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THE SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL
ATLANTA, GA.. 5 NORTH FORSYTH ST. A ,
Entered at the Atlanta Postoffice as Mail Mattei
of the Second Class.
si bsckhtion price
Twelve months * aC
Six months *® c
Three months .....25c j
The Semi-Weekly Journal is published on
Tuesday and Friday, and is mailed by the short
est routes for early delivery.
It contains nawy from all over the wodd, j
brought by special leased wires into our oftbe.
it has a staff of distinguished contributors, with
strong departments of special value to the home
and the farm
Agents wanted at every postoffice. Liberal
| commission allowed. Outfit free Write R. R
BRADLEY. Circulation Manager.
The only traveling representatives we have
are B. F. Bolton. C. C. Coyle. Charles H. Wood
' liff. J. M. Patten. W. H. Reinhardt. M. H. Hevil
and John Mac Jennings. We will be responsible
only for money paid to the above named travel
ing representatives
> ■ ■ ■ — z
• * NOTICE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
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skSI-WEEKLY jnniXAX. Atlanta. Ga.
Advantages and Needs of South
eastern Ports.
In view of the great congestion prevailing in
Bie ports of the East and the struggle of the gov
lemment railroad administration with this prob
lem. the wisdom of diverting much of the Eu
ropean export business through the, southern and
eoutheasiem ports becomes more and more ap
parent
It appears that heretofore nearly all the ship
ping of the country was routed through eastern
ports. It can be readily seen how this brought
"about the conditions which resulted in overflow
ing warehouses and docks and delayed shipments
to our allies. Commenting upon the subject, the
Manufacturers’ Record says:-
"It seemed difficult to awaken the ship
| pers and the railroads and the financial pow
ers controlling the situation to the fact that
u endless contusion was certain to come about
"by reason of the effort to drive the entire
trade of this mighty country, crowded to the
limit with the production of munitions for
* * the allies, through the narrow throat of the
funnel of New York and other North At
lantic ports. Stretched out as a great funnel
into which was being poured the vast traffic
of the North and West and Northwest, and
indeed of portions of the Southwest, the
funnel ended at New York City, and yet rail
road men, bankers, government officials, and
shippers generally, tried to ram through a
small funnel, throat or neck, a volume of
traffic which filled the entire funnel to over
flowing.”
Record also calls attention to the fact that
E. Clarke of the Interstate Commerce Com-
Mssion,* in his testimony before the Senate in
vestigating committee, "took the ground very in
■istently that more exports must be sent from
Southern and southeastern ports to relieve the
Bmtinued congestion at New York and New Eng-
Knd ports.**
The advantages of the southeastern ports in
situation are obvious They possess good
and excellent dock and wharf facilities
the government, now that it has control of the
will undoubtedly find that it can make-
and greater use of them in getting ship-
to Europe.
grain shipments from the west will be
to flow through these ports, too. as soon as
elevator facilities have been constructed in
Kdequate volume. Due to the fact that the grain
shipments have heretofore been routed to north
ern ports, southern ports for the most part have
not been equipped for shipping grain in large
, quantities. More bulk grain elevators are the
present need of these ports, and will undoubtedly
be forthcoming as the great advantages of the
southeastern outlets are recognized and as they
become more and more the means of relieving
the heavy strain put by the war upon the export
facilities of the east.
• |W
The Apple and the Peanut.
It is always gratifying to note evidences that
the work of diversified farming is going forward
■ln the South. The Tifton Gazette in calling at-
I tention to the increase in the apple crop of this
■ State says:
■ “Apples are said to be plentiful in market
I centers and good stocks are in reserve. Only
■ within recent years has the apple industry in
[ Georgia •attracted much attention, but now
the homegrown fruit is deservedly the prefer
ence in this state. The Georgia growers are
I reported to have harvested a fine crop, and
many new orchards are being planted in the
northern connties of the State.”
The Moultrie Observer relates an interesting
story of a farmrr who went in for raising pea
nuts and found profit in it. "He planted 125
acres In cotton last year,” says the Observer, “and
made sixteen bales, the boll weevil having been
■ especially pctive iu his fields. He planted twelve
acres in peanuts and sold eight hundred dollars’
worth of peanuts and still has the hay from the
crop. As the result he will plant 125 acres in
peanuts this year and 12 acres in cotton."
