“Then I began to think that it is very true which is commonly said, that the one-half of the world knoweth not how the other half liveth.”  
That was written by François Rabelais over 500 years ago. It is so true that it has entered the language as a proverb, or “old saying.” We hear it again and again in all classes of society. It is true that the great majority of us has no idea of the life or the life ambitions of the great world outside of our own little valley of thought. I suppose this failure to understand the “other half” is one of the things which do most to keep people apart and prevent anything like fair co-operation. It is the basis of most of the bitter intolerance which has ever been used by the “ruling classes” to keep the great mass of the people in subjection. Years ago some old lord or would build a strong castle on a hill and make the farmers for miles around believe that he “protected” them. Therefore, they built his castle free, gave their sons for his soldiers, and on the land that he might live in idleness. And what did he “protect” them from? Why, from another group of farmers a few miles away, who, in like manner, were supporting another idle gang of cutthroats in another strong castle. These two groups of farmers did not need to be “protected” from each other. They had the same needs, the same wrongs and the same desires. Left to understand each other and to work together, they would have had no trouble, but would have led happier and far more prosperous lives. As it was they did not understand “how the other half liveth,” and thus they fought when they should have fraternized.
 
I find much of the same feeling between city people and farmers—consumers and producers. They do not understand how “the other half liveth,” and they find fault when they should from every point of economy work together. Your city man thinks the farmer has a soft job, and that with present high prices he is making a barrel of money. Either that or he is a slow-thinking drudge—a sort of inferior being, who doesn’t know any better than to carry the load which others on his back. He is “the of the country” all right in a political campaign—but the backbone is merely a mechanical contrivance if you detach it from the brain. And the average farmer regards the city worker or as a grafter—getting far more than he earns, and putting in short, easy days. It isn’t all and ease by a long way. Many of these city workers must travel miles to their jobs, and some of them put in longer hours than the average farmer. Many of them save little or nothing, and the wolf is always prowling around the door. Between these two classes it is a case of not knowing “how the other half liveth,” and this failure to understand has created a form of intolerance which separates two classes about as the old separated the groups of farmers years ago.
 
And something of the same lack of tolerant understanding has separated classes of farmers. The grain farmers, live-stock men, dairymen, gardeners and fruit growers all think at times that they have the hardest lot. The question, the markets or the weather all seem to turn against them. For instance, the dairymen usually think their lot is harder than that of others. They must work day after day in all sorts of weather and under hard conditions. I know about this, for I have worked on a dairy farm where conditions were very hard. Yet I also know that at this season the average dairyman has a good job compared with the life of the market gardener or fruit grower. On our own farm it has rained each day and night for many days. Get into a sweet corn or tomato field and pick the crop in a pouring rain, or pick early apples while the is like a great sponge. Then sort out and pack, load the truck and travel through the rain to market, stand out in the rain and sell the load out to peddlers and , and then hurry back home for another round of the same work. The fruit and vegetables are nearly as as milk, and must be rushed away. The dairyman knows beforehand what his milk will bring. The price may not be what he thinks is right, but he knows for weeks or months in advance what he can surely expect. We never know when we start what our stuff will bring. We must take what we can get for perishable fruit. We know what we have already spent, and what each load must bring in order to get our money back. Thus far corn is about equal in price to last year, tomatoes are lower, apples are at least 30 per cent lower, and so on. The dairyman has his troubles, but let him follow this job for a month and he would realize that “there are others.” In much the same way I can show that the potato men, the hay and grain farmers, the sheep men and all the rest, have their troubles—and hard ones at that. If farmers could only understand these things better, and realize that there are thorns and in every so-called “soft job,” there would be greater in the world, and that is the only thing that can ever lead to true co-operation and fair treatment.
 
Pretty much the same thing is true of business. We ran upon a strange incident the other day. The city of Paterson, N. J., is a good market town. Work is well paid and the workmen are free spenders. It is a city of many breeds and races of men. On the market you will probably hear more languages and dialects than were used on the Tower of Babel. A large share of farm produce is distributed by peddlers—most of them of............