is noted for its good roads. Manufacturing centers are right at the farmer's door. Railways, telephones, electric car lines, rural free delivery, automobile service, form a perfect network of transportation and communication facilities. There is no inherent natural difficulty. The trouble is entirely man-made difficulties, and not God-made, in New England, New York, and Pennsylvania. It's a pity that most of the best brains of the country are devoted to industry at the expense of agriculture."

I reported this conversation to an unusually well-informed farmer in a small town on Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island. He is sixty-two years of age, and is considered by the Federal Government as one of the most valuable men engaged in agriculture in America.

66

How did agriculture in the East come to such a plight?" I asked.

there by the wharves that you see in th distance, and were taken by the farmer themselves to the West Indies and Cuba, where they were swapped for m lasses and sugar, which in turn were sol here, in Fall River, and Providence, a good prices. The farmers worked to gether, handled their goods together. I was that spirit which made New Englan farming famous and profitable. Labo did not exceed 60 cents per day with board, or $1 per day without board. I 1839 one of the farms in Rhode Island produced 20,000 bushels of potatoes About 1840 manufacturing in New Eng land got on its feet and called the men tally active young men from the farm into the industries. From then on mann facturers gave better and better wage than could be had on the farms. It wa manufacturing and commerce, and no the lure of the West, that started the ruination of New England agriculture In 1865, as now, the returned soldiers di not care to go on the farms. There wa an easier and a more attractive life opened to them in the industrial centers.

1

WORKED ONE DAY; TOO HARD

The lack of adequate farm labor i shocking. What help the farmer can get i usually dishearteningly unintelligent and shockingly inefficient. A Massachusetts farmer took me out into his fields. I sav grass and weeds higher than the potatoes beans, and corn.

"I am thoroughly.ashamed of the con dition of this place," said he. "It usually is as clean as a hound's tooth. My boy and I have had to run this business alone as it is almost impossible to get farm labor. A big corporation in this town has robbed the farmers of all able-bodied men by paying them unheard-of high wages and giving them short days. Where are the war gardens of yesterday? City peo ple have found out that raising produce is not so easy. They want jobs in which they are protected from the scorching sun, the soaking dew, and the biting cold They want easy work at high wages. offered a grammar school boy $18 a week at eight hours a day. He worked on day, and said he did not like to bend his back. He would see if he could not get job in the city. I haven't seen him since The highest I ever got as a farm help was $11 per week; now I pay $30 and over and the men are not satisfied."

miles

DRIVEN OUT BY FOREIGNERS In a secluded Connecticut town, from electric or steam service, I one day stopped in front of a farmhouse sign "This farm for sale." The buildings and "A young man bought this very farm the lands were in such good condition in 1812 for $10,000," he replied. "He that I wondered at the sign. My knock paid $5,000 down, giving his note for the at the door was answered by a bright balance: Four years later he completed I asked the last payment. In the meantime his table was always supplied with the best of fresh food. All this, sir, was accomplished on a New England farm in four years, the entire bill being paid by producing beef, pork, corn, and hay. His products were loaded into sloops down.

for the man of the house.

"John went to town this morning at 2:30 to sell his produce, but will not be back until about 6 P.M.," she said. "Why are you going to leave this

farm?" I inquired.

She began to unravel a story of shat

ted ideals and lost courage such as Any other farmers' wives have told me. "My husband is a college man and I a a normal graduate," she told me. Our ideal has been to own a farm of our m. We were born in the biggest city the world, where green grass is very arce. Our occasional trips to the couny always aggravated our desire to live xt to mother earth, and to try our hand what we thought the easy, congenial, ad profitable life of a farmer. We infested our little capital in this place three ears ago. At that time the three houses ou see in the distance were owned by American families; now two of them are ccupied by Italians. In rural districts ne depends largely on neighbors for ocial life; and it was a big blow to us hen our neighbors sold out to foreigners. We are worried about the utter lack of odern school facilities for our year-old aughter. Could we think of sending her hree miles away from home each day ith foreigners as her only companions? "It is not pleasant to stay here with nly my little daughter for company hile John is gone away to town practially sixteen hours each day during the arvest season. Nor for him to work sixeen hours and more a day while other men are working much shorter hours. We both have always been used to wide ocial activities, but since we bought this farm we have been practically cut off from all forms of amusement. We have always kept a goodly supply of current magazines on our living-room table. Had t not been for these we could not have tayed here as long as we have, especially uring winter.