Commenting upon the Observer’s story, the
Tifton Gaxette says; "This reminds us of the
experience of a young farmer living near the line
of Tift and Turner. This year from twelve acres
he sold ISIO worth of peanuts, an average of S3O
an acre, and he had the hay as a surplus crop.”
It is generally known that the farmers, par
' tieularly of South Georgia, this year embarked
more largely than ever before upon raising hogs
and beef cattle. The velvet bean. too. has added
Incalculable wealth to the State. The war has
i changed methods of government, methods of
financing, methods of doing business, and it is
also changing, and changing rapidly, methods of
farming. The oM ways and the old crops will no
longer suffice under new conditions. The movement
for breaking away from the one-crop system and
the entering upon the production of varied food
I •■'’■op.- has lone been insisted upon in the South. It
(tj.ji.de slow progress at first but the war and the
of war conditions have added a great
' impetus to it, and now almost dally fresh evidences
I of its progress axe to be observed.
♦
The Nitrate Problem.
Georgia cotton growers and the numerous in
dustries dependent on them will be greatly relieved
by the announcement that the Government has per
fected plans for supplying Southern farmers with
nitrate of soda in quantities sufficient for the pro
duction of next season’s crop. Mr. Mell R. Wil
kinson, who is rendering the country invaluable
service as Assistant Secretary of Agriculture in
charge of the distribution of fertilizers, is quoted
by The Journal’s Washington correspondent to the
effect that within the next fortnight or so a ship
from Chile will dock at Savannah with some
eighteen thousand tons of nitrate for sale, at cost
plus freight charges, to the farmers of this State.
It appears in this connection that, pursuant to a
ten million dollar appropriation mad£ for the pur
pose at the preceding session of Congress.
The government has purchased, all told.
100.000 tons of Chilean nitrates for the use
of American farmers in the production of
their next crop. While it is probable that in
ordinary times the farmers use in excess of
this quantity of fertilizer, the government
hopes to make the 100.000 tons meet the re
quirement by rigidly regulating its distribu
tion. That is one of the reasons why the
government’s nitrate importation will be sold
only to individual farmers on the recommen
dation of county agents. Tn no circumstances
will the government permit any one fanner
to secure a larger quantity of fertilizer than
he actually requires.
It is fortunate indeed that the present emer
gency is to be met by the Government in so thor
oughgoing a manner. But this does not solve the
basic problem concerned. Nor will that problem
be solved until means are provided, through the
development of the country’s water power re
sources. for the production of nitrates from the
air. For military as well as agricultural reasons
the United States cannot afford to remain de
pendent on a far distant, over-sea source of sup
ply for an element without which not a round of
ammunition or a bushel of wheat could be pro
duced. Furthermore, the excessive cost of the im
ported nitrate places a heavy and really needless
burden on our farmers and Government alike.
On every dollar’s worth of this commodity which
we buy from Chile, we pay the Chilean Govern
ment an export duty of sixty cents —a tax runs
into the millions. What this means to the farm
ers of Georgia may be inferred from the fact that
this State, together with South Carolina, uses al
most as much fertilizer as all the rest of the South,
and together with North Carolina, nearly as much
as all the rest of the Union. The development of
this region’s water power resources, by making pos
sible the cheap and abundant production of nitrate
in the heart of the farming territory where it is
most in demand, would solve one of the Nation’s
largest problems, both of agriculture and of na
tional defense.
A Great Southern Achievement.
In recording the fact that upwards of four hun
dred million dollars’ worth of steel and wooden
ships are now under construction or contract along
the South Atlantic and the Gulf coast, the Manu
facturers’ Record observes:
"Georgia furnishes its quota at the ports of
Savannah and Brunswick, the former having
three plants with contracts for thirty ships
valued at thirty million dollars, and the latter
six yards, five of which have been established
during the past year.”
Georgia’s seaports are destined to a more and
more important part in the material interests of
the State, both in matters of transportation and in
dustry. Their excellent harbors, their ample rail
and ship connections, their proximity to great fields
of iron and coal and also to the interior points
from which lumber, cement and kindred supplies
are drawn, all go to make these ports capital ship
building centers.
