42 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



year as the conditions change. Their main enforcement should 

 be through organizations. If different States have such arrange- 

 ments as this, it will not be difficult for the marketing depart- 

 ments or the boards of agriculture of the different States to 

 meet with the national agricultural department and make 

 uniform rules or national standards. That, however, is a far 

 distant day, it seems to me. 



I served on a commission on uniform legislation for many 

 years, as a member from my State. I know that uniformity 

 looks good in theory, but in practice there is a vast difference 

 between the products of Oregon, those of Massachusetts and 

 those of Florida. Nevertheless, uniformity over districts through 

 regulations laid down by boards meeting together is a possible 

 thing and something which can be worked out. 



The different Massachusetts laws now for grading of produce 

 or standardization should have an added phrase to the effect 

 that the standards laid down in the law may be changed by 

 the State Board of Health, if an advisory committee is called 

 in from the agricultural interests of the State. Whatever 

 method is used it is certain that standardization laws are but a 

 step. They must be accompanied by every other means which 

 business industry in general has found efficient, — by brands, 

 advertisement, central office, cost accounting, transportation 

 departments, the telephone and the telegraph, etc., — in short, 

 by the organization of business on an efficient basis. 



None of this, however, will avail us if, in the end, the whole 

 organization is not upon a co-operative basis instead of a 

 corporation basis. Sir Horace Plunkett has well shown the 

 difference when he says that "If one man has fifty shares of 

 stock and one cow, and another man has fifty cows and one 

 share of stock, the man who owns the stock will milk the man 

 who milks the cow." If such organization is not on the right 

 basis we will have little trusts bleeding the farmers, leading, 

 perhaps, into big trusts, rather than that prosperity of the 

 farmer which should be the result of efficiency. Some of the 

 worst little trusts that exist in this country — trusts making 

 unheard-of profits — are so-called co-operative organizations or 

 farmers' organizations organized upon the joint-stock basis. 

 The nonstockholder is fooled. He cannot remove his land or 



