Jasper County Democrat, Volume 19, Number 99, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 March 1917 — FARM EFFICIENCY [ARTICLE]

FARM EFFICIENCY

Efficiency, discoverer of seventeen lost motions in the laying of bricks, and accelerator in general to labor and business, has turned its questioning eye upon the farmer. What it will say to him and about him before its keen scrutiny is ended, is best left to the imagination. But we may be sure in the -meantime that the seventeen lost motions of .the bricklayer will be a mere pin-prick in the firmament compared to the lost motions that efficiency will uncover in the farmer’s business.

.Even now, with the investigation hardly under way, speaking, as one expert puts it, ‘‘by and large,” the farmer tyorks only three ? fourths of the year. So, Io begin with, the agriculturist av'Sest is only 75 per cent efficient. Until he learns how to work as hard through the winter as he does through the summer, he can hope for no better grade. Indeed, even the 75 per cent grade is denied him. Lost motion is charged against him in practically every operation in which he engages, from gong for the cows to stacking hay. If we take the word of the experts for it, the average farmer's nearest’approach to 100 per cent efficiency is disclosed when he sits in at the first stable of a noontime threshing dinner. But the farmer might do worse than pay some heed to the waste of time and labor attendant upon most of the work he performs. A little consideration of the matter might lead to improvements in general farm arrangement that would make for greater convenience and, so, for less lost motion. Some changes, too, for the better might be made in the interior of the barn. And when it comes to the farmhouse, the 3 ” farmer’s wife is probably able to suggest half a dozen changes that will save time and labor-. - ' One of the efficiency experts suggests that the idle winter months might be put to profitable use if the farmer equipped himself with a greenhouse, wherein early vegetable could be grown. Such a structure, he argues, would quickly pay for itself, and would go fsr toward solving the problem—one of importance to most farmers —of fimHng work to occupy the time of the farm hand. One of the objections brought against farm work by laborers generally is that it engages them little more than half the year, and turns them adrift in a season when, ordinarily.- other work is far from plentiful. The vegetable greenhouse would assure them work the year round. The suggestion is not to be lightly dismissed. In these last idle days of the waning winter it might prove profitable to investigate it.—lndianapolis News.

The state highway commission bill, which was passed by the legislature at the last moment of the session, is regarded as a very good bill. While it does not contain all of provisions that its early supporters wished it to contain, they say it has enough teeth to. give Indiana a good start in the better roads which will be designated by the state highway commission. They are to be let by county commissioners of the counties in which the road is to be built, their aation, however, to be subject to the approval of the state highway engineer appointed by the highway commission. In case the contract does - not meet the approval of the state

highway engineer and an agreement between the engineer and the county commissioners is not arrived at in five days, he may appeal to the state highway commission, which either must sustain or overrule him in ten days. If he is sustained the commission may direct the county commissioners to advertise for new This is going to be a banner year for seed men. The movement to. plant home gardens is everywhere and in Chicago alone thousands of acres will be made into gardens that have not heretofore been cultivated, and the chances are that the seed crop will run short as the potato crop of last year, so it will pay tne would-? be gardeners to get their seed early and then they will have them. Late comers wjH probably have to content themselves with Hobson’s choice and take what they can get. We predict that the H. C. L. will get a jab in the ribs this spring, if gardens "do well, that will make him feel wabbly for several years. If- the public stays out of the market the food speculators will have a white elephant on their hands with no one in sight to sell him to.

Indications Sre that there will be a shortage of farm hands in -Tapper county this year, as every day farmers are in town making inquiries for help. The usual influx of men from other parts of the state at this season of the year is net occurring and it -begins to look as if some of the farmers will be up against it for help. The same conditions exist in neighboring ccuntes, it is said. One reason for this condition is that men who have worked on' farms through the growing season all have good positions in the overworked -mills and, factdWes, and of course, are unwilling to sacrifice ’ti steady job there for one that give promise of lasting not more than nine months at he best.

It is conservatively estimated that the Indiana wheat crop. has been damaged 50 p©R cent by winter kill, according to reliable farmers and grain men. This damage is largely resultant from insufficient snow covering during the coldest weather of several years. The crop last year was light, being badly damaged by the Hessian fly, and ’here is no reason to believe that the fly will not be in evidence again this year. In such a case the wheat harvest will be the lightest per acre for many years.

Among the bills that went to the scrap heap during the closing hours of the recent session of the Indiana legislature Was, that granting the public service commission power to permit railroads to advance passenger rates from 2 cents a mile to 2 % cents a mile.