362 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



out in his current annual report that the increased price of meats is not 

 due to any large profit of the packers. The article alleges that in fifteen 

 years wheat has risen 100 per cent, corn 106 per cent, eggs 204 per cent, 

 butter 150 per cent, potatoes 100 per cent and beans 147 per cent. Col- 

 lier's does not enumerate meats in this category because according to 

 the most exaggerated figures, beef has only risen about 80 per cent. 



It is not practicable because of the lack of space, for me to go into a 

 refutation in detail of the many erroneous and misleading statements in 

 this lengthy article. However, it contains misrepresentations, concern- 

 ing which the public should be set right. This is especially the fact 

 because in the effort to discover and, as far as possible, remedy high prices, 

 it is distinctly a loss of time to follow wrong scents or to be mislead by 

 unwarranted prejudice. 



One of the features of the article is the statement that cold storage 

 creates an artificial level of prices. It is gratifying to note that Colliers' 

 concedes that cold storage actually levels prices — that is to say — makes 

 them the more nearly uniform the year around. It is also pleasant to 

 observe that it explains that perishable commodities are placed in cold 

 storage during the season of plenitude to be sold during the season of 

 scarcity just as Joseph and Pharoah wisely saved the crops of the seven 

 years of plenty for use in the seven years of famine. 



But unfortunately, erroneously and inconsistently, the article goes on 

 to say that the cold storage warehouses are employed to create corners 

 and to manipulate fictitious values. This statement should not be made 

 against cold storage as a system. In fact, it is obviously erroneous. Why? 

 Simply because the goods put into cold storage warehouses cannot be 

 held indefinitely. The owners of the- products are at an expense for in- 

 terest and cost of warehousing and besides it is obviously impossible to 

 maintain a permanent corner in any large commodity as it is intimated 

 cold storage men are doing. 



The fact is that, before cold storage, the perishable products of the 

 summer season had to be consumed at the time they were ready for use, 

 otherwise they were destroyed by decay. To some extent and as to 

 some products preservation was accomplished in the country by means 

 of cellars and by burying some products in the ground. The cold stor- 

 age warehouse is simply the improved expansion of this practice. It is 

 the making of gigantic cellars at the great food markets where, during 

 the season of excess supply, the surplus is put away for the season of 

 scarcity. 



It is plain to anyone who understands markets and prices that the 

 cold storage depositors cannot buy more than the surplus of summer 

 or they will greatly advance prices against themselves. And — if they 

 buy only the surplus — they can conserve it for the public use for seasons 

 in which but for them and the cold storage warehouse it would prob- 

 ably be unobtainable. 



As to the prices at which cold storage goods are sold — well goods 

 must be offered at prices which will attract buyers. Goods in cold stor- 

 age cannot go on accumulating all the time or the warehouses will burst 