They thus will play a continually more im
portant part in the affairs of the Nation as well
as of the State. Shipbuilding on unexampled pro
portions and at an unprecedented rate of speed is
essential to the winning of the war. Without ade
quate ocean shipping facilities we cannot main
tain our troops in France or even transport them
thither, much less send sufficient stores of food to
our low-rationed Allies. Regardless of the sub
marine menace, we must have more ships and still
more ships to make our military and economic
resources effective. It is indeed gratifying that
the South is contributing so richly to this end.
Along the entire Atlantic and Gulf coast from
Maryland to Texas, there is not a single port which
is not producing ships in one or more yards; and a
vast deal, if not most, of this enterprise and ac
tivity have developed within the last twelvemonth.
The capital and energy and constructive thought
thus invested will serve, not for the war period
alone, but on through the stirring years of com
mercial contest and expansion that will mark our
national history when peace returns. There is rea
son to believe that American dependence in mat
ters of high-sea shipping will be shaken off and
that as in the days of old our merchant flag will
star every ocean path and revive our country’s sea
traditions the world around. We dare not let the
years ahead find us as miserably provided with
shipping as we were at the outbreak of the pres
ent war, when more than ninety per cent of our
oversea trade was carried in foreign bottoms. An
adequate merchant fleet of our own Is as vital a
matter of preparedness as is the building of an
invincible navy. Otherwise we shall never be able
to play a prosperous or worthy serviceable part in
the world development that will begin with peace.
Happily, preparations of a most vigorous and far
reaching character are going forward to that end.
with Georgia and the South in the full swing of
th? vast labor.
•—
Judge Wright's Election.
In the overwhelming election of Hon. W. C.
Wright, of Newnan, as the successor of Hon. W. C.
Adamson in the United States congress, the
Fourth district has not only chosen an able repre
sentative. but has given unmistakable evidence
that the people of this district are unitedly sup
porting the president in the prosecution of the war.
The Journal congratulates the people of the
Fourth district on their patriotism and their good
Judgment. An able lawyer and a loyal Democrat,
Judge Wright well merited the honor which has
been conferred upon him. Already he has ren
dered conspicuous service to his district, his state
and his party. Now he goes to Washington to
serve the state and the nation and he goes with
the full confidence of his people and with a mes
sage of loyalty and patriotic support to the presi
dent. The Journal wishes for him increasing suc
cess and honor and a record of splendid achieve
ment.
VHE ATLANTA SEMI-WEEKLY JOURNAL, ATLANTA, GA.. FRIDAY, JANUARY 18, 1918.
The Wolf at Germany's Door.
W hile the food problem is admittedly serious
with our Allies, wc may gather reassurance from
the fact that it is more serious in Germany. A
Hollander direct, from a sojourn in that wolf
haunted land is quoted by the Berne correspondent
of the New York World as saying. “Only the very
rich can stave off the pangs of hunger.” Other
reports do not go that far, hut all agree that civil
ian Germany is feeling the pinch of extreme priva
tion.
The Kaiser’s subjects still may be a long way
from actual starving, but it is evident from all
accounts that they are succumbing physically if
not otherwise to the effects of long-continued under
nourishment. Herbert Corey described the situa
tion conservatively when he wrote earlier in the
winter, in one of his highly interesting war letters
to The Journal, that while perhaps no one in Ger
many was dying from hunger, no one had enough
to eat —enough, that is. to meet minimum require
ments for bodily strength and health. This con
dition of affairs could be borne for weeks and
months with fortitude and without threatening
disaster. But when it is prolonged for years, dis
ease and general impairment of national efficiency
are inevitable.
The situation is chiefly significant as showing
that in the endurance test which is so important
a phase of the war Germany is bound to lose if
we do our duty in sending food to our Allies. Each
winter has told more keenly on her ill-fed millions
until this, the fourth and grimmeet, finds them
approaching desperate straits. The effect upon
the outcome of the war, however, depends in large
measure on how well America performs her duty
of helping to provision our low-rationed Allies.
We must, keep them in supplies if the odds against
Germany ate to be duly effective and the endur
ance test is to continue in our favor. Every pound
of food that we save to pour into the balance on
the side of our friends in battle is a bolt against
Prossianism.
OVER THERE
By Dr. Frank Crane
OVER there they’re going, a million of the
best and brightest. Over here why all this
cry of Liberty bonds/ food conservation, and
surtax? It means that the fathers, mothers, broth
ers. and sisters are standing by, to feed, clothe,
and arm their soldiers.