"I want you to understand that we would not have minded the many hours f hard work we have both put in had we elt sufficiently compensated socially and atellectually. We feel that to be of serice is the main reason why human beings re in the world, but it has been the eartrending lonesomeness, the encroachent of foreigners, and the inadequate chool facilities which finally turned our aces citywards," concluded John's wife.

"MY BOYS HELPA ME CHEAP I turned to one of the near-by Italian ouses. As I walked into the littered ooryard of what had formerly been a well-kept farmhouse, I was greeted by a earty "Hulloa" from the lips of a warthy Italian woman who sat on the cont doorsteps getting macaroni ready string out in the yard to dry. "My husband and five boys are workg over in the potato field," she said. Well," said I a little later to Tony, me father of five husky boys who were dustriously hoeing potatoes with their ther," how are you getting along?"

66

If I have no boys to helpa me cheap, no maka much money this year," said e. "Too mucha rain. Seeds too mucha gh. Fertilizer very scarce this spring. o getta big price for vegetables. I guess maka some mon' thisa year because I O pay biga mon' to my boys. Boys help retty fair. But," said he, leaning towards

Brown Bros.

me confidentially, "you know, mister, my boys he make damn funny talk these days about go to city for biga pay and gooda time. One boy say the other day, 'Some. time, old man, you wake up in the morning, finda me bunk from this slow hole."

Evidently Tony is facing a serious help problem as well as those other farmers whom nature has not supplied so well with labor. Practically the only farmers who are actually making money these days are foreigners with large families, who are not forced to hire help at factory prices or go without. In the Connecticut Valley many of the farms have recently been bought by Jews who have large families of girls and boys to help do even the hardest work in the fields. The mothers work as hard as the men. Fortunately for the foreign farmers, these women haven't time openly to bewail their burdens. They are undoubtedly too tired when night comes to pine for either city or country amusements.

I next called on a successful farmer who, aided by his son, runs a 200-acre farm. The farm had been in the hands of his family continuously since 1639fully eleven generations.

AN AGRICULTURAL REVOLUTION

"Did. you know that Germany made such a specialty of potato raising that her potatoes were used as ballast for her ships sailing to this country?" he asked. "The farmer needs a protective tariff fully as much as the manufacturer. Holland, I understand, is planning to send to America great quantities. of potatoes this fall. Farm products can be raised cheaper in Europe and Canada than in the United States.

"Until the world war we were again getting on our feet financially. Now it is nip and tuck with us again. I suppose a man after working hard until he is sixtyfive years old is entitled to take life more easily than I do. If farmers are going to keep at it, either the acreage must be cut

down to the point where the farmer can do the work, or else farming must be put upon a purely commercial basis, so that it can compete with commerce and industry as to hours of labor and wages, and that calls for a complete reorganization of agriculture, an agricultural revolution."

Here was a highly respected American family engaged continuously in farming for over two hundred and eighty years, and now scarcely able to earn a decent living! Yet there are thousands of manufacturers, and millions of consumers, all with an attack of sour stomach because they fear that the Government will become kindly disposed to the farmer and enable him to make a cent or two or work less than sixteen hours a day!

A team of horses and a mowingmachine were out in a big hay lot, driven by a Yale graduate, a direct descendant of one of the first Governors of Connecticut.

