k- —Lancaster Farming, Saturday, July 29, 1961 FROM WHERE WE STAND - The High Cost Of High Living It’s not the high cost o£ living, but the cost of high living that hurts.. That’s the way a friend put it sev eral weeks ago and we have had oc casion to use it several times since then. It comes in real handy when you hear people complaining about how much the cost of food has gone up. In- one such discussion last week a rural non-farm resident was telling the group just how much it was costing to feed his family of four. He went into a long discussion l of how much more expensive food is now than it was a few years ago. We listened to his harangue for quite a while until he began' to tell l us about- the new-automobile he had ord ered and what a shrewd deal he- was making. But even with all his cunning, he was paying almost a thousand dol lars more than a comparable car would have cost him twenty years ago. He said, “We will probably be" eat ing TV dinners' for a year to pay fbr it, (the new car) 1 but’ I guess it will be worth it.”* ' You can't argue with a person in such a mood,. but we couldn’t let the opportunity pass by. We asked for just live minutes to tell him a story and he agreed to listen. The story begins in 1939 when the editor raised a flock of 300 broilers for a Future Fanner project. We sold the broilers at 12 weeks for 28 cents a pound and made a pretty nice little profit. The dealer was happy because thfe birds were' good quality and he could sell them at a profit, and some hdusewife would be happy because she could have a Sunday dinner at a reas onable price if she bought the chicken dressed and stuffed or cut it up in her o'rtrn kitchen. Last week at the Lancaster Poultry Center broilers averaged under 12 ceftits per pound. The growers were going broke. Buyers were not happj because they- feed tcc small a price to begin with to do much moving. The housewife didn’t appreciate the break she was getting because the week be fore, the supermarket gave a whole chicken away with every five dollars of groceries she bought and this week they asked her to pa j as much for pan refedy meat as live broilers brought bdck in 1939. That same Future Farmer was a pfioud boy when his first egg check calme from the cooperative in 1940. For thie first case of eggs he shipped he re ceived $15.00, a fabulous amount for a high school farm boy in those days. It does not take too much h'gher mathe matics to figure out that those eggs re turned to the producer a very nice 50 cents per dozen, wholesale. (Feed cost about $40.00 per ton at that time). _ Last week in New York, the highest price paid for Extra Fancy .Heavy weight White eggs was 43 cents per dcteep. (Feed last week cost over $90.00 petjton). We concluded our story by asking, pound were preferred two to food, and air are most fav- Housewives Like on ®- „ 0 - A . orable > Hibbard w Dr E. P. Roy of the Agn- WAinhofJ Pnnc cultural Experiment Station, ° nce the moisture or oxy- TTCiyMCU u yy a in co-operation with the Ag- Sen supply is exhausted, Louisiana Experiment Sta- ricultural Extension Service, roots cannot grow beyond xion researchers are running is conducting the research. A the area Plants may wither a sales test in grocery stores final report will be available and die from drought while Consumers in these stores hi September Vito Tra- abundant water lies only a have the opportunity to com- monte, pres : dent of Home- J ew inches beyond the root pare the cost of eggs to the 'own Grocery Chain, Lake tip cost of meats and other com- Charles, Louisiana, made his modities Eggs are selling for stores available for the ex- J4c per pound in a control et periment Aso co-operating experiment alongside egg 1,1 the test i~ the Sweet Lake pr : ced by the dozen Those Land & Oil Company, which priced by the pound average packs eggs for IG chain out to be the same as eggs priced by the dozen Each individual carton o' eggs is weighed and priced on a net weight basis La^g'- gummed ’abels indicate the Plant roots have no sense price per pound, and net of direction except to grow •we : ght and the total price downward, according to AH. Three More Weeks Hibbard, horticulturist at The experiment will run the University of Missouri six weeks and is now on'v Even this seme s lost after half completed