1250 New York State Agkicultural Society 



mail matter in one class and at rates — five cents a hmidred — 

 the very lowest rate charged by the railroads in their shortest 

 contract, making the service on the principle of the modern 

 post office established in this country in 1863 by Abraham 

 Lincoln, when he bound all this nation together with one great 

 transportation service with uniform rates everywhere up to its 

 limit. We established a parcel post at 8 cents a pound. Later 

 there was an increase of 100 per cent., to IG cents a pound. The 

 other is the bill introduced in 1911 providing for a parcel 

 post limited by the capacity of a freight car and the size of a 

 freight car, and at rates such as I have suggested, — five cents on 

 a hundred pounds anywhere within this country. 



Voices: What is the remedy? 



]\Ik. Cowi.es : The remedy is this, to extend the postoffice over 

 the entire business of public transportation and transmission, and 

 1 want to read one resolution. Your present governor on the third 

 day of December, the first time he had an opportimity to act, 

 introduced a bill that should make the very lowest rate a uniform 

 standard rate for all distances. The resolution is : " Resolved, 

 That the representatives and senators of this state, in the ITnited 

 States Congress, are hereby respectfully requested to do all in 

 their power to secure the quick enactment into law of the flat-rate 

 postal bill H. E. 26662 introduced in Congress December 3, 1912, 

 by Honorable William Sulzer of ISTew York, or have a more rad- 

 ical measure substituted for the costly, complicated parcel post law 

 which went into efi"ect January 13, 1913." 



The President: The resolution will be referred to the com- 

 mittee on resolutions. The discussion is upon the adoption of the 

 report of the committee on cooperation. 



Mb. Sessions : I just want to call attention to what seems to me 

 a good nucleus already for cooperative work and cooperative move- 

 ment. We shall soon have established in New York at least twentv 

 farm bureaus. It seems to me as though each one of these countv 

 bureaus in time will be able to work for cooperative associations 

 in their respective counties. I know in our county we are working 

 along these lines. T have had the matter up with ^Tr. Spillman 

 and with Mr. Dillingham of Washington. As soon as more 

 counties have secured the farm bureaus they will have frequent 