"The farm was granted to our family by King George in colonial days, and it has never been deeded away," he told me. "Our old house has witnessed the tremendous changes in agriculture. To-day every farmer is largely at the mercy of the tool-makers, railways, and manufacturers of clothing, hats, and fertilizer. But complaining Americans seem to think that farmers are lying down on the job. Every farmer in this region has been working like a slave every day since March 1. Personally I have averaged from fifteen to sixteen hours every day, including Sundays, since before the frost left the ground this spring. I had sixty. bushels of potatoes in the barn to be planted. Just above here, at the time my potatoes ought to have been planted, three thousand mill-hands were on strike. I was here on this farm of three hundred and fifty acres without a soul to help me, except a few Italian women. I advertised in the local paper for help, offering factory prices, and offering to sell potatoes

and other farm products at wholesale prices to the families of those who would help me. Not one man of the three thousand showed up. A few days later three men came along and asked if I wanted some help. I told them my terms. and even agreed to carry them to and from the trolley and pay their car-fares both ways. Those men worked just three days, and have not showed up since.

LOSES $2,300 IN CORN

"Last year I planted twenty-two acres of corn. Labor, fertilizer, seed, and freight cost me at the rate of $200 per acre. That made an outgo of $4,400 before one red cent came in. That did not include interest on my investment, nor my own labor. What do you suppose I got for those twenty-two acres. of corn? Just $2,100. Do you see any corn around here this year? Who has reimbursed me for that loss? How am I going to get it back? What would a business man do in such a case? One or two things. He would either charge the loss up to the public as overhead expense, or he would shut down his business until it did pay him to run it. The farmers have never treated the public that way. The public does not expect to make good to the farmer his losses. Now that is one of the fundamental troubles with farming.

"Farmers are not going to produce what this country needs until farming is profitable. The farmer has made up his mind that he is not going to be the goat any longer. Last fall, at crop-gathering time, farmers suffered terrible losses on account of bad weather. This spring the weather came on just as bad if not worse. Come out and look at my fields. There are acres and acres of last year's corn stubbles still sticking out of the ground. That field of potatoes out there wouldn't keep a goat alive until next spring. Religiously they are hard-shelled Baptists. They have been immersed four times. The crops you do see are from a month to six weeks behind. I am connected with the State Agricultural Department, and I feel safe in saying that New England has planted from 25 to 35 per cent less this year than last. My opinion is that farming must be thoroughly organized and put on a strictly modern basis before the country will get enough to eat."

I learned that this Yale man's brother went into the hardware business and has made money hand over fist.

AMERICAN COWS GO ABROAD

"How old are you?" I called out to three boys who were pitching hay. They did not answer. I called out again.

"If you shouted all day those youngsters couldn't hear you," said the owner of the farm. "They're from a deaf and dumb institution."

"A deaf and dumb institution!" I said. "Yes; agriculture has come to such a pass that farmers are compelled to hire such help or go without."

The name of the man who was talking to me has been for forty-two years on the books of one of the largest seed houses in

Keystone View Co.

EVERYBODY HAS TO WORK TO MAKE ENDS MEET ON MOST NEW ENGLAND FARMS

the United States. This year his name does not appear there. Last year he had about one hundred and fifty acres under cultivation; this year he has but twelve. Last year he used eight horses; this year he has but three. Last year he kept nine milch cows; this year he keeps three, but he is going to sell them this fall. Last year he hired a large number of men; this he has but one of his old men and the three deaf and dumb boys, one ten years old, the other fifteen, and the third sixteen.

year.

In 1918 he raised over $13,000 worth

of onion seeds; this year he is not raising an ounce. Last year he planted acres and acres of corn; this year the crows did not have a chance at any corn on his place. Instead of seeing acres of corn in the silk I saw acres of corn stubbles projecting their ugly and worthless stumps through ground thickly matted with grass and weeds.

"I have made some money raising seed crops in past years, but I can't afford to lose all I have made," said the farmer.

66

I saw last year that farming was not profitable, and you will note that I am almost out of it. Farmers are planting less this year than last year, and they will plant less next year than they have this. If farming were as profitable now as in years gone by, would you see all this land idle? Artificial financing will not do. Farming has got to be made to pay before it will come back."

About two miles away was another farmer employing a large number of deaf and dumb men and boys. Acres upon acres of corn stubbles! Deaf and dumb. help! What a picture!

