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FOR

FARMER'S LIFE.

BY CLARENCE H. MATSON.

'OR several years students of social and politi cal problems have been discussing the tendency of rural communities to rush to the cities and the impending evils resulting therefrom. They have watched with alarm the manner in which urban populations have increased at the expense of the country, and they have sought a solution to the problem of how best to stop it.

But like many another vexatious question, this one bids fair to solve itself. In the East the well-to-do are beginning to leave the cities and are seeking rural homes. They are realizing that the city saps their strength and vitality, which can best be regained next to the soil, living in the open air of the country and in contact with trees and birds and flowers.

In the West still more potent influences are beginning to keep the agricultural classes on the farms. The forces that impelled the country boy to the city to seek his fortune are losing their power. This wonderful twentieth-century development of ours is bringing about a revolution. in farm life. The farm telephone, rural free mail delivery, the traveling library, and rural school consolidation are tending to make farm life more attractive, and remove from it many of its objectionable features.

The chief cause of the exodus from country to city has been the isolation and loneliness of farm life. Especially has this been true in the West, where farms are large and neighbors are far apart. The majority of the inmates of the insane asylums in some Western States are women ; a large per cent. of them farmers' wives, sent to the insane hospitals, according to medical experts, by the melancholy induced by isolation. The farmer's children have felt this influence too. They have usually been compelled to help about the farm work during the day, and when night came they had little in the way of books and papers to amuse them, and neighbors were too far apart for frequent gatherings. monthly trip to the county seat allowed them was a great event to the children, and it is little wonder that they found the town attractive. they grew older the fascination of town life grew upon them. Sometimes they were sent to the town to attend the graded school, and this increased the irksomeness and loneliness of the farm

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when they returned to it, with the result that the boy left the farm to seek his fortune in the city.

But now all this is changing. Rural free delivery of the mails is taking daily papers and illustrated magazines into the farm homes. The telephone is connecting neighbor with neighbor and with the surrounding towns. Late books follow the magazines into the homes of those who can afford them, and the traveling library supplies those who cannot purchase the books. The consolidation of rural schools, while only in its incipient stage, gives promise that it will supply the boys and girls of the farms with the advantage of a high-school education without the necessity of leaving their homes.

In discussing these new conditions in the West, I shall speak primarily of my own State, Kansas, because I am more familiar with the changes in farm life in that commonwealth.

RURAL FREE DELIVERY OF MAIL.

Four years ago there were only three rural delivery routes in Kansas, and they did not. amount to anything. At that time the PostOffice Department determined to give the free delivery of the mails in the country a thorough test. To-day there is scarcely a county in the State, except the cattle-range country of the extreme western portion, that has not from three to twenty routes. In some counties practically every farmer has his mail delivered to him daily, even though he lives ten miles from his postoffice, and those communities which are not already served are clamoring for an extension of the service.

For the little sum of two cents the United States Government will carry a letter from New York to Kansas and place it in the hands of the farmer to whom it is addressed, perhaps out in his cornfield miles away from his post office, and all within the shortest possible time. Under the new system, without leaving his farm the farmer can buy a money order and send it East for a year's subscription to a magazine, or for some article which has caught his fancy. This system has been a wonderful help to the mail order book business. The rural delivery carrier has brought the farmer into the habit of reading and writing more than formerly. A few years ago the writ

ing of a letter also involved the task of taking it to the post office, and in a busy season the trip was not usually made oftener than once a week. But now, when the letter is written, it has only to be placed in the box by the farmer's gate, and the Government does the rest. Formerly the farmer's reading was largely confined to his local paper and the weekly edition of some metropolitan daily. Now the weekly edition no longer suffices him; he has learned the value of the daily. He wants his market reports every day, and he is as anxious for the current news as is the merchant in the large town. He was as interested in reading the details of the Martinique volcanic eruption as was the professional man, and he discussed it a great deal more with his family and his neighbors than did the man in the city.

It is a fact that a majority of Kansas farmers who are served by rural mail delivery are subscribers to one or more daily newspapers. The farmer takes more interest, too, in agricultural papers, and from them he gets new ideas about his work.

FARM TELEPHONES.