Over there they are flirting with death In air
planes, defying death in trenches, flouting death in
the trumpeted charge. What are you doing over
here? Criticising the government? Whining be
cause you cannot use your free speech to dishearten
your country? Complaining because you cannot
ride vour pet hobbies?
Over there they have the monster of red mil
itarism by the throat. Over here are you talking
of a peace that shall let that monster escape still
strong to wreak his filthy will?
Over there is e. Niagara of self-sacrifice. Over
here are you seeking to water your crop of profits
by the sneaking streams of self-indulgence?
Over there is your son, even now perhaps in an
unknown grave. Over here are you going to en
courage the opinionated fanatics who can speak
only slander and scorn for England and America,
who are standing shoulder to shoulder against the
onslaught of the three-headed werewolf that is
ravaging the earth?
Over there the mad mullahs of Prussianism are
torpedoing peaceful ships, the assassins of the sea
are destroying the commerce of the world, food
and merchandise for the welfare of the people are
piling up in the bottom of the sea, “spurlos ver
senkt.’’ Over there they are carrying men away
into captivity, mutilating children, outraging wom
en. reducing cities to rubbish heaps, devastating
fields as by fire and salt, still prating of world
might and the mailed fist.
Over here, if we are doing any less than our
supreme best, if we are not placing at our country's
disposal all our lives, our fortunes and our sacred
honor, we are recreants to the greatest duty des
tiny ever ifnposed upon a free people, we are silent
allies of the lords of hell.
What are you doing—-over here?
(Copyright. 1917, by Frank Crane.)
TO ESCAPE PNEUMONIA
By H. Addington Bruce
The pneumonia season is once more under
full swing. Already this dread disease has claimed
thousands of victims. There is every reason to
fear that it will claim thousands more before
balmy springtime puts it to flight.
To lessen the danger that you will be one of
those seized in its deadly grasp, there are certain
’ precautions you should take —precautions that will
virtually guarante yon immunity aaginst pneumo
nia.
In the first place, and of chief importance,
avoid excesses of every kind.
Practice temperance in eating, drinking, work
ing, and playing. Make moderation your rule in
all things.
The man who clogs is system by overeating,
who poisons himself with alcohol, tea, coffee, or
other stimulant, who works or plays to exhaustion,
is -precisely the man most likely to find himself
laid low by pneumonia.
Avoiding excesses, avoid late hours likewise.
Get plenty of sleep every night. And while sleep
ing, let plenty of fresh air into the bedroom.
Good fresh air will never give you pneumonia.
On the contrary, the pneumonia germ thrives where
there is poor ventilation. That is why street cars,
churches, theaters, stores, etc., often are danger
spots during the pneumonia season.
Keep out of these as much as you can, particu
larly if fatigued. In fact, as far as possible make
it a rule to go into no crowded places when tired.
In crowded places it always is difficult to get
ample ventilation. Besides, where there are crowds
there is increased likelihood of pneumonia germs
being in the air you breathe.
These germs, remember, are let loose by cough
ing, sneezing, and spitting. Therefore, beware the
man who coughs, sneezes, or spits. Give him a wide
berth.
Remember also that germs may be conveyed
by articles with which another person’s mouth has
been in contact. D o not use drinking cups, towels,
tooth brushes, or pipes that other people have been
using.
Keep your feet dry and your head cool. Wear
warm clothing, but not clothing so heavy as to set
you in a perspiration when indoors.
Walk at least two miles every day briskly, with
chest out and head up. Make it four miles if you
can spare the time.
Walking is one of the best forms of exercise,
and to take exercise every day is one of the sim
plest and surest means of safeguarding against
pneumonia.
But don't force yourself to exercise when tired.
Don’t eat when tired. And don't do any really hard
thinking when tired.
At all times try to conquer any tendency to
worry.
Worry means physical as well as mental exhaus
tion. It is a depressant that acts on the entire
lodily system, lowering the physical vitality to a
dangerous degree.
And the secret of successfully warding off
pneumonia is to keep the vitality up to the highest
point possible. Bear this well in mind.
Everything that reduces your bodily vigor is
an ally of pneumonia. Everything that makes you
more vigorous is your ally and pneumonia's enemy
(Copyright, 1918, by the Associated Newspapers.)