Farmers in New York and Pennsylvania are alarmed. Many farms which used to be sources of abundance of food

stuffs are now seeded down to grass are abandoned to weeds; others lie h cultivated. I am informed that there as much as one-third shortage of fa labor in Delaware and New Jersey, wit corresponding reduction of crops. I ha been told that farmer after farmer selling off his cows as soon as they becom dry. The dairy business is being thor oughly organized, but the results of the old system are still felt. In the past the milk dealers, or middlemen, have had everything their own way. In many localities they still do. They have bee in a position to force the farmer to take a price for his milk that did not pay him for the cost of producing it, and to fore the consumer to pay far in excess of the price they paid the producer for it Grain, hay, and labor are exceedingl high. What is the result?

During 1920 thus far there have been exported from the United States four times as many milch cows as were ex ported during the whole of 1918, and about three and one-half times as many as were exported during 1917. Most of those cows have gone to foreign countries where the value of milk as a food is appreciated.

CHILD LABOR AND SOIL-ROBBING

A Pennsylvania farmer said: " manufacturer determines the selling prie of an article by a system of cost account ing, and regulates the volume of produc tion. A business man adds the cost o doing business plus a percentage for profi to his cost price. The farmer in the pas has just produced; he had no system o cash accounting, no inventory, no bal ancing of accounts. Without thinking h sold away from the farm the fertility i the soil, and threw in the labor of his wif and children. The small cash surplus,i any remained, did not represent profit i farming, but the sweat of child labor am soil-robbing.'

th

A New York farmer, speaking of th profits of packing concerns, said: "Ia in a position to know that they ha so organized their business that they tur their invested capital over at least twent six times each fiscal year. If, taking the at their own word, they make one p cent on each dollar they turn over, they make not less than 26 per cent F year on each dollar invested. And the men are engaged in business wholly pendent upon the farmer. Now if all t farmers cut out raising cattle, ho sheep, and fowl, where would the gr packers get off?

"The 'restaurant men are absolut dependent upon the farmer for food pr ucts. In this locality they pay us one week for produce. Inside of an hour the men begin to realize a profit on the thi bought of the farmer; in a day's ti they have made almost a complete t over of their money invested, and in week they have made at least six tu overs, each bringing in a handsome pro

A GAMBLE WITH THE LORD "Yet the farmer has but one turno a year. Farmers never count on realiz

my profit on their investments. If they et out whole on the labor they put in, ot counting that of their children and ives, they are lucky. It may be several ears before a farmer has anything at all oming in from his labor. His expense iles up every day in the year with no eturn until harvest. His men do not work without regular pay. It takes three ears to raise a milk cow, and an average -f eight years before an orchard man can ee a cent of return for his labor. During all these years he has been cultivating, spraying, and pruning. A thunder-storm does not stop a manufacturer, but it does the farmer.

"The markets are crowded with crops at one season and almost empty of them at all others. This means that when he is harvesting his year's return, his products bring him in the least. They are bought up by speculators when they are cheap and when the farmer must sell in order to get money to pay his bills, and then the dealers manipulate the amount they will let loose on the market until harvest time comes again, and at prices to meet their own speculative and immoral wishes.

"What percentage is the farmer entitled to for his one turnover? Farming is one big gamble with the Lord and the land. Our manufacturers and bankers would be as poor as the farmers if they had to do business under the same conditions.

THE BANKER'S GOOD REASONS DON'T

HELP THE FARMER

Many Eastern bankers appear to have confidence neither in the farmers nor in the land. Bankers stumble over each other in their efforts to induce meatpacking concerns, warehouse men, commission merchants, wholesalers of farm products, and manufacturers to do business with them. Let a farmer walk into most of these same banks and ask for a loan, and the bankers will turn up their noses. They tell the farmer that his assets are not liquid and therefore they can't loan to him.

