“DAD.”
Dad Gets a Lesson from a Trip to the Farm
Dear Hal:
Every year about this time I get a sort of hankerin’ for yellow-legged chicken and striped gravy—you know, Red—not the kind you see on the bill-of-fare in the cafes which they jokingly term “spring” chicken, without going on record as to just what spring; not the kind that’s cooked all in one piece and tastes like the pet chicken that Grover Cleveland raised when he was in the White House; but rather that old-fashioned, unjointed, juicy, tender, fried-brown country chicken that you’re sure first saw the light of day about May 1st, this year.
Well, anyway, Mother and I piled into the old gas buggy last Sunday and went out in the country just in order to satisfy that craving. You know, Red, I never had a particularly strong leaning toward the farm or anything that goes with it, with the exception of an occasional visit made with the sole intent of just gorging myself on the good things to eat that the farmer always seems to find right handy without having to haggle with the grocer over the price. Not that I thought I was better than the farmer—not that I didn’t appreciate that he was the backbone of the nation, and this and that and this and that, but somehow or other I just never did fall for those poetic rhapsodies and popular songs that usually tell in a high falsetto how dear the old meadow and pigpen were to the heart of a prodigal son. You know I always had the secret hunch that all of that patter was mostly bunk and was written only for commercial purpose to be sold to and raved over by some little mouse of a shop-girl that was trying to carve out a career as a counter-jumper in a department-store basement or by some lonesome hick that had come into the city expecting to conquer it and Cook County in three months and was having trouble to rustle shoes for himself on his salary as a bus boy in a one-arm chair feed-bag oasis.
I have made the mistake of looking on the farm as a sort of necessary evil where they just put the seed in the ground every spring and then let nature do its worst and the reason I didn’t wake up sooner was because I’d been stopping too much at these near-farms where they advertise chicken dinners for two dollars and have an electric piano and a toddle parlor just back of the dining room.
On the way down to the place I was going, I drove up to a pretty likely looking farm with a big red barn and went in. It was a fancy stock farm and much to my surprise they had electric lights, radiators and an electric fan over each stall. They had some blooded cows in there that they milked four times a day—the attendants were all dressed in white like barbers in a loop shop and the only thing that was missing was the blonde manicurist. Even the pigs were washed and primped up and the thing that struck me so funny was that the manager in his conversation actually showed that by running it that way, it paid dividends on the investment. To make a long story short, I went along on my journey impressed with the fact that the fellow who ran that place wasn’t just indulging a fad or hobby but rather was making a success because of brains and because he knew his business. That started me thinking and when I arrived at the farm that had agreed to feed me for a day I was viewing things in a new light.
When I stretched out on the cool back porch after a meal that can be gotten only on a real farm—out there where the very sky seems to come a little closer, where the traffic officer’s whistle would be sacrilegious and the smell of burning gasoline was only a memory—I fell to talking business with my host. I found that I had this farmer business all wrong. True, it was a hard life and a gamble with the elements; true, the price of farm products had been taking a merry toboggan; but I found a spirit of optimism—a studied forgetfulness of the drab part of it—a highly scientific and intelligent working out of a problem that formerly I had guessed was only happenstance. My host had a reason for planting corn on the north eighty and oats on the east quarter. The rations for his live stock were as carefully planned as the contents of a baby’s nursing bottle. In a word—he knew his business and as a result these minor factors of price declines and other annoyances were only an incident in the successful carrying out of a well defined plan.
Naturally, Red, I got to thinking of you and your work and I wondered if you were thoroughly impressed with the necessity of your knowing your business as you have never known it before. I wondered if you could tell the Boss if he asked you right quick the price your competitor was getting for every one of the staple products in your line. I wondered if you had a good knowledge of which branches had too big a stock of certain items and just what you were really doing to change that situation. I wondered if you considered your slow stock report—your Bible—and the thing to really worry over. I wondered if you knew how much the plants had of your product—just how it was moving and just when you should recommend a packing order, and then if such recommendation were made whether it were based on it being the time of the year when the raw material was the most reasonable.