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Golman's
Rural
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very nearly to what an
idealfarm paper should
be. It is practical and
sensible and it gets
very close to its read-
ers. It reaches the
prosperous farmers of
the Mississippi valley
-people who are lib-
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COLMAN'S RURAL WORLD

St. Louis, Mo.

spread them upon the benches and partake of the bountiful dinner.

But such a minor festivity pales into insignificance in comparison with such annual events as the Fourth of July, Old Settlers' Day, and the County Fair, though the latter has sadly degenerated since it fell into the hands of city sports, who make it simply an occasion for horse-racing, accompanied by all the devices for separating a fool from his money which usually surround a circus.

NO SERIOUS LABOR PROBLEM.

The western farm hand gets $25 a month the year around, board, washing, and pasture for a horse (for, mind you, the western farm hand usually owns his horse, and not infrequently a top buggy besides).

The farmer in the corn belt has his labor problem, too, though I have never heard any one predicting the doom of the corn belt on that ground. The fact is, that while the existence of the labor problem is recognized, it is of such minor significance as to be almost negligible. Fortunately for western agriculture and American society in general, there is no proletariat of agricultural laborers. The cases of large corn-growers who depend almost altogether on hired help are so few in number as to count but little in the aggregate, and even these men are forced by the necessities of their situation to be exceedingly active in direct supervision and management. There are practically no farm laborers of the European type that is, men who expect always to work for wages as farm hands. In all my trip I met with only one married farm hand, though doubtless there are a considerable number, in the aggregate, scattered over the country. The typical farm hand is a young unmarried man, usually the son of a farmer living in the neighborhood-though frequently a foreign immigrant-who "works out" for a few years merely to get money enough to begin farming on his own Under responsibility on a rented farm. such conditions it would be manifestly impossible to organize a successful labor union among farm hands. If such a union were organized it would necessarily be confined to the worst and least efficient element among them, since only such men continue long in that occupation.

This scarcity of farm labor, however, in no way interferes with the success of corn-growing. In the first place, the

corn-grower works with his own hands, and so do the other members of his family. Riding plows and cultivators, disk harrows and corn harvesters, as well as twine binders and hay stackers, so reduce the amount of muscular strength needed that a boy of ten years of age will frequently render almost as much service as a grown man. I was shown one corn field of 120 acres which had been cultivated almost entirely by two girls, aged thirteen and fifteen, using riding cultivators.

Another factor which contributes to the solution of the labor problem is the distribution of the work of the farm over the year. On a typical corn farm there is no season which is preeminently the busy season, unless the corn -plowing has fallen behind because of wet weather. Though farmers with whom I talked universally agreed that corn was by far their most profitable crop, there were very few farms where corn was grown exclusively. With a given labor force, only a certain amount of corn can be cultivated, anyway, and it requires no more labor force to grow a certain amount of other crops in addition. Wheat and oats are sown before cornplanting time and are harvested after the corn has been laid by"-that is, after the plowing is finished. The hay harvest also comes in this interval, and the threshing is usually done before the corn-husking begins. Moreover, the stubble field can usually be plowed in the interval between the harvesting of the small grain (wheat and oats) and the husking of the corn. Thus the farmer in the corn belt has practically eliminated the labor problem, so that even the limited supply of farm hands is no serious handicap upon the corn-growing industry.

As to the problem of domestic service, there is practically none. Hired girls are almost non-existent. Every farmer's wife expects to do her own work, and if in time of sickness or special stress of work she can induce some girl from the neighborhood, belonging to a family where perhaps there is a surplus of girls, to come in and help her, she considers herself fortunate.

Like other parts of the West, the corn belt was settled by people from a great variety of sources, and has not been without its share of tough communities; but the land was too valuable, and there was too high a premium on thrift and industry, for such communities long to remain.

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What They Say

"We prefer German mediums because the returns from German papers are of a higher quality. While Germans may be slower to take up at first with any new proposition, the returns are more lasting than from some of the English mail order papers, owing to the fact that the Germans do not shift around a great deal and a satisfied German customer means continued patronage. To reach the German trade, German publications such as yours are much more potent than circulating or any other method. We find your paper to be the best German advertising medium known to us.

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he is a man considerably past middle age, who has by hard work and careful management become the owner of a fairsized farm, with perhaps a moderate bank account besides, and who has either sold or rented his farm and moved to town to spend his decuning years in rest. From the number of such cases one might almost conclude that the average farmer's idea of paradise was a country town where he could live comfortably, supplying his daily needs without denying him. self rest or sleep, and where he would be free from the wear and tear of continually guessing at the weather, caring

degenerates into an ordinary town loafer. He frequently makes a poor urbanite, for his ideas of living were developed under rural conditions. He is somewhat slow to appreciate the value of good sewage, generally opposes levying taxes for street improvements, and is almost invariably disliked by the merchants because of his parsimonious way of buying goods. The habits of his early life stay with him and dominate all his business transactions. The effect of town life upon the retired farmer is, however, by no means to be compared with its demoralizing effect upon his minor chil

The Agricultural Light
of the West

The Kansas City
Weekly Star

O other paper has so wide an influence in the agricultural field of this section. Every page is read with eager interest for it has a corps of writers that are masters in their various lines; besides it contains an epitome of the world's proceedings, supplying fresh, current news to its readers every week. This part of the country is the agricultural Eden of the world and the STAR Covers it like a blanket. It has a guaranteed paid-in-advance circulation of almost exclusively among

225,000, farmers of the thrifty, busi

ness-like type, that seek every opportunity of improving their condition. THE KANSAS CITY WEEKLY STAR carries more agricultural advertising than any other Weekly of this class in the United States and the contracts are rarely allowed to run out before renewal. This is evidence that it pays and PAYS WELL. The strict watch that has always been kept over the advertising columns to insure fair dealing is cause for the absolute reliance which our readers place on the statements of our advertisers.

Write for sample copy and Rate Card and get an early start.

OPPORTUNITY MEANS

The Kansas City

Weekly Star

Kansas City
Missouri

dren, especially his boys, if he happens to have any.

RURAL CALLS BY TELEPHONE.

One of the most important problems of life in rural America is the problem of relieving its monotony and isolation. Rural free delivery, which is now almost universal throughout the corn belt, was expected to accomplish something in this direction, but will probably accomplish very little. One farmer's wife in particular complained that whereas formerly she had occasion to go to town

posed can hear, and this favors a general neighborhood conversation without an actual meeting. Where it is a recognized custom it loses the stigma which attaches to ordinary eavesdropping.

Being alone in the sitting-room of a farmhouse one morning, I heard the telephone bell ring several times. Thinking that possibly some one was trying to call up the house, I took down the receiver and placed it to my ear. What I heard was so characteristic, and therefore so interesting, that (please do not expect me to blush; it is more or less the

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once or twice a week to get the mail, if for nothing else, now she had no such excuse, and left the farm less frequently than before. The rural telephone is, in my opinion, the most effective agency in this direction that has yet been invented. Rural telephone systems are found almost everywhere throughout the central West, and they are generally arranged with a number of houses, sometimes fifteen or twenty, on the same circuit. This arrangement gives little privacy in the use of the telephone, but it has its compensating advantages. Whatever one says all who are so dis

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