Closely following the rural delivery of the mails has come the farm telephone. There are thousands of farm homes on the prairies of Kansas which are in telephonic communication with the surrounding towns within a radius of fifty miles or more. Seven years ago the telephone was a novelty even in towns of five and ten thousand inhabitants. But with the expiration of the Bell patents it became more common. In time it was introduced into towns of only one and two thousand people, and to-day there are dozens of little places of six hundred inhabitants or less which support a flourishing telephone exchange. To aid in the expense of maintaining these small exchanges, "party lines" were run two or three miles out from the towns in several directions, and a number of farmhouses were placed on each line. Toll lines were built between exchanges, and farmers along the route were also connected with these. The telephones proved such a blessing that farmers more remote from the towns began to organize mutual companies of their own, a company taking in an entire community for miles around. This mutual company connected with the nearest exchange, where it met the lines of other mutual companies in other parts of the same county. These companies are so popular, and the demand for telephone apparatus is becoming so great throughout the West, that numerous telephone-supply companies have been formed, and the manufacture of farm telephones has become an industry of considerable importance. The farmers usually build their

own lines, employing an electrical expert to install them. There are numerous instances in central Kansas where wire fences are utilized for miles for telephone lines.

The benefits of the farm telephone can scarcely be overestimated. If a farmer breaks a bolt in his machinery, he telephones to his hardware dealer, and the rural mail carrier brings a duplicate of the broken part to the farmer on his next trip, perhaps only two or three hours after the break. If a physician is wanted, the telephone saves much valuable time-perhaps a life-and possibly a fifteen-mile ride on a stormy night for the farmer. If the farmer's wife is lonesome, she can take down the telephone receiver and visit with any of her neighbors for several miles around. If the farmer wants his neighbors to help him thresh, he can summon them in as many minutes with the telephone as it would require hours without it; and in Jewell County, Kan., some of the farmers' wives who have telephones have formed the habit of telephoning to town each morning for their groceries, perhaps six or eight miles away, and the rural mail carrier delivers them in time for dinner. The value of the telephone was especially demonstrated the past winter when the weather bureau sent out a bulletin that a severe storm was approaching. The news was telephoned from neighbor to neighbor, giving the farmers twelve hours to gather up their stock and haul feed in anticipation of the storm, which would otherwise have caught them unawares.

THE "MAIL ORDER BUSINESS AND THE RURAL MERCHANT.

It is true that rural free mail delivery is proving disastrous to the country merchant who is not progressive enough to meet the changed conditions, but the farm telephone will help to readjust these things. The mail-order houses of the big cities have not been slow to take advantage of the new order of things, and they have flooded the farmers with mail-order catalogues. They have come into direct competition with the country merchant; and as it has been possible to buy of the mail-order house without leaving the farm, the farmer has frequently given the country merchant the worst of it. It is so easy for the farmer to sit down in the evening after his work is done and pick out a bill of goods by his own fireside from the catalogue of the big city firm, and to send for it with a post-office money order, also without leaving his farm, that the money. order business of the Post-Office Department has vastly increased in communities having rural delivery.

But with the farm telephone added, the country merchant will again have the ad

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Along with rural delivery and the farm telephone, but having no connection with them, has come the traveling library. Kansas was one of the first States to adopt this new idea for the improvement of rural life. That was less than four years ago, but now a large percentage of the States of the Union have traveling libraries in some form.

The people in the cities and larger towns generally have access to public or circulating libraries, but for years it has been a problem how to extend the same privilege to the residents of agricultural communities. The traveling library is designed to solve this question. Any country lyceum or club can secure a library of fifty books, free of cost, by applying to the librarian in charge of the traveling library, who is now a State officer in Kansas. A library may be kept in one community for six months if desired. It is then returned to the librarian, and another, containing an entirely different assortment of books, may be secured. One library will furnish a winter's reading to a rural community.

In Kansas the club women inaugurated this movement, but it proved of such great benefit that after one year the State Legislature took it up and made it a State institution. It now consists of upward of one hundred libraries, of fifty books each, and it is being added to as fast as legislative appropriations become available.

CONSOLIDATION OF COUNTRY SCHOOLS.