MAKING BEEF OUT OF DESERT
How Science Can Replace Luck in the Arid West.
By Frederic J. Haskin.
WASHINGTON, Jan. 14. —On a sample bit of
desert in southern ’New Mexico, the forest
service has demonstrated how the desert
can t>e made. not. to bloom, but into beef. It has
shown how the arid western ranges upon which we
are dependent for meat can be made to produce
under scientific government management about
twice as much as they are now producing.
♦ ♦ •
The experiment of scientific range manage
ment on the Jornada range reserve has been going
on for several years. It will take many more years
to show the full possibilities of scientific knowl
edge applied to cattle-ranching, but what has al
ready been done is of great promise and importance
in these days of dwindling meat supply.
The forest service selected for its experiment
one of the most unpromising bits of desert in the
southwest. The Jornada range reserve is in Dona
Ana county, New Mexico, and takes its name from
the fact that it lies mainly in a great basin which
was named by the Mexicans the Valley of the Jour
ney of Death. They gave it this pleasing name
after a Mexican general tried to march his troops
across it and most of them died of thirst. The
average rainfall in this region is but a little more
than eight inches a year, and is sometimes little
more than three inches. Summer temperatures
of 106 are not uncommon. High winds that drink
up moisture like thirsty giants blow almost in
cessantly.
• * •
Small stock owners tried to gain a foothold in
this region, but one by one they failed and moved
out. In years of good rain, their herds would in
crease a little, but a bad year would wipe out
all they had gained. Finally but one man was
left, C. T. Turney, who made a success by utiliz
ing all of the range and water for his one herd.
This progressive ranchman agreed to place his
stock and land at the disposal of the forest service,
and to build all the fences and windmills they
wanted, provided that he should be reimbursed for
these expenditures with free use of government
lands for grazing. That was in 1912. Today the
number of cattle which the range will carry has
been increased at least fifty per cent, the average
number of calves born every year has increased
about twenty-five per cent, silos have been built,
and the prickly Spanish bayonet, hitherto consid
ered useless, converted into excellent ensilage: the
disease of blackleg has been largely eradicated, and
the Valley of the Journey of Death is considered one
of the best-watered cattle ranges in southern New
Mexico. James T. Jardine and L. C. Hurtt, the
government grazing experts who have charge of
the work, say that it has just begun.
« • •
The government men found this range dotted
with windmills at intervals of ten or fifteen miles.
A low arid mountain range containing a few
springs occupied one side of it. About the watering
places the better forage grasses had been almost
exterminated by overgrazing, while everywhere the
capacity of the range had been greatly reduced.
The watering places were so far apart that weak
ened cows and calves often fell dead after trav
eling over the desert to reach them and then
drinking their fill.
• • •
Stock raising, as carried on by most of the
ranchmen in the southwest, is a form of gambling
in which the uncertain element is the weather.
The task of the experts was to reduce this game,
with the odds against the player, to a science.
• • •
They immediately saw what the untrained man
had overlooked for a hundred years, that there
were two radically different kinds of range within
the experimental area of 200,000 acres. In the
foothills and mountains grew a low grass which
in the fall bore rich heads of black grain, known
THE WAR, Y. M. C. A., AND YOU—By Booth Tarkington
NO; there is no end to “subscribing,” because
we have gone to war and “all rules are
off.” The rules of peace-time, when we
thought our money was something sacred to our
selves, when we thought that it was our own
money, because we had earned it, or because
somebody had willecf it to us. or because invest
ments had “made it” for us—those aih the rules
which are most particularly and violently “off.”
Nothing could give us a much greater shock than ■
the discovery that “our own money” does not ac
tually belong to our own selves, after all, but does
belong (and will cetrainly go) where it is most
needed by the nation. This is a matter plainly
revolutionary and of the greatest difficulty and
even painfulness, in regard to our mental adjust
ment to it; and yet it can be proved with the ut
most simplicity. Thus: No one can interfere
with the distribution of his money where it is
most needed by the nation, and go without shame
—both inward shame and notorious shame. That
is, he has done wrong, and knows it himself, and,
moreover, his neighbors know it Why is this
true, if he has only kept tight hold of his own
money? If it were his own, it wouldn’t be wrong
for him to keep tight hold of it. No; the war is
proving to us that all money belongs where it is
most needed by the nation and not where it is
most desired, selfishly, by the individual. And in
war the nation needs money most where money
will do the most good to the soldier.
