RURAL AMERICA 



brighter than the German farmer, but the German farmer is 

 today the brightest in the world owing to the fact of govern- 

 ment aid. Unquestionably a group of federal experts with 

 unlimited power could within a generation revolutionize 

 American agricultural conditions. But many persons think it 

 would be better for the farming population to attain the 

 uplands of achievement through their own initiative than to 

 rise as a result of outside initiative. The Hon. Sir Horace 

 Plunkett, of Dublin, Ireland, said the value of cooperative 

 movements can be especially seen in crises. He pointed out 

 that the food situation in Europe during the war would be 

 infinitely worse if it were not for the organization among 

 farmers that prevails in nearly all the countries. 



Cooperation was especially urged at the conference in the 

 matter of marketing. Many speakers made the statement 

 that the farmers of the nation lose annually untold sums 

 because, in their unorganized condition, they deal almost 

 solely with organized bodies of men. W. J. Kittle, of Chicago, 

 secretary of the Milk Producers' Association, said that 12,500 

 dairy farmers supply Chicago with one and one-quarter mil- 

 lion quarts of milk daily. This milk is produced on land 

 worth from $150 to $250 per acre by cows worth $100 a head. 

 Labor costs $35 to $40 a month and feed is always high. Yet 

 the farmer averages only from 2^c to 4C a quart for his milk, 

 when the actual cost of production is according to experts 5c 

 a quart. Hon. Wilfred Wheeler, secretary of the Massachu- 

 setts State Board of Agriculture, said the situation relative 

 to dairy farming was equally serious not only in his state but 

 in all New England. According to The Banker-Farmer there 

 are 14,000,000 cows in the country, owned by 1,400,000 persons, 

 and two-thirds of these earn a profit of only 3oc a year each. 



The two chief reasons given for failure to get results in 

 marketing farm products, according to Charles J. Brand, chief 

 of the Bureau of Markets and Rural Organization, were non- 

 standardization and lack of uniformity in containers. Dr. 

 Charles McCarthy recommended that each state should have 

 its own brands or labels, that there should be state administra- 