The educational problem in rural communities is still unsolved to a great degree. Heretofore it has been customary to send the more ambitious children, whose parents could afford it, to the graded school in town after they have passed through the district school, where perhaps the school term was only five or six months long. Sometimes this has furnished a strong incentive to the farmer to leave the country and move to the town or city, in order that his children may have the best in the way of educational advantages.

While it is still a new idea to many people, the consolidation of rural schools bids fair to bring directly to the farm the educational advantages of the town. The plan has been tried in a small way in Ohio, in Iowa, in Kansas, and in

other States, and it has been remarkably suc. cessful. The last Kansas Legislature passed a law to make the plan general wherever communities desire it, and Prof. Frank Nelson, State superintendent of public instruction, has made it his special work to encourage the adoption of the plan. Superintendent Nelson has become the apostle of school consolidation in Kansas.

Several years ago four school districts around Lorraine, Ellsworth County, Kan., were consolidated, and a central schoolhouse was built at the village of Lorraine. After the consolidation three teachers did the work which required four formerly, and as the school was graded they did it better. Some of the children lived several miles from the schoolhouse, but they were transported to and from school in covered spring wagons at the public expense. Last year a twoyears' high-school course was added to that of the common school, and now the entire cost of maintenance is but little more than that of the four separate districts before the consolidation. The extra expense is largely due to the transportation of the pupils. To offset the small additional expense the term is considerably longer, the work much better done, the high-school course has been added, the schoolhouse is much more sanitary, and the advantage of transporting the children to and from school, especially in bad weather, can scarcely be estimated. The consolidation idea is growing rapidly in Kansas, and movements to consolidate rural districts are now under way in many counties in the State.

EASING THE BURDENS OF LIFE ON THE FARM.

These are some of the main reasons why farm life is more attractive in the West than it was a few years ago. There are other minor ones. With increasing knowledge and intelligence the farmers are putting more of science into their work. Improved machinery is making the farmwork lighter. The well-to-do are establishing acetylene gas plants in their homes, alleviating the heavy housework which falls to the lot of the farmer's wife. The gasoline engine, too, is supplying the place of the city waterworks.

There will doubtless always be a certain flow from the country to the city. It should be so. The city needs the vitality and strength of the country boy. But the rush from the farm to the large centers of population, to escape the hardships and isolation which have been a part of farm life in the past, will probably cease to a great degree.

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BY WILLIAM R. DRAPER.

`HE season of greatest activity upon the farm has ended, and now the agriculturalists of this country are beginning to compute their profits for 1902. Wheat has all been harvested, corn is matured beyond the point of danger, and other cereals are safe for the season. Pasturage was never in better shape for the grazing herds, and only the cotton crop seems to be seriously affected. Cotton is not so badly drought-bitten but that the growers can come out with a handsome profit.

VICISSITUDES OF THE SEASON.

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A few weeks prior to the wheat harvest the usual cry of hot winds and droughty conditions in the grain belt went forth, but when the harvest came it was found that wheat was safe. the Northwest wheat harvesting was delayed by heavy rains, and along the north Pacific coast considerable, but not serious, damage was done. to grain in the shock. In the Southwest the harvest progressed without a hitch, so far as favorable weather was concerned. The principal difficulty was in securing sufficient harvest helpers. The spring wheat crop, which is the principal one of the Northwest, was considerably damaged by hail in the Dakotas. Notwithstanding this slight interference the condition of wheat, as viewed by government experts, gradually improved as the season came to an end. Nebraska, this year, claims the largest wheat yield per acre. This record was previously held by Wyoming.

During the early part of August a hot wave struck the corn fields of Kansas, and threatened to burn them before the ears had matured, but the intense heat lasted less than one week, doing less than 3 per cent. damage to growing corn. Cool weather and general rains followed, and the corn is now safely matured. As a whole, the corn made excellent and unhampered progress throughout the growing season. This record of weather conditions is unusual.

Early in August the cotton crop began to improve, and there is a possibility that the drought, shredding, and rust which threatened to wipe out the profits of cotton growers of the South will not, after all, seriously affect the result.

ONE OF THE "RECORD CROP YEARS. This has been one of the best "good allaround" years in the history of agriculture.