It is an~a~- the plants become established ent from preliminary cacuia- Then roots usual'y grow in tions that eggs priced by the all directions, pound are outseTing cartons Most rapid growth and priced in the usual manner, branching occurs where con in some instaro ■es eggs by the d-lions o! moisture, plant “Now you tell us- what else* besides food you can buy at less than 1940 pric* es and we will agree what foods are too high priced.” Of course many housewives do be lieve that food is too high priced. They overlook many items in the basket at the supermarket which bear no resem blenee to food. Items such as paper goods, soaps and other cleaning sup plies, drugs, tobaccos, and sundry items are carried home with the groc eries and all too often considered in with the price of food. 'But this aside, the' aver age house wife fails to consider the enormous a mount of buift-in-maid-service in the food she carries home each week. Even the TV dinners our friend was dread ing so much would cost only a fraction of the listed prices if the housewife bought the ingredients and prepared them in her own kitchen. -Irt this speeded' up existance in which we find ourselves,'Mrs,. America is demanding more and more in the way of this built-in-maid-service. And Mrs. America gets whatever she demands, but somebody has to pay for it. It is not the high cost of Bving, but the cost of high living that hurts. At least that’s how it looks from where we stand. When any of us poor, uninformed private citizens cries out against I ee spending government and the unbal anced budget, he is quickly hushed with the reply that the cause of it all is our tremendous defense budget De fense spending, of course, is the white ' goddess on the pedestal and if me dares question any part of it, the spenders say something like; ‘ Sir, would you sell freedom down the nv er?” Of course, they can say it i i a more menacing tone. Even a white goddes can .have a spot of mud on her skirt here and there, however, it seems, Comptrc' l er General Joseph Campbell, head of the General Accounting Office, sometimes called the “watchdog on spending.” re ports that the Defense Department cost the taxpayers $3O million by 'fil ing to ask for competitive bids on spare aircraft parts; that much of the purchase of some $lO6 million wort’' l of the parts through negotiated contracts was unjustified. Well, now, we’re glad to find that we do have a watchdog. We hadn’t realized it and we’re still not convinc ed that he’s on the job all the time. Or, if he is, he doesn’t bark very loudly. There must be a few other little, paltry items spent for defense that might be looked into, we imagine. Of course, $3O million more or less doesn’t mean much in a modem governmental bud get, but, a few mil 1 ions here, a few millions there they do add up! Livestock Reporter, East St. Louis Fact or Fancy Can plant roots seek out and grow towards soil mois ture 7 The White Goddess Lancaster Farming l-ancas‘er County'* Own Farm Weekly P O Box 1524 Lancaster, Penna. Off'ces: 53 orth Duke St Lancaster Penna Plione - Lancaster Express 4-3047 Jack Owen, Editor Rob rt Cf Campbell, Ar rtising D rector &. Business 'Tanager Es'a 1 lished November 1955 Pa I s'ed every Sat by Lanca-'er Fanning, Lane ‘ r, Pa Ei ered as 2nd class i i 'or at Lancaster, Pa under Act r Mar S, ■’B"9 additional entry Mount Jov Pa Sub eript on Ratos J 2 tear three years $5 Single cm > Price 5 cents Mem' ers Pa Newspaper ' b’ish ei« 's cation. National ’ torial Association. Thomas thought it \\oiiij* Billie Material. John"!'!.s-18: W'iSMfj ‘vorse than ancst 20-.24-29, Acts il3 . < too, that we may die Devotional Reading: 1 John lel-t- . he said He did not thij 1 -n was riding the load to lit Bewilderment At the L.ml Sup por . the voice of Thomas on 1 “lord, v. e do not i no ‘ - I you' are going, how can , 'T'HOSE who are convex led to | IIC | J "' a3 < i c completely bewildered , * faith in Christ bung their djd not leavc tl)c tafa temperaments with them Soma 0 ,, t Jnto people a.e temperamentally wag - at fl ]qw ** optimistic others are by nature as admils , ie does no £. pessimists and they W aU • We £ 1 two aircrair on much i,ke what a# § the sa ™ COU J SC : caU a vote of no-conjf, J ° ne ■ tra fu«h; Thom* stayed on £ M 2f«? A .tofm Jesus headed ’ He *da