It Tells On Him

HELLO FOLKS — A woman who has a temper she can't control usually has a husband she can.

--o--

FEW THINGS are needful to make the wise man happy, but nothing satisfies the fool.

--o--

HE CAME HOME from his first day at school.
"Ain't going tomorrow," he said.
"Why not, sonny?"
"Well I can't read, I can't write and they won't let me talk, so what's the use".

--o--

SUMMING UP the farm situation, as I see it, goes like this.

Dairying needs a good house cleaning, both from the standpoint of the dairyman and the government. Present government support prices are all to the benefit of the consumer. It gives them food cheaply. The dairy herds need cleaning up. More than half the cows are not returning the owner enough to be worth the effort. Were they to be cleaned out as fast as they start slowing up in production there would be a serious shortage of milk that would set prices soaring.

Beef finishing is in a tough spot and I don't see any hope for improvement in the near future. The consumer doesn't want his beef fat any longer. The rancher is doing a lot of his own finishing and so is the processor.

Hog raising is the brightest of all the livestock enterprises. There will be rough going there if these finishing units take the country by storm, just as did roto tubes, laying units and the like.

Poultry is on the decline in this area and likely to keep on declining.

Feed grains are in a brighter spot, as are soybeans. Now if we can just get a better program out of congress.

Overall, there is dire need for better farm economics. It is the blind spot in agriculture. Few farmers know what they are getting for an hour's work or for each operation. They would do some changing in their op-

Words Worth The Saying

HELLO FOLKS — Came across a few clever sayings that are well worth repeating. They have lot of sense to them.. Here they are:

Life is a journey, not a camp.
Snap judgment, like a bear trap, may catch the one who baits it.
It is no use trying to shine your lamp if you. do not take time to fill it.
A used mind is one item that has more value than a new.
Some of us do not need a bushel to hide our light; a thimble should suffice.

—o—

THE FREEBORN County fair has come to another successful conclusion. There are a few observations I would like to make, as one seeing it from the outside.

First, the weather co-operated 100 per cent. It was not too, hot nor too cold. There was no rain yet it was not so dry that it detracted from the joy of the fair.

I don't recalls year that there have been more total exhibits. Certainly the 4-H exhibits were at a record. And the quality of them were never better. While speaking of 4-H; Eldon Senske and his gang are certainly to be complimented for their grand work. They can't possibly be on an eight-hour schedule; more like a set of three, eight-hour schedules during fair time.

The quality of livestock has greatley improved through the years, and fairs have certainly done their share in helping improve them. Freeborn County has an abundance of beautiful riding horses. The hogs have improved hog of today is a far cry from the old fat lardy type of 20 years ago. And the cows of today will double the production of th show winner of twenty years ago.

Thehmidway was the biggest I have seen. While we were parked at the top of the Ferris Wheel I tried to get a count the many rides available. I believe there were at least 20 of them.

Congratulations to the, fair board and all who had to do with the success of the fair.
—o—

WITH A family as big as ours there are bound tobe exciting moments at the fair. We stopped at a stand to get some hamburgers; Mark (aged four) got tired and decided to go to the car. We thought he had gotten lost and started hunting for him. After a 20 minute search we found him asleep in the car. The same thing happened to Zina, only when we looked in the car she had decided to go look for us.

Jared and Ann had their first time at exhibits. They were very excited and learned a lot. Ann was really thrilled when she got a blue ribbon on her pig. Dana never got enough of the fair. I think he could have lived there and not gotten tired of it. He still has two years to go to be able to exhibit.

No More Milk Support, Please

HELLO FOLKS. Back in Grandpa's time they had the ideal prescription for sound sleep. They called it hard work. We will never build patriotism in our youth by discouraging within them the very things that made this nation strong, thrift, frugality, hard work, etc.

—o—

MILK PRICES have started upward. It is about time that they do so. This might not seem like good news to the consumers, but the dairymen have been taking it on the chin long enough.

I have nothing but admiration for the man who has for these many years worked long and difficult hours milking a bunch of cows for as low an income as he has been getting.

