Part II.] STATE BUREAU OF :MARKETS. 123 



and space writers — to search for the missing 65 cents. Out of 

 the search has come much that is sound and good. For one 

 thing, we are learning something of the problems and the prac- 

 tice of agricultural economics. For another, Congress has 

 added this most important and helpful and deservedly popular 

 division, the Office of Markets, to the Department of Agricul- 

 ture. A third outcome is this marketing day conducted by the 

 State Board of Agriculture. A fourth is the Massachusetts 

 State Bureau of Markets, which is just in sight. 



Marketing Activities of Colleges and Boards of Agri- 

 culture. 



It must be said that as soon as our agricultural colleges 

 awoke to the fact that the production of crops is useless unless 

 they are well distributed, and that producing bushels is differ- 

 ent from producing values, they began to study economics. 



Wisconsin and Massachusetts were among the first to add 

 courses dealing with these larger questions; now four-fifths of 

 the agricultural colleges are teaching or investigating economic 

 questions. 



Following the work in investigation and instruction on the 

 campus, boards of agriculture and extension divisions of the 

 colleges began to establish marketing departments, and put 

 trained men in the field. But it is all very new. In the fall 

 of 1913 North Carolina, under authorization of the State Board 

 of Agriculture, organized a division of markets under a joint 

 committee, the Federal government, the North Carolina Experi- 

 ment Station and the State Board of Agriculture co-operating. 

 The same fall the Massachusetts Agricultural College employed 

 an extension professor of organization and marketing — so far 

 as I can discover the first time that a college in the United 

 States ever employed a man for such work. 



Marketing men were appointed in the fall of 1914 in other 

 States; in 1915 several State marketing bureaus were put into 

 operation. By the end of 1916, 26 States had established State 

 market bureaus or were employing men to do work in marketing 

 and organization. In 13 States marketing departments have 

 been officially authorized by law. New Jersey and three south- 

 ern States have placed these bureaus under the commissioner or 