Wheat was blighted in portions of the country in early spring and during the past winter, while heavy rains during July damaged the corn to some extent in the Lake, upper Mississippi, and lower Missouri regions. But otherwise the crops have been attended and assisted by favorable rains and sunshine throughout the growing seasons. As always, the scare of a ruined wheat crop was started in early summer, but it was found after harvest that the crop had fallen short of last year's enormous wheat yield by 50,000,000 bushels, while corn for 1902 exceeded the crop of 1901 by 1,000,000,000 or more bushels. Other cereals will be above the ten-year average.

The Northwest is producing the largest crop of wheat, barley, oats, and flax ever recorded, while Kansas is coming forward with a " bumper" corn crop; even in excess of 1889, when corn was burned for fuel and sold at 10 cents per bushel. As a result of the bounteous harvest, a bearish feeling possessed the speculators, and grain "sold off" steadily. Once the "corner" in corn and oats had been broken the market took the natural downward trend.

THE TRANSPORTATION PROBLEM.

The railroads entering the great corn and wheat belts, instead of offering reduced rates to ship, in the grain, as was made to some droughtstricken communities in 1901, will be overtaxed in hauling the cereals to market.

Farmers along the Pacific slope won a decisive concession from the transportation companies prior to Eastern grain shipments this season. A flat cut of 10 per cent. in freight rates on wheat was made by a number of the trunk lines. The farmers asked for a deduction of 33 per cent., but under the new arrangement the wheat grow. ers of Oregon, Washington, and California will increase their profits 3 cents per bushel. This will be a saving of hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Western grain growers.

THE YIELD OF CEREALS.

Cereal crops for the year of 1902 have not all been gathered, but experts have reported upon their yield, and these approximate reports, submitted several months ahead of the Government reports, have proved very nearly exact in the past. Approximately stated, the yield is as follows: Wheat, 700,500,000 bushels; corn, 2,589,951,

000 bushels; oats, 860,000,000 bushels; barley, 120,850,000 bushels; rye, 30,350,000 bushels. Thus a total of 4,351,851,000 bushels of cereals were produced on 841,000,000 acres, to say nothing of the farming land used for other crops and for pasture land, barnyards, etc. Prices obtained by the farmers for the cereals differ every year. Last year, for instance, there was a shortage in corn, and it sold for 60 cents a bushel on the farm. The history of corn has been that during such plentiful seasons as this one the average price is 30 cents per bushel. At that rate 1902 corn will bring to the farmers $776,985,300. Wheat prices are governed accordingly.

other things considered, wheat will bring 60 cents to the farmer during 1902,—that is, he will have realized that amount by general consideration of wheat on hand, the shortage, etc., and at this figure the wheat crop will net $580,100,000 to farmers. Oats, if sold at the present market price, will bring $350,500,000; barley, $52,750,000; rye, $15,909,000, or a total of $1,776,244,000 for cereals alone. The cotton crop is worth this year about $500,000,000, while the hay, including alfalfa, is worth the same amount to the farmer. Potatoes will sell for $100,000,000, while the buckwheat crop is valued at $8,000,000. There have been other years when cereals sold for more; last year the corn crop, though

one-half as large as in 1902, sold for $921,555,768. But the farmers did not hold much of it when it went to 65 cents, so they were not benefited. The selling price at harvest time can generally be accepted as the farm price.

THE PRODUCT COMPARED WITH THAT OF FORMER

YEARS.

Approximately the earnings of the five and two-thirds million farms of the United States were, for 1902, five and one-fifth billion dollars. This is far in excess of the total income of the farmers at any other time in their history. The products of the farms for 1899 sold for $4,739,118,752. The cereals, save corn,

are about

equal to the crop of 1899. This year, 500,000,

000 bushels more corn and several hundred thousand head of steers in excess of three years ago were placed on the markets. And one should also remember that the number of farms is continuously increasing at a rate of from fifteen to forty thousand annually.

The corn crop of the world for 1900 was 2,882,900,000, the corn crop of the United States for 1901 was 1,522,518,000 bushels. while the corn crop of the United States for 1902 is slightly in excess of the 1900 crop of the entire world. This year 94,869,928 acres were planted in corn, principally in Illinois,

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