Milking has to be done 14 times a week whether the dairyman is well or ill. Whether it is stormy or fair. Whether he wants to go on a vacation or lot. If he is unable to do it himself he has to find someone who will take over until he is back in the swing of it again. It is nearly impossible to hire anyone to do that work and break even doing it.

The average dairyman in Minnesota has been making about a dollar an hour for his time. The better dairymen who have their production well over -00 pounds of butterfat per cow have done better but have still not been getting a return anywhere in proportion to their skills.

I have been in dairying enough to know that it takes more talent and determination to keep a herd in high and profitable production than it does in most occupations. I suspect that anyone who would be as persistent as the dairyman has to be, would do well in most other fields too.

I mentioned in my year-end report that milk prices would on rise to $4 per hundred and that I would not be too surprised to see them go to $5. However the politicians, Republican and Democrat alike, are in there ready to spoil it.

They are doing it by crying for increased government support prices. This would tend to encourage too much and less efficient production and thereby lower total profits.

Would a substantial increase in milk prices hurt the consumser? An increase of 50 cents per hundred for milk would raise the price of milk 1 cent a quart. If the average worker earns $3 an hour and if he buys an average of three quarts of milk a day he would have to work less than one minute a day longer to pay for the extra price.

This for the most nutritious food on earth for which he has been paying bargain prices for these many years. This 50 cent increase in price would not give the dairyman a high income but would give him enough to be able to stay in business. I believe that he should have more than the 50 cent increase. A dollar would be more equitable.

Should the politicians get their way and raise the support price of milk substantially the dairyman is apt to be cut in his milk prices by 50 cents a hundred. This because it would stimulate production unnecessarily.

Story Reminds of Cattle Drive

HELLO FOLKS — The worst thing about laziness is that there is no cure for it and it doesn't kill.

The trouble with most meetings is that they start at 8 o'clock sharp and close at 10 o'clock dull.

—o—

WHILE MY mind is still fresh with thinking about the 65 mile cattle drive of Don Hight; might I relate the experience of one of my last cattle drives?

This was in the summer of '34. In the month of June my brother Clarence and I were supposed to deliver a heard of cows with their calves to the Hatchet ranch on the Big White River between the towns of Presho and Winner.

The cows had come from that ranch nearly two years earlier; most of them as heifers. They had been brought to the 'Rosebud' with a heard of three of four hundred, to be wintered there because of a feed shortage at the Hatchet. Now the feed was short at home and they were to return.

We got them sorted out and started in good shape. We had about 45 miles to go. There were some new born calves in the heard and one that had been 'dropped' in February. This particular one had gotten it's feet frozen and lost it's hoofs. Consequently it had a hard time to keep up with the rest of the herd.

We had intended to take three days for the trip but the older cows, when we got well along on the trail, realized that they were heading back to familiar grounds. Therefore they were no problem to drive. We covered 25 miles the first day.

The only problems were the new born calves and the one without hoofs. The new born calves were taken care of pretty well by their mothers but the oldest calf just couldn't keep up with the rest.

I felt sorry for him and put him in the saddle for a while. He didn't like that and fought so much I finally had to let him down.

We decided that we couldn't keep fighting him so we let him follow behind. He would lie down awhile and then move awhile. Usually when we rested he would catch up and get a good feed.

The second day we decided that if he couldn't keep up we would have Andy Halvorsgard come and get him in the truck when we got to the ranch. It was a short day's drive and we got to the ranch about 4 or 4:30. Before we could get things squared around and go after the calf we could see him coming down the road. That calf surely had the grit. Towards the last he would go just a few feet and lie down, then get up and go again, but he made it.

We spent the weekend on the Big White, then Clarence when home and I stayed a week or so and worked there. The ride home was just a nice day's ride. Clarence had Tony and got home in fine shape. But the day I went home was the hottest day of the year and I had a green horse that nearly gave out on me. I rested on the way and finished the last of the ride after the sun cooled off a bit.