Thursday, October 2, 1924
Did you ever think that the farmer’s art lies exposed to the critic’s eye? Either a public road or a railroad lay bare all of his work to discriminating observers. And his immediate neighbors watch him like a hawk and note his progress through the changing seasons. They keep him up to the mark. Never is a furrow plowed wet but what a shudder runs through the community.
Corn is up and cattle are down. That means that we have to winter a lot of stock this year. It sometimes happens that a year in profits is blotted out. Cattle are kept a year and then the vagaries of the market indicate that they are not worth any more per head then they were a year back. That is the case this year, generally speaking.
All over the country the corn has been under the average and that forces a lot of livestock on the market…
It has been a queer year anyway. It was marked with a March which for killing weather has seldom been equaled. There are fewer mice, fewer birds, fewer small squirrels, fewer hornets, fewer wasps, and fewer moles than there have been for years. In all my wanderings, I have seen but one large hornets’ nest, and that was in a brush pile on Jerico.
There are a few, far too few, bumblebees. I think that the unusual March caught all of these small friendly pests and that few survived.
TARIFF HURTS FARMERS
Republicans’ partisans who point to the tariff as a boon to farmers and a blessing to labor are read a good lecture in an editorial in the Milwaukee Journal a few days ago.
“Under the system of price-fixing, fostered by the Fordney-McCumber tariff,” says the Journal, “the average farmer has no chance to save money long. For the tariff enters into nearly everything he does not produce on his own land; and as farm prices go up, other prices keep a leap ahead.”
The editorial then declares that “labor, too, is told that the tariff has maintained good wages and upheld the standard of living.” And then points out that “all the time, large employers were bringing thousands of foreigners into this country.”
In “Mother Goose in Politics,” a number of rhymes are given, of which this is a sample:
“Little Tommie Tucker pines for his supper –
But what can he eat? He can’t afford butter –
And how can he slice bread without any knife?
This Republican tariff has blasted his life!”
CHARLES G. SUTTON
Charles Gatewood Sutton was born in Greenbank April 13, 1847, and died at Durbin July 15, 1924. In 1873, he married Miss Carrie Kerr and to this union were born two children, one of whom is Mrs. P. F. Eades, of Durbin… Mr. Sutton united with the Methodist Church 32 years ago. When the Southern Methodist Church was organized in Durbin, 21 years ago, he was one of the charter members and was a Steward from that time until unable to attend to the duties of his office. A man of unusual vigor, his confinement to the house during his protracted illness was at first a severe trial, but he became resigned to the Divine Will as the end grew near. The funeral service was conducted at the home, and the body was laid to rest in the Arbovale Cemetery.
