No. 4.] STANDARDIZATION OF FAEM PRODUCTS. 43 



his goods, and must contribute to the 20, 30 or 40 per cent 

 made by some of these so-called co-operative organizations. 



Some one has said that the American farmer will organize 

 when he has to do so. I am asking you, then, who have 

 struggled with agriculture in New England, whether you have 

 not very good evidence of the fact that you have got to do it. 

 Every report that I have ever seen from New England con- 

 vinces me that New England is a portion of the country in 

 which a farmer will not be able to live and enjoy a fairly 

 decent degree of prosperity unless the farmers get together 

 pretty soon and organize and carry out a program similar to 

 that carried out in Holland, Denmark and Germany. That 

 this can be done is evidenced by the wonderful progress in 

 what was one time the most economically disorderly country in 

 the world, — Ireland. A remarkable change has come over the 

 people since Sir Horace Plunkett began his great work there. 

 That it can be done is evidenced in every State in the country 

 now, for a recent bulletin issued by the Department of Agri- 

 culture at Washington estimated that at least $1,000,000,000 

 worth of produce had been sold by organizations of this kind 

 within the last year. 



The Chairman (Mr. Wilfrid Wheeler). The meeting is now 

 open for discussion, and I hope there will be some questions that 

 Mr. McCarthy can answer on this question of grades and stand- 

 ards. Our department is already prepared to build this year along 

 some of the lines Mr. McCarthy has mentioned, by having a 

 department of the Board of Agriculture which will have the power 

 to fix grades and standards of agricultural crops here in the State, 

 so that we will be able to co-operate with the United States 

 government and other States in this very thing. As he says, 

 the fact that a grade or standard is established by law may 

 be a mistake; it may be a hard thing to fix by law, and we 

 are working on that very line, and I hope that a law will be 

 passed this year to give the Bureau of Markets of the State 

 Board of Agriculture the power to regulate this question of 

 grades and standards so that it will be in conformity with 

 the other States or with the United States government. If 

 there are any questions, or if there is any discussion you would 



