Jasper County Democrat, Volume 20, Number 59, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1917 — HIGH PRICES AND COMMUNITY CO-OPERATION [ARTICLE]

HIGH PRICES AND COMMUNITY CO-OPERATION

We are inclined to view the present era of high prices as conducing entirely to the benefit of the farmer, and to regard him as a very | fortunate individual. True he is I more fortunate than he has been jin times past, but while he has been j relieved of some burdens he has i been saddled with others. Not all j the high prices have benefitted him. j We are too apt to view the farm!er as living entirely on the farm and off its products, in one sense this is true but iip another sense ■ not. While his means come from the farm, much of those means must be exchanged for comriiodities : that do not come from the farm. The farmer must wear clothes, and these must come from the manufacturers and the merchants. He must have farm implements, and these lie cannot make. He must have wagons and buggies; and. if he is to enjoy life as his city- brother, automobiles, and the prices of j these articles are soaring in company with the products of his farm. | But what we started out to rej mark was that the farmers can in I large measure meet and overcome ''the effects of the high prices of j farm implements by a well-planned system of co-operation.. And it looks now as though'this plan will have to be adopted. The demand j for war supplies has diverted ■ the energies of many large factories, 1 and a shortage of farm implements is* freely predicted. ) In this event co-operation in the purchase and use of the more costly of farm tools will prove not only j practicable but profitable. There are many tools used on the farm, where one implement may be made to do the work of several farms. Everjr farmer knows what they are, and it is unnecessary to enumerate them. We merely would impress

the fact.that wherever these can he owned co-operatively, it is not only economy to do so, but it is also of real benefit to the country in this crisis. Every ounce of energy that can be diverted from the manufacture of farm supplies can be devoted to the manufacture of government supplies. Every community in our country should give this matter serious consideration this fall, while planning for that record crop that will be needed next year.