26 



ordered the windows from Sears, Roebuck & Co., Chicago, and got them 

 for $1.25 a window, including freight. The local planing mills have one 

 price for local orders and another price for orders from nearby cities where 

 they have more competition. The farmer can buy southern pine lumber 

 at $8 to $15 a thousand and it costs him less even paying freight than to 

 buy lumber from the local dealers who would charge him $2S to $30 a 

 thousand for the poorest. 



The question of feed in the farming districts is also serious. The 

 following instance in Tioga County has come to my knowledge. At the 

 present time the farmers are selling off their cows for almost anything 

 they can get, whole herds going for a song, because the dry weather last 

 summer killed the pasture and hay, and the com crop is almost a failure. 

 The local mills are selling feed for not less than $30 a ton. Consequently 

 the farmers must sell off their herds, as they cannot buy at this price. 

 It will be at least five years before they can regain their present status. 

 Even supposing this matter only concerned the farmers themselves, such 

 a condition is tragic. What makes it right that the mills should charge 

 $30 a ton for feed? I sell my wheat for 85 cents a bushel, and out of 

 that wheat the miller gets flour, bran, middlings and shorts to double 

 and treble his profits. Pennsylvania farmers are in many places so hard 

 pressed for cash that they must sell all they can at the lowest price when 

 the markets are glutted in the fall and buy back on credit at high prices 

 in the spring. 



Protection Needed. 



The seed situation is worse in the rural districts than almost any 

 other. Such a thing as good seed is unknown. If the farmer sends away 

 to the big seed houses he is just as likely to get more weeds than good 

 seed, or to get seeds ten years old, which may or may not germinate. 

 Much has already been done in guaranteeing fertilizers, yet much remains 

 to be done. Misleading labels are still seen on fertilizer bags. On account 

 of scientific knowledge necessary for the proper using of fertilizers, the 

 average farmer is at a disadvantage in any case. Analysis of feeds is of 

 the highest advantage to the farmer, and the more upright a state govern- 

 ment is in this matter the more it can serve the farmer and through him 

 the state. There is great possibility of graft in the whole matter as it 

 stands at present. 



These are only a few instances of the unprotected situation of the 

 farmer, the situation which he cannot remedy and from which, if he is 

 worth conserving and is a useful citizen of whom the country has need, 

 he must be delivered. That he is a desirable citizen and belongs to a 

 more essential class than any other has been realized by all the countries 

 of Europe and by none more so than by Denmark. 



Here I wish to pause to recommend to the careful study of this 

 municipality and of its large seed houses the work done in Denmark by 



