Page Ten 



THE I. A. A. RECORD 



January, 1932 



Getting Electricity to 



ly to get better tenants, thus giving National Fruit and 



•r I r I A* them better neighbors and improving %/ ■ i i r i /^ • 



Tenant Parmer, Is Aim ^^g community. vegetable cxch. orowmg 



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^"I'Tp 7r^^ ^^1 ?!"?' ^' Farm Mortgage Situation 



R(>fll Piihlir Service Institiitmns ^ ^ 



ELECTRIC service will have to be 

 put on a basis which takes into 

 consideration the tenant farmer before 

 rural electrification can be developed to 

 its fullest extent, according to L. J. 

 Quasey, director of transportation for 

 the I. A. A. 



At present, he said, the electrification 

 programs consider only the wealthier 

 farm owner, who is able to pay the con- 

 struction cost of lines or a high mini- 

 mum charge. He pointed out that ap- 

 proximately 43 per cent of the farms 

 in the state are operated by tenants, 

 many of whom cannot afford electric 

 service under the present system. 



He showed that 15 to 60 per cent of 

 urban consumers are minimum users, 

 but the utility companies connect them 

 without complaining. The practice has 

 been to spend 100 to 200 times the 

 monthly revenue to take on small users 

 in town, but to take on a farmer the 

 utilities as a rule will not spend more 

 than 50 times the monthly revenue. 



Make More Business 



J. Howard Mathews, chief engineer 

 for the Illinois Commerce Commission, 

 naS-sAggcsted that when lines run past 

 a tenant's h\)use he be given an oppor- 

 tunity to have rheNservice even though 

 he cannot affom~to pay the same rates 

 charged his neighbors. 



"Such payments as he could make 

 would be pure 'velvet' to the company," 

 Mathews told utility leaders recently. 

 "This would help make the Kne pay 

 even though the customer paid only a 

 few dollars a month. Even if he does 

 not bear his full share of the fixed costs, 

 so long as the revenue from him ex- 

 ceeds the operating costs, the rest of 

 the farmers will profit by his being on 

 the line. 



"As far back as I can remember the 

 Commission has taken the position that 

 as long as the whole is not a losing prop- 

 osition and the utility is enjoying cer- 

 tain monopolistic privileges in the com- 

 munity, services should be rendered, al- 

 though the immediate return from the 

 specific extension does not pay its own 

 way." 



Mr. Quasey commends this plan and 

 urges independent farmers to co-operate 

 in extending electric service to tenants 

 in their communities. Farmers who hold 

 out against giving their tenant neigh- 

 bors a lower rate are forcing themselves 

 to pay more. The more business there is 

 on' a line, the more beneficial it is to 

 everyone, he declared. Farmers should 

 also consider that electric service is like- 



WHEN the full effects of the wheat 

 and cotton situation commence to 

 be realized foreclosures will doubtless 

 increase and therewith will come in- 

 creasing pressure to avoid them, writes 

 George E. Anderson on "Delinquencies 

 in Farm Mortgage Loans" in Barron's. 



"What the effect of any such action 

 would be on the $1,717,347,740 in 

 Land Bank bonds now in the hands of 

 investors need not be discussed, since 

 both the Farm Loan Board and a safe 

 majority in the two houses of congress 

 will doubtless prevent any interference 

 with the orderly operation of the Land 

 Bank System. •■■ ^ •:-;;■ , W ;' 



"That the farm-mortgage-foreclosure 

 situation may become serious before the 

 year is out, however, is apparent from 

 the increasing delinquencies in the re- 

 payment of loans, increased real estate 

 holdings by the banks, and other evi- 

 dences of forced liquidation of loans in 

 the several varieties of Land Banks. 



"The total delinquencies are but a 

 small proportion of the loans placed by 

 the banks, and cannot be taken as im- 

 pairing in any similar degree the safety 

 of the bonds of the Federal Land Banks 

 or of those Joint Stock Land Banks 

 which hive been well managed and have 

 been safely weathering the storm raging 

 about them for the past five years." 



Use Cotton Cloth for 



Letterheads in South 



Numerous ideas have been suggested 

 for developing new uses for cotton since 

 the slump in prices, but the most prac- 

 tical appears to be its use for business 

 and advertising letterheads. First intro- 

 duced as a novelty, cotton cloth letter- 

 heads have become popular in the East 

 and South and in a short tiihe have ac- 

 counted for the use of more than 3,000,- 

 000 yards of cotton cloth. A 500-pound 

 bale of cotton will produce about 40,- 

 000 letterheads of ordinary size. Cotton 

 menu cards have been adopted by south- 

 ern railways. 



Great Britain Abandons 



Free Trade for Tariffs 



A bill authorizing the imposition of 

 a 100 per cent tariff on manufactured 

 goods from all foreign countries for the 

 next six months was passed recently by 

 the House of Commons. British farm- 

 ers will seek early legislation to protect 

 them with substantial tariffs against 

 imported farm products. 



Rio Grande Vegetable Assn. and 

 Florida Truck Growers Con- 

 tract for Sales Service 



A. B. Leeper 



THE Rio Grande Vegetable Co- 

 operative Association of Westlaco, 

 Texas, is the latest producers' organi- 

 zation to join the National Fruit and 

 Vegetable Exchange. The new organi- 

 zation will receive full sales service, 

 which includes shipping point as well 

 as terminal service 

 from the national 

 body. A. B. Leeper, 

 president of the Na- 

 tional, announced 

 that a salesman will 

 be kept at Westlaco 

 throughout the vege- 

 table shipping season 

 which lasts for 

 approximately six 

 months. The Florida 

 Truck Growers' Ex- 

 change has contract- 

 ed for sales service at the terminals 

 only. 



The National Exchange recently es- 

 tablished its headquarters on the 12 th 

 floor of the Transportation building, 

 Chicago, in the space formerly occu- 

 pied by the Mid-West Grain Corpora- 

 tion. The latter was bought out by the 

 Farmers National Grain Corporation 

 September 1. 



Officers and directors of the National 

 Exchange are: A. B. Leeper, president 

 (general manager, Illinois Fruit Grow- 

 ers' Exchange, Centralia) ; H. L. Robin- 

 son, vice-president (general manager, 

 Hastings Potato Growers' Association, 

 Hastings, Fla.) ; F. P. Hibst, secretary- 

 treasurer (general manager, Michigan 

 Potato Exchange, Cadillac, Mich.) ; 

 T. W. Bennett, director (general man- 

 ager. South Carolina Produce Associa- 

 tion, Macon, S. C); Walter W. Maule, 

 director (secretary, Mushroom Growers' 

 Co-operative Association of Pennsyl- 

 vania, Kennett Square, Pa.); C. L. 

 Hunter, director (president, Rio Grande 

 Vegetable Co - operative Association, 

 Westlaco, Texas) ; Dudley Bagley, di- 

 rector (North Carolina Fruit and Vege- 

 table Exchange, Moyock, N. C.) ; 

 C. V. Cochran, director (Kaw Valley 

 Potato Growers' Association, Topeka, 

 Kan.) ; Lee M. Lampson, director (man- 

 ager. Three Rivers Growers' Associa- 

 tion, Kennewick, Wash.), v;' :-.•:.,: I'f'. 

 Mr. Leeper, who is now spending 

 about half his time on business of the 

 National Exchange, reports that ap- 

 proximately 60 per cent of the perish- 

 ables marketed east of the Mississippi 

 River are now sold through chain stores. 



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