Lichen (verse)
Ailing, Kenneth Slade
364 THE COMMONWEAL August 18, 1926 he refused to have even a mowing machine or horse- ...
...greatest of care, to have the milk cleaner than it ever was Most crops can be raised more cheaply where large by the old method...
...on the other, the least carelessness gets areas can be roughly ploughed and harvested by one the milk in much worse condition than it ever was by hand- man, though the yield per acre is, of course, much less milkings...
...The price of apples and other fruit in the city mar- Simple farming tools, like the plough and harrow, ket is about four times what it was forty years ago...
...twenty head of cattle, has his corn-fields cut by hand A furrowed shadow somewhat intricate, when he can get men enough to do the work-only re- The tall trunk rising unaware of it, sorting to the reaper when the frosts threaten his More curious than leaves, more delicate...
...sheep killed on the farm, and selling them to my On the whole, I am inclined to think that if all the neighbors...
...but the ular machine, a saving can be effected, but the adprices they offer for my lambs and mutton are scarcely vantage of getting your work done on time is lost one-half of what I can get by having my lambs and fat when you have to wait your turn...
...One of my neighbors who keeps Stranger than silver, neither light nor dark...
...and yet, as the populahis milk until he installed a milking machine, when it was tion increases and land-values rise, intensive cultivarefused by the dealers on account of its dirtiness...
...The Forgotten in a forest by still lakes other field he had cut with a new two-horse corn-cutting A dim, subdued design the lichen makes, machine...
...markets in Newburyport, Massachusetts-twenty or Wherever farming is done on a large scale, especithirty ox-teams often following in close succession...
...I season, he hired a gang of lumber-jacks to work his much prefer to do my ploughing with horses, but often farm, using the simple hand-implements of former find it more profitable to hire it done with a tractorgenerations-yet he paid his bills better than most...
...I do not know of any crop that now gives you can do the work yourself, no matter how many cows greater yield to the acre, for a given amount of work, you have...
...He said ago, the crops each season and their market prices There are two sides to the question...
...364 THE COMMONWEAL August 18, 1926 he refused to have even a mowing machine or horse- machinery comes in-getting urgent work done on rake on his broad acres...
...plough, though the cost per acre is greater, and the In my grandfather's time, the potato-growers from work, as a general thing, not so well done-for the few Maine hauled their crops in ox-carts over rough roads days gained in getting in the seed may turn the balance and across the "Shun Pike," through his town, to the in favor of the tractor...
...by the pound...
...At the close of the lumbering time in the spring ploughing as well as in harvesting...
...crops, in order first to supply the needs of his houseAveraging one season with another, the Maine farmers hold and his stock-for selling at wholesale and buyof today, who send their potatoes to market by truck ing at retail is a losing game...
...machinery-beginning with those at work in coal and I had her killed and dressed on the farm, kept one- iron mines and foundries, through the whole list of quarter, and sold the others to my neighbors, in that managers, factory-hands, salesmen, advertising artists, way clearing $40.00...
...have rendered untold benefit to the farmer...
...On the one hand, it is possible, by using the than it formerly did...
...and steam railway, get less in exchange for their crops, More than one person has said to me of late: "You after transportation and other expenses are paid, than can't afford, nowadays, to sell on the hoof and buy did their grandfathers...
...Last fall I had a beef-cow in fair condi- men now engaged in the production of modern farmtion-but the best offer I could get for her was $18.00...
...crop...
...it costs more to would not differ so very widely from those of the milk your cows by machine, but if your hired man leaves you, present...
...tion becomes more and more a necessity, and hand When my cousin's corn was ready for the silo last labor must, in part at least, replace machinery...
...but more and prices received in shillings and pence, and the goods more the average farmer is being driven to diversify his taken in exchange-broadcloth, groceries, and rum...
...freight-haulers, and truck-drivers-were to leave their One man who owns a large dairy and milks his present occupations and go back to the land, working cows by electricity, was consulted in regard to the ad- with only such tools as were in use a hundred years visability of buying a milking machine...
...but more yet the price offered for them in the orchard has not complicated machinery-planters, harvesters, manureincreased, while the expense of keeping the orchards spreaders, etc.-used only for a few days or weeks each free from blight, moths and other pests, is out of all season, are rusting while standing idle, and in many comparison to what it used to be...
...ally when one main crop is raised, modern machinery I have read the old memoranda giving in detail the unquestionably works to good advantage...
...The field cut by hand cost $3.0o an acre-the Trailing its quiet tones over the bark, other, $7.0o an acre...
...fall, he hired two men-one about seventy, the other, eighty years old-to cut one piece by hand with home- I ichen made corn-cutters, paying them each $3.0o a day...
...and, here is where the one great saving of farm KENNETH SLADE ALLING...
...Where neighbors Men now come long distances from the city in trucks, can agree to exchange work, each owning one particto buy from the farmer for the city markets...
...I know of one man who had no trouble in selling than with intensive cultivation...
...cases fail to pay for themselves...
Vol. 4 • August 1926 • No. 15
