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A garden and a sow, A smokehouse and a cow, Twenty-four hens and a rooster And you'll have more than you uster. Last summer Harvey Crowley Couch, public utilitarian of Pine Bluff, Ark., chanted that solution for rural Depression as he boarded a train for New York. Last week President Hoover appointed this president of the Arkansas Power & Light Co., the Mississippi Power & Light Co., the Louisiana Power & Light Co. and the Louisiana & Arkansas Railway to be one of the three Democratic directors of the potent Reconstruction Finance Corp. Aside from his demonstrated ability, Director Couch could thank for his appointment: 1) his personal friendship with President Hoover whom he helped out of a political hole during Arkansas' dark drought days in 1930; 2) his professional and friendly relations with Arkansas' Senator Joseph Taylor Robinson who pressed his appointment. Mr. Couch is a director of Chase National Bank of New York and of Electric Power & Light Co. of New York. Friendly Arkansans hail him as their State's Cecil Rhodes. Speaker John Nance Garner of Texas also got his man on the R. F. C. directorate when President Hoover appointed Jesse Holman Jones, Houston banker, builder (Rice Hotel) & publisher (Chronicle}. As the finance director of the Democratic National Committee, Mr. Jones lured the 1928 party convention to his city with a blank check. Good friend is he of Governor Ross Sterling, whose private finances he now manages. New York's Bernard Mannes Baruch declined appointment to R. F. C. after its chairmanship went to Federal Reserve Governor Eugene Meyer, its presidency to Charles Gates Dawes. All week long President Hoover kept prodding his R. F. C. forward into action. In its final enactment Congress made only three significant changes: 1) a limit of $100,000,000 on individual loans; 2) segregation of $200,000,000 for the relief of depositors in closed banks; 3) a prohibition against rediscounting R. F. C. securities by the Federal Reserve. Objecting to none of these, the President signed the bill (H. R. 7360) within a few minutes after it reached the White House--"Herbert" with one pen and "Hoover" with another. Then he praised the "patriotism" of Congress. About Washington there was a great hustle and bustle to get R. F. C. operating. Congress sped through an initial appropriation of $500,000,000 as working capital. The Treasury borrowed $350,000,000 on short-term certificates, most of which would be available for R. F. C. New quarters were fitted up in the old Department of Commerce building on Pennsylvania Avenue. Chairman Meyer received 2,500 letters asking for jobs, inquiring about loans. Busiest man of all was Mr. Dawes, who quickly found himself a Washington apartment. P:Last week at the age of 37 James Rumsey Beverley of Amarillo, Tex. found himself Governor of Porto Rico by appointment of the President. On the other side of the world George Charles Butte. Vice Governor of the Philippines, received the news with vast pride. His political protege had made good. Mr. Beverley studied law under Dr. Butte at the University of Texas. A born Democrat, he turned Republican, managed Dr. Butte's unsuccessful campaign for Governor of Texas in 1924. In 1925 Dr. Butte was sent to Porto Rico as Attorney General and took young Mr. Beverley along as a deputy. Last year Dr. Butte was transferred to Manila. Mr. Beverley stepped up into his job. Last week he stepped up to the top of the insular Government with the transfer of Theodore Roosevelt to the Philippines as Governor General. A competent administrator, Governor Beverley speaks Spanish like a native, plays with Boy Scouts, is pleasing to Porto Ricans. His job: to keep peace among the five political parties in Porto Rico, and keep alive his predecessor's program of economic rehabilitation. P: President Hoover signed a bill adding $125,000.000 to the capital of the Federal Land Bank system.

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