The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1265 
The New York State Campaign and 
Farmers 
0 ENTHUSIASM. —From t lie viewpoint of tlie 
farm, we regret to say that we cannot enthuse 
o\er tlie present political prospect in the State of 
New York. 
THE NOMINATIONS—Governor Nathan L. Mil¬ 
ler, now serving his first term, has been renominated 
by the Republican convention, the law having been 
changed during liis administration to take the nom¬ 
ination of State officers out of the primary nomina¬ 
tion system. Ex-Governor Alfred E. Smith, who de¬ 
feated Governor Whitman for re-election four years 
ago, and who was in turn defeated for re-election 
himself two years ago, has been again nominated 
by the Democratic State convention. Both men are 
well known to the people of the State. Their records 
as executives are fairly familiar to the public. Both 
of them share evenly the fault, or the virtue, as you 
look at it, of being strong party men. It is safe to 
say that either of them would in a pinch place party 
interest first of all in importance. That is the un¬ 
fortunate fruit of our party system. Just now Gov¬ 
ernor Miller is the necessity of his party in the 
state. Ex-Governor Smith is the popular idol of 
his party. Each candidate is not only the popular 
head but the absolute leader of his party. Governor 
Miller is able, scholarly and an accomplished execu¬ 
tive. His strength comes largely from intellectual 
attainments, and the support of powerful interests. 
Ilis weakness is the customary party policy of pro¬ 
moting personal and party interests at expense of 
public welfare. Ex-Governor Smith is a man of 
some natural ability. He is fairly capable, but he 
owes his popularity largely to a winsome personality 
and to a disposition bubbling over with good-natured 
humanity. One may disagree with him and oppose 
his acts and policies, but in his presence one cannot 
entirely escape the influence of good fellowship. 
These personal qualities bring him the votes of the 
common people, who, unlike the powers directly be¬ 
hind Governor Miller, shape no public policies, and 
demand no measure of class benefits at the expense 
of the State. This is his weakness, that liis support¬ 
ers do not hold him to an accountability for benefits 
or even justice to themselves, but leave him free to 
compromise with the powerful interests for party 
expediencies and for the crumbs from the table of 
the real political banquets. 
THE FARMERS’ POSITION.—As far as the real 
needs of the farm is concerned, we can see no reason 
for hope from either of them. Under either the per¬ 
functory work of the Agricultural Department will 
go on, but no real measure of relief to tlie farm will 
be attempted or permitted. Following the evil rec¬ 
ord of Governor Whitman on farm subjects, Mr. 
Smith in his first campaign promised real construc¬ 
tive and helpful work in the Agricultural Depart¬ 
ment. Farmers took him at his word, and partly to 
rebuke Whitman, elected Smith. He promptly com¬ 
promised with the opposing leaders, and left agri¬ 
culture to take care of itself. His excuse was that 
the Agricultural Department was sewed up in a 
Republican commission, and that as Governor he 
had no power over it. The first part of the excuse 
was true, but the latter part was not. He knew the 
faults of the department, and the needs of the farms. 
If he had gone frankly to the people and made the 
faults and needs known, the power to correct and 
reform and perform would have been given him. 
But the expediency of polities intervened, and he 
lost his opportunity. The next year, when he ap¬ 
parently realized his mistake, ho made an attempt to 
redeem his campaign pledges, but farmers had lost 
confidence, and he made no progress. He lost the 
essential farm vote, and was defeated for re-election. 
PRESENT CONDITIONS.—The Miller adminis¬ 
tration has tinkered with the machinery of the agri¬ 
cultural law. The law has been constantly changed 
and powers concentrated in irresponsible political 
control with bureaucratic administration. It is con¬ 
ducted in a very respectable way as far as it goes 
by fairly capable men and women as a whole, but 
it does not reach out to the real needs of the farmers 
of the State, and the men in charge of it could not 
retain their positions fit) days if tiny attempted to 
focus its powers into measures for the exclusive 
good of tlie farm. The men do I be best they can 
under the restrictions of a bad system. Governor 
Miller and his party have been in absolute control 
of the State government during the two hardest 
years that farmers have known. Dirge sums of 
money have been spent in the name of agriculture, 
but it has brought no real measure of relief to tlie 
farm. The truth is that today farmers are obliged 
to give up more of tbe things they produce for the 
things they must buy than they ever did before in 
the history of the State. Expressions of sympathy 
for the farmer are abundant. Liberal appropriations 
are made in his name for educational work. Every¬ 
thing possible is done to stimulate production, and 
there the help to farmers stops. 
