54 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [P. D. 4. 



You are all familiar with the history of agriculture, but one 

 thing cannot be too often repeated with a warning, — the 

 economic balance must be restored by bringing farmers to New 

 England. I think the secretary of your State Board has said 

 that Massachusetts alone sends out of the State every year 

 $300,000,000 to pay for products which she could raise on her 

 land that now lies fallow. No community can import its raw 

 materials for manufacturing and then import the food of its 

 workers and compete with other sections. The larger the quan- 

 tity of raw manufacturing products it imports the greater the 

 necessity for raising its own food. To do that you must have 

 farmers. To get them, the easiest way is to advertise. Massa- 

 chusetts could well afford to pay $100 for every new farming 

 family moving within its borders, and yet I believe that with 

 proper advertising they could be gotten here for about $25, and 

 I would do it indirectly. I would do it by a campaign of 

 advertising New England farm products. 



The first requisite necessary to any successful advertising 

 campaign is to have your product and have it in marketable 

 condition. To get your product in marketable condition and 

 in quantity to advertise it profitably, the individual farmer 

 must associate himself with others, all of whom must submit 

 their product to certain standardizing conditions. In some 

 New England products this has already been done. I under- 

 stand that the cranberry growers of Massachusetts have a sell- 

 ing organization, and I take it for granted that this means that 

 the product submitted for sale is standardized and, in a way, 

 guaranteed as to quality. I have been told that this selling 

 organization has eliminated many evils of which complaint was 

 made under the method of commission house sales, and that 

 prices have been more uniform and generally better. Now the 

 missing element in this cranberry situation is the element of 

 advertising, for I take it for granted that inasmuch as the 

 cranberry originated on Cape Cod the quality of fruit gathered 

 there is better than that harvested anywhere else. Cape Cod 

 cranberrj^ growers tell me this is so, and I believe them. Now, 

 if I were the manager of this association of cranberry growers 

 I would move heaven and earth to get an appropriation of 