"A year or two ago our Farmers' Exchange succeeded after considerable persuasion in borrowing $10,000 from a local bank. We have paid our interest always on time. This loan is backed up by not less than $150,000 worth of valuable market garden farms managed by the best farmers in this section of the East. When we asked last week for a renewal of this loan for another year, the bank was pronouncedly indifferent; it hesi tated, then told us it would rather loan the money to other business men. Now this same bank loans an abundance of money to dealers in pork, beef, wheat, corn, and other farm products, to vegetable wholesalers and commission merchants-all dealing in the products of the very farms to which the bank acted so indifferently. And these same men kick because the farmers don't do more. Now, I may be wrong, but I think the Eastern

3. There are no more new profitable farming regions left in the United States to be opened up. We have reached the end of cheap food production.

4. No new inventions or methods appear to be available with which to reduce the cost of farm production.

5. Farming has not as ready access to credit facilities as other industries.

6. Lawmakers are not, generally speaking, as much interested in remedial legislation in the cause of agriculture as in that of industry and commerce. We are sacrificing agriculture for the sake of industry, as England did, for which England is now sitting in sackcloth and ashes. The curse of child labor, which has been driven out of our factories, still persists on our farms.

7. Although a steadily increasing population causes a steadily growing need of farm products, there is evidence that American families can no longer pursue farming happily and profitably, and that only immigrant families can.

J. MADISON GATHANY.

bankers have had something to do with bankers have had something to do with bringing on the food shortage.'

Railways have also been a discouraging factor. A Maine farmer says: "Many cars last year were lost on their way and some made only two or three trips all season. Millions of bushels of 1919 wheat are still on the farm. In the Corn Belt the cribs are filled with last year's crops. Transportation facilities have got to be made adequate to the needs of the country and the railways compelled to deliver perishable goods in proper time or make good all losses to the farmers, if we are to continue to farm.'

The average family in the city enjoys an abundance of running water, a bathroom, electricity, gas, telephone, street cars, vacuum cleaners, electric washing machines, and flatirons. Fully eighty per cent of the families on our American farms have no such conveniences. Com

munity centers and good schools are among the things the modern farm family believes indispensable. But these cost money, and the farmers haven't got it.

"I would never advise a young woman to marry a farmer," said a woman of sixty who had spent all her life on a farm. Increasing intelligence is condemning the injustice of agricultural existence.

Farmers and farm help are leaving the farms, not because there is not enough for them to do but because there is too much; they are not being driven from the farm by the introduction of new machinery; they are deserting voluntarily.

RESENTMENT IS BITTER

The editor of the oldest agricultural journal in the world recently said: "The farmers of America are discouraged; they are filled with bitter resentment against conditions. Their list of grievances is a long one and each of them is real. They cannot be passed over lightly. They have tried the impossible task of feeding $2 corn to 14-cent hogs at a profit; they have lost millions in feeding high-priced feed to cattle, and have stood helplessly by and watched the city consumers pay as high prices for their pork chops and beefsteaks as they did when cattle and hogs were bringing a living return to their producers. They have had to stand idly by while agents of city industries painted beautiful pictures of high wages and better living conditions in the cities. Everything the farm has to sell is comparatively low in price or there is no market; and yet city consumers never paid such high prices. The farmers have had to bear their share of the high prices of clothes, but now when they have a crop of wool to dispose of there is absolutely no market. Nobody will bid on the farmer's wool. He has notes to meet, bills to pay, mortgages to liquidate, and still he has to pay gouging prices for the clothes he wears. fruit men have paid high wages, bought expensive chemicals for spraying, and have spent months getting ready for the harvest, only to find that the high price of sugar has seriously curtailed their market.

The

"The farmers were vastly more patriotic than they were given credit for. They raised a billion bushels of wheat, and the Government forced prices away below the market levels, fixing it at a scale that barely paid the cost of production. The farmers were the only class of citizens compelled to do this. Other industries. obtained cost plus and the privilege to make the cost as high as they chose. The farmers grit their teeth when they read about 200 per cent, 300 per cent, and 400 per cent dividends paid by manufacturers of shoes and textiles and sugar and other necessities. The farmers are now told that there is not money enough to finance the harvest."

Such is the picture. It is dark. But there is a ray of hope.