FARM NEEDS.—The real need of the farm is 
a system of distribution that will take the product 
of the farm at the shipping station, sell it in the 
markets that need it and return a fair share of the 
consumer's dollar to the producer. This is a legiti¬ 
mate function of the State. The Legislature has 
already acknowledged this duty, but it shirks the 
obligation. The distribution system cannot be fully 
corrected without tbe active help of tlie State, be¬ 
cause the speculative middleman system is en¬ 
trenched by political influence, and fortified as it is 
by the State power, no individual farmer or group 
of farmers have yet been able to make progress 
against it. Just before tbe World War tbe State 
committed itself to the policy of an economic distri¬ 
bution of farm food products. No policy could be 
more helpful to die nation during the war, yet the 
speculators and middlemen succeeded in reversing 
the policy under the pretence of adopting measures 
to win the war, and now with au entrenched mid¬ 
dleman system, farmers take comparatively less for 
their products and pay comparatively more fur their 
supplies than ever before. 
WASTE AND WANT.—The finest kind of food iu 
the world wastes on the farms of the State. The 
people of the city groan under the high cost of it. 
The middleman system stands between producer and 
consumer and imposes the burden of costs as food 
passes through its bauds. Neither Mr. Smith nor 
the Miller administrations did anything to lighten 
the burden of those who produce or consume the 
food. There is no definite promise that they intend 
to do so. The middleman and big interests gener¬ 
ally will finance both campaigns, the Democratic 
.sparingly, the Republican liberally, but with a meas¬ 
ure to fare well in the success of either. With them 
campaign expenses are an investment that pays 
good dividends. 
THE BALANCE OF POWER.—To correct this 
state of affairs a farm party is neither necessary or 
desirable. Under present tendencies, if one were 
Created it would probably soou find itself following 
the policies of those that now exist, and covertly 
protecting the system as they do now. Farmers, 
however, have the balance of power in both parties, 
if they organize to exercise it. They can do them¬ 
selves no good by switching from one of the old par¬ 
ties to the other, after policies are fixed and candi¬ 
dates nominated. If farmers would define what 
they want and demand the candidates they want to 
execute them in a way to show that they had the 
votes to deliver, they would not need to go, hat in 
hand, to party leaders. With such, a demonstration 
politicians would camp on <farm doorsteps before 
breakfast. 
Playing Golf and Growing Wheat; 
T HE United States Senate is conducting an in¬ 
vestigation to find out why grain prices fluc¬ 
tuate. The papers report the testimony of J. L. 
Replogle, a steel manufacturer, who "took a flyer” 
iu wheat.” When asked why he bought wheat, Mr. 
Replogle said: 
"In ihe first place, I know about as much about 
wheat, as a hog knows about -Sunday. But last W inter 
l was down ar Palm Beach and I got a wire from a 
man I met in French Lick. Itul., telling me that wheat 
was a good buy. I asked some people I knew who were 
down there who know about wheat, and they confirmed 
my original tip.” 
Very likely some hogs will recognize Sunday as 
the day they get their breakfast a little later than 
usual. This man had no more use for wheat than 
he would have for the cards and chips in a poker 
game. Thousands of farmers might be ruined 
through the low price of wheat and thousands of 
families might go hungry, but the grain made an 
exciting gamble. 
“The result was that I took on a line of about a 
million and a quarter bushels of May wheat at around 
SI.Oft a bushel. I sold that out gradually in the next 
few months and was entirely out of ir by April, getting 
about $1.13 or $1.1-4. Then 1 got in about the middle 
of May and sold out at considerable loss iu June." 
They asked this man to tell how tbe purchase and 
sale were conducted, and this was all they could get 
out of him: 
“Well, there were a lot of people at Palm Beach who 
had expert information, though it all meant nothing to 
me. But people in the grain business confirmed the 
original message 1 had and told me that wheat at $1.03 
per bushel was selling under cost of production. That’S 
a good time to buy any commodity, when it’s selling 
for less than it costs, and so 1 went in.” 
lie made $100,000 iu one deal, and lost most of it 
when be tried again. He would not tell who his 
associates were, but there was a “golf playing 
hunch” in Florida who were in the game. It seems 
that men can play golf while they speculate or 
gamble on the price of a vital necessity and make 
a fortune (which they have no use for) out of the 
sweat and misery of farmers. 
New York State Notes 
As soon as works lets up a little, fixing the icehouse, 
in order to have it ready when the cold weather sets in, 
will be one of the odd jobs on the farm. There will be 
those, too, who will be building an icehouse for the first 
time, and they are wondering how large they shall build 
in order to accommodate their particular situation. 
Here is a very simple rule for dairymen who are put¬ 
ting in a Winter supply for cooling their milk next 
Summer. The first calculation should he according to 
the amount of milk which is produced, and not the 
number of cows. Normally 3 lbs. of ice is needed, tak¬ 
ing into consideration the normal shrinkage, to cool 
1 lb. of milk from 100 degrees Fahrenheit to -40 de¬ 
grees Fahrenheit. One ton of ice occupies 40 c-u. ft. 
Now if we multiply the amount of milk which we pro¬ 
duce by three and divide the product by 2,000 we shall 
have the number of tons of ice which wc require. It" 
we multiply this number by 40 cu. ft. we will have the 
number of cubic feet required in our house for the 
amount of ice we need. About 1 ft. should be added 
to the sides of the house for the packing. 
