Judge — September 10, 1927 — page 10: what you’re looking at

What you’re looking at

# "Thinning the Corn" - Judge Magazine This two-panel satire contrasts rural and urban approaches to "thinning the corn" — a farming practice of removing excess seedlings to help crops thrive. **"In the Country" (top):** Farmers thin corn naturally through honest labor in the fields. **"In the City" (bottom):** A well-dressed man appears to be thinning corn through alcohol consumption and excess — surrounded by numerous bottles. His companion sits nearby amid similar indulgence. The cartoon satirizes the contrast between rural productivity and urban excess or vice. The metaphor suggests city dwellers "thin" their resources (or themselves) through dissipation rather than productive work. This likely reflects early 20th-century tensions between agrarian values and urban decadence, possibly critiquing Prohibition-era drinking culture or general urban moral decay, depending on publication date.