We say, "I gave to the Red Cross.” No; that
is a mistake: we didn’t "give." Money consists
of markets or “chips" representing accumulated
labor, and when we part with money we release
stored-up labor; that is, a form of energy. The
Red Cross is working for us; it is working for the
most vital possession that we have, in time of war,
our soldiers. When we "gave" money to the Red
Cross we merely transferred some of our energy
to another form of our energy. War is teaching
us to say "our” and not “mine;” for it is only as
a part of the whole that an individual has value
in a nation at war.
A nation at war is not a nation going about its
usual business in its customary way while an army
fights for it. That would be like a man who sits
in an armchair and reads the paper, with one
groping fist engaged in conflict with an enemy.
This will do well enough when the hostile party
is a child, and it was thus we fought Spain in ’9B,
and thus we subdued Geronimo and Sitting Bull;
but this war is the World War! It is being fought
by nations whose armies are only their cutting
edge; and if our own nation is not a nation at war
with its w r hole soul and body, then it is a nation on
the way to pay the price for indifference to warn
ings that blaze its whole sky blood red.
The army is truly but the cutting edge of a na
tion at war; the full strength of the nation must
wield it, and it is the nation that must clean and
sharpen it after battle. So much is mere self-pres
ervation. What helps the soldier helps the nation.
The nation depends upon him and he depends upon
the nation; it is all one engine, and if one part fails
the whole will fail. The foot is as much in battle
as the cutting edge of the weapon in the hand; the
laborer at home is as much a part of the war as the
soldier. What helps the soldier helps me. Again,
therefore I do not "give” when I do my share for
him. I must, for myself, do my share "for him.”
I must for my children. 1 must for my nation —■
or I shall have none, be part of none. lam in bat
tle when the soldier is in battle: and he will not
fail unless I fail him. He has "gone the limit;”
be is the cutting edge and he never fails so long as
his nation never fails him. When nations are at
war, the soldier is not beaten until the nation is j
beaten.
An unbeaten nation, a nation which means not
to be beaten, keeps its soldiers “fit,” morally and
mentally and physically. If it doesn’t, do that it
is Deaieu, or is going to be beaten —and let not
as gramma grass, while in the flats a coarse green
grass called tobosa was the chief forage. As long
as the cattle were allowed to roam at will they
sought the gramma in the summer while it was
growing, and went down to the tobosa flats in
the winter when the grass was dry and of little
value. The experts immediately fenced off the
gramma. They ranged the stock on the tobosa
flats in the summer, and during the lean months
from February until the sumer rains began in
July, they had the dry but nutritious crop of gram
ma to fall back upon. This not only greatly re
duced the loss of stock from starvation, but it
greatly improved the gramma range by giving It
time to recuperate.
• • *
The water supply was the most serious ques
tion. The method of getting water was to sink wells
from 175 to 500 feet deep and erect windmills
over them. This was expensive. In fact, it was the
expense of sinking wells more than any other one
thing which had squeezed out the small ranchers.
The experts quickly determined how many wells
they could afford to sink and still produce cattle on
a paying basis. They then supplemented these
wells by building dams across the arroyos so as
to catch freshet water. They also built one pipe
line eight miles long from some permanent springs
in the mountains, thus carrying water to a part
of the range which would otherwise have been
useless. In this way they built up & watering sys
tem such that cattle rarely had to travel more
than two and one-half miles to get water.
• • •
It was found profitable in especially bad
weather to feed some of the cattle a small amount
of cottonseed cake; but this alone did not fill their
needs. They must have some form of roughage.
Accordingly two silos were built, and some tobosa
grass was harvested and stored during the sum
mer. In the winter the silos were opened and the
gress fed to the cattle, but they refused to eat it.
The experiment was then tried of cutting the
desert plant variously known as yucea, Spanish
bayonet and century plant, which grows abundant- *
ly in the southewestern deserts, and is of no
forage value on the ground. When this had been
softened by being put through an ensilage ma
chine and stored in the silos, the cattle ate it
eagerly.