There is one thing in which Jefferson County sur¬ 
passes the other counties of the State, and that is her 
ability to produce better oats than her neighbors. There 
is being grown in that county an oat which is called the 
Jefferson No. 343, which is a selection from, the Amer¬ 
ican Beauty and the Banner varieties. This oat has a 
stiller straw than its competitors, and is therefore a 
great favorite with dairymen. It is fair to assume 
that there will be thousands of bushels of oats for seed 
in Jefferson County from sources that are superior. 
.Some day we shall wake up to the fact that we are 
undergoing very marked changes In agriculture at the 
present time. We are wondering what will he the next 
step. The best things for farming will surely come 
from the conscientious thinking of the men who are 
actually doing the job on the farm. Many are wonder¬ 
ing in what way they can diversify their business and 
bring more money to their bank account. Some have 
thought of adding a few brood mares and trying raising 
colts again. Is this a good practice? Who knows? 
As I travel throughout the State I see very few horses 
being raised, and have thought many times, will it be 
profitable for the farmers to raise horses? There has 
been a decrease of 13 per cent in ihe use of horses in 
New York City from 1909 to 1919, 
Tompkins County King, rhe apple._that is good 
enough, is selling at the fruit stands for 5 and 10 cents 
apiece, aud the same quality fruit can be bought within 
a stone’s throw at a farmers’ market for 85 ee_nts a 
bushel. The public continues to patronize the 5 and 
10-cent man. and he eourinues to make a fat margin. 
What is better than a quantity of good eating apples 
iu the cellar when the cool evenings come on? 
The dairy improvement associations are undergoing 
a slow change in the form of organization. In some 
counties, instead of having the association tester come 
from house to house and test the milk, samples are de¬ 
livered by the farmers and tested at a central place, 
and the record books are figured up once each montn 
at the Farm Bureau office. This is more or less of an 
experiment, and therefore the originators of the idea 
are going slowly. 
The Webster Co-operative Cold Storage Company, 
Inc., probably established a new record in building 
their plant in four months after tbe first, ground was 
broken. Those close to the organization say that if they 
had not been up against the rail and coal strikes they 
would have completed the job quicker. This storage 
will be used largely for fruit, although a part of it will 
be used for vegetables. Greenings were the first apples 
to go in. A quantity of celery has also been put in. 
The company is planning to store 20,000 bbls. of apples 
from the Webster Fruit Growers’ Association, which is 
a branch of the Western New York b’ruit Growers’ Co¬ 
operative Packing Association. 
Here is an editorial from a city daily recently pub¬ 
lished which gives a slant on a situation which is rarely 
discussed by city editors. It may set others to think¬ 
ing. It has the caption, “What is the Remedy?” 
"Here is a little story of a transaction in fruit that 
should cause some thinking. More Than one like it has 
probably happened hereabouts. Plainly there is some¬ 
thing wrong somewhere, but what is the best way to 
right it? The Chemung Volley Reporter last week 
said: 
"Edward Wickham of Watkins grows fruit and sells 
it iu order to make a living. It is a commendable busi¬ 
ness and entirely within the law. Recently Mr. Wick¬ 
ham shipped 21 baskets of pears to Baltimore. The 
fruit was choice and sold for $1.55 a basket in that city. 
The sale was made through a commission ‘merchant.’ 
Mr. Wickham thought he would get good returns for his 
pears. A little later, after $29.40 had been paid to the 
express company and rhe commission merchant as his 
part of the transaction, Mr. Wickham found that he 
had just $3.15 left for the pears, or 15 cents a basket. 
The express company and the commission man got $1.40 
per basket." 
Of course, the fact that there is a remarkably large 
fruit crop this year makes the price lower and the re¬ 
turn to rhe grower much smaller, but when choice fruit 
that commands a good price yields the grower only 
enough to pay for his baskets and leaves nothing to pay 
for his labor and his investment, there is something 
awry with the system of distribution. Fruit has to be 
handled and sold quickly. Much of it will not keep 
mauy days, so the grower is at the mercy of the man 
he chooses to market it for him. If a commission mer¬ 
chant is none too scrupulous he can make the excuse 
that part of the fruit spoiled and bad to be sold for 
what it would bring, thus accounting for a small return 
to the grower. But where rhe fruit is fine and sells for 
a good price, it does seem strange that rhe man who 
raised the pears shouldn't get a percentage of return 
that would reimburse him to some extent for his share 
of producing the crop. The grower bought the land, 
eared for the trees, gathered and packed the fruit, took 
the risk of blight, hail, frost, insects and other fruit ene¬ 
mies, while the express company simply hauled it to 
maik“t and the commission merchant spent a few min¬ 
utes selling it. with practically no risk to himself. The 
grower gets 15 cents and rhe express company and the 
commission merchant get the other $1.40. Do you 
wonder that the farmer is beginning to take an interest 
iu au agricultural bloc in Congress? E. a. f. 
