Massachusetts Farm Bureau 

 Federation 



STATE HEADQUARTERS, 

 28 School St., Boston. 

 Telephone, Main E358. 



OFFICERS. 



Wm. P. Wharton, Groton, President. 



Mrs. Harry Clark, Richmond. 2nd Vlce-Pres. 



Howard S. Russell, Sec.-Treas. 



EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.— P. F. Whit- 

 more, Sunderland ; H. W. King, East Long- 

 meadow : Frank Tatreau, Framingham ; E. B. 

 Parmenter, Franklin : R. M. Strange, Taun- 

 ton : L. G. Dodge, West Newbury : Howard 

 P. Gilmore, Westboro ; Josiah Parsons, North- 

 ampton : Arthur Galusha, Williamstown. 



THE CORN-BORER MENACE 



The corn-borer is a menace to New 

 England agriculture. All doubt as 

 to the seriousness of the situation 

 has been removed by an inspection 

 tour conducted in October by the 

 Massachusetts Department of Agri- 

 culture through the badly infested 

 towns of Arlington, Winchester, Mel- 

 rose and Saugus. Whole fields were 

 seen where every weed and cultivated 

 plant contained from one to twenty 

 worms. Fields of corn where the 

 head of every plant had toppled over, 

 were found; beets were pulled that 

 had borers down in the center of the 

 bulb; celery appeared to be affected 

 in every leaf; sweet melons were 

 honey-combed with them. One of the 

 most serious infestations was in a 

 florist's greenhouse in Arlington, 

 where thousands of dollars' worth of 

 chrysanthemums were completely 

 ruined. 



The worst infestations are found 

 where corn stalks or weeds with stems 

 as large as a pencil or larger are al- 

 lowed to remain on the ground and 

 in the fence rows through the winter. 

 The worms live over inside the stalks 

 of nearly all kinds of grass, weeds 

 and vegetables, and then breed in the 

 spring. The infested area has in- 

 creased largely this year, and will 

 soon cover half the state. 

 No matter where you live, plow under 

 or burn all weeds and trash before 

 printer. Burn your fence rows. Bury 

 your waste. Either feed or plow un- 

 der all corn stalks. Open a stalk here 

 and there with a knife and look for 

 a white worm with a faint lace-like 

 design on its back and a black head. 

 The only safety for Massachusetts 

 farmers is to keep their fields and 

 walls and hedge rows clean. 



President James R. Howard will 

 speak at the State Federation meet- 

 ing in January. 



KERNELS 



We are laying the foundation now. 

 The Farm Bureau is destined to 

 grow and expand as the years pass. 



The farm insurance pool is going 

 well. Ask Secretary Russell about 

 insuring your property. 



Some counties are talking about 

 permanent paid men to attend to co- 

 operative buying, collection of dues 

 and other matters. 



Eighteen fire extinguishers placed 

 on farms in the last three months. 

 You need one to stop fire before it 

 has a chance. Special wholesale 

 prices on several makes through the 

 Federation. 



A master plumber's organization 

 is worth $25' a year to him. 



A sailor's organization is worth 

 $10 entrance fee and $12 a year to 

 him. 



BUTTERS CUBAN BREAD 



The first shipment of butter made 

 in a co-operative creamery and ex- 

 ported by the farmers themselves is 

 what the Illinois Farm Bureau people 

 claim the shipment sent to Cuba in 

 July to be. It v/as made by the Ste- 

 phenson County Milk Marketing Com- 

 pany_ of Freeport, 111. 



This company is spreading It.: "Vita 

 Gold" brand in all directions with in- 

 creasing success. 



MR. HINCKLEY'S RESIGNATION 



Genuine regi-et is felt by all the 

 ofiicers who have been associated with 

 him that President Harry P. Hinck- 

 ley of Agawam has found it necessary 

 to sever his connection with the State 

 Federation. 



Mr. Hinckley put in time and en- 

 ergy without stint into the work of 

 organizing the Farm Bureau. Night 

 after night he traveled from one town 

 in Hampden County to another call- 

 ing farmers to the Farm Bureau 

 standard. After the State Federa- 

 tion was organized he spoke in coun- 

 ties all over the state and gave days 

 of his time in appearing before legis- 

 lative committees in behalf of agri- 

 cultural measures. 



In accepting his resignation, the 

 Executive Committee of the State 

 Federation, with whom he had worked 

 so harmoniously, unanimously voted 

 to send him a letter expressing in be- 

 half of the Federation their appre- 

 ciation of his services. 



ABOLISH TAX EXEMPTION 

 SAYS J. R. HOWARD 



There has been apprehension re- 

 garding the effect which a law or 

 constitutional amendment making all 

 bonds taxable would have upon the 

 bonds issued under the Federal Farm 

 Loan Bank Act. 



The lowest estimate which has been 

 made by competent authorities re- 

 garding the outstanding tax-exempt 

 bonds, Federal, State, Municipal and 

 others, places the amount at from 16 

 billion to 20 billion dollars. Other 

 authorities have estimated these 

 bonds as high as 40 billion to 50 bil- 

 lion dollars. A reasonable estimate 

 would indicate that at the present 

 time they would total 20 billion to 25 

 billion dollars. There is no way of 

 determining exact amounts. 



Tax-exempt bonds are rapidly in- 

 creasing and unless soon checked will 

 more than equal the values of all farm 

 properties in the United States, in- 

 cluding lands, buildings, live stock 

 and machinery. These tax-exempt 

 bonds are property. Being tax-ex- 

 empt, they throw additional taxation 

 burdens upon other classes of prop- 

 erty. When the amount of tax-ex- 

 empt bonds equals the value of the 

 farm lands of the nation, it means 

 that every acre of farm land will be 

 carrying approximately a double tax- 

 ation. 



The farmer is certainly as much 

 entitled to tax-exempt securities as 

 anyone else, but if all tax exemptions 

 could be done away with and the far- 

 mer's bonds placed on equal basis 

 with other bonds, he would be a gain- 

 er thereby, and not a loser. 



"VE HAD A MEETING" 



Recently a Nebraska farmer sent a 

 pair of shoes to an old shoe cobbler 

 in Lincoln whom he had patronized 

 for years. The work he had done 

 was a job that the old shoe cobbler 

 had performed for him many times 

 before and for which he had always 

 charged $1.00. 



"Well, how much do I owe you, 

 John?" our farmer asked as a matter 

 of politeness dra%ving a dollar from 

 his pocketbook. 



"The bill is $1.50," said the cob- 

 bler. 



"Well, sighed the farmer, dig- 

 ging deeper and producing the addi- 

 tional fifty cents, "how does that 

 come? You have always charged me 

 a dollar for that job, even during 

 the war when leather was so high. I 

 don't understand." 



"Veil, you see," said the cobbler 

 with a proud twinkle in his eyes, "ve 

 had a meeting." 



One has to live but a short time 

 to find out that there are many such 

 meetings. The grocer, the butcher, 

 clothing dealers, merchants of all the 

 allied trades, theater owners and what 

 not. Last but not least nearly every 

 man that labors in the city is a mem- 

 ber of the local of his particular 

 trade. 



They all have their "meetings," or 

 more correctly speaking are thor- 

 oughly organized. Instead of lying 

 awake nights studying out schemes to 

 cut each other's throats they have 

 "meetings" at which they band to- 

 gether for their own mutual benefit. 



Whether right or wrong, it is the 

 twentieth century method. Individ- 

 ual effort has given way to organized 

 effort, and the lesson learned by the 

 lowly shoe cobbler is one that the 

 average farmer who says that he pre- 

 fers to "go it alone" might well think 

 about. 