• • •
The experts found that the average crop of
calves on this range was but 60 per cent of the
herd per year. By all of the above methods and
by Introducing bulls of the best Hereford blood,
this was increased to 81 per cent in a bad year.
• • •
The need of scientific supervision of the arid *
cattle range is shown by the difficulty of estimat
ing the capacity of the range. On any given range
a certain number of acres are necessary, on an
average, to support one head of stock one year.
The cattlemen, going at the matter hit or miss,
nearly always overstocks his range in good years
and then suffers heavy loss in bad ones. The sci
entists found that it was necessary to divide the
range on this one area into eight different classes,
the carrying capacity of each class being deter
mined by observations extending over a number of
years. It was found that one head of stock re
quires from twenty to one hundred acres of range
for its support J” this region.
• • •
It is evident that if similar studies were car
ried out upon all the arid range lands, and ths
stocking limited according to capacity, losses would ,
be greatly reduced. •
• • •
Much has been said about the passing of the
open range, with its romantic but unproductive
methods. Few realize how complete the change
is to be. Ths cattle ranch of the future will be
operated tn as careful and scientific a manner as
, a hothouse.
one of us for a moment forget that while the Red
Cross succors and restores the injured soldier, the
most important working mechanism yet devised
and put into practical operation for helping the
soldier in pound and wholesome moral and mental
and physical condition is the Young Menjp Chris
tian association, as organized for war work.
Now, thd government is putting the soldiers in
the field, equipped with guns and*gunpowder, ready
to fight: and the government is taking the money
from us to pay the soldier and to pay for his
weapons and transportation. The government has
taken our money for these things, we say, but it
has acted only as our agent—the nation’s agent—
in this spending the nation’s money as the nation
had to have that money spent in the cause of the
nation’s ideal of liberty, without which the nation’s
life is not worth living. But the government has
left it to other agencies to do other things; yet two
of these things are as necessary to victory (which
depends on the soul and the body of the soldier)
as are the soldier s weapons and his transportation
to the field of battle; and these two things the
work covered by the Red Cross and that performed
by the Young Men’s Christian association behind -
the lines. The work done by tlie Y. M. C. A. in
prison camps is a work of humanitarianism, but
that done behind the lines is one of the great in
gredients of victory.
We dare not neglect it or slight it We dare not
refuse to “give” to it because we have “given to so
many things.” The government does not act as
our agent here; nor, in this, do we compel our
selves, in the form of taxes, to recognize that we
are all at war and all in the war. None the less,
our support of the war Y. M. C. A. is compulsory,
because it is compelled by three things: cqmmon
sense, necessity, and conscience.
Common sense tells us that whatever makes a
man’s soul and body healthier, resting him and re- «
vitalizing him after the unspeakable drudgery of
the trenches, keeping his mind to wholesome alle
viations and cheering cleanliness during his off
hours —common sense tells us that whatever does
this makes him a better soldier. And information
tells us that this is precisely the work of the war
Y. M. C. A. Our “contribution” is compelled by
necessity because we know- that whatever makes a
soldier a better soldier is an ingredient of victory,
and victory is ane .essity. If we fight only a draw
we are back where we were before the war began.
We went to war to compel a nation, which would
not be compelled save by force, to respect our lib
erty. If that nation is not compelled, our liberty
is not preserved, and whatever is vital to the force
at-arms, with which we are compelling, is vital to
our liberty, which is itself vital to us. The concre
tion of our soldiers is the vital thing in our force
of-arms. and therefore the work of the war Y. M.
C. A. in improving that condition is a necessity.
Our “contribution” is compelled by conscience be
cause —well, examine your own in case you don’t
“contribute!” No; probably you will not need to
examine your conscience, in that case. It would
do the examining and probably the examination
would take place, at uncomfortable intervals, for
the rest of your life. Paying in conscience is more
expensive than paying in money.
QUIPS AND QUIDDITIES
i' ■ ■—- ■ -
An Irishman went on a visit to a friend’s house
recently. On his arrival he was met at the door by
a fierce looking dog. which began to bark viciously
at him. Pat drew back in alarm and asked his
friend to call the animal off.
“You needn’t be afraid.” remarked the friend
“Remember the old proverb, 'Barking dogs don’t
bite!’ ”
“That’s all very well.” answered Pat. "You
know the proverb, I know the proverb, but does the
dog know the‘proverb?”