942 
THE RURAL, NEW-YORKER 
September 23, 
THE CONSUMER’S DOLLAR. 
A Grocer on Prices and Practice. 
1 am a grocer and dealer in fruits and 
vegetables. I buy all my vegetables direct 
from the grower; fruit is bought from 
commission merchants ; and I find them as 
a class far more honorable than the far¬ 
mers, although you unduly praise the far¬ 
mer and “knock” the commission man. 
On Friday last I bought two crates of 
tomatoes from the grower direct for $2. 
1 kept careful watch and collected $1.40 
for these tomatoes, and considered myself 
lucky in not having a greater loss. I 
expect and am always satisfied to lose 10 
per cent on all fruit and vegetables han¬ 
dled. The waste and loss, with the great¬ 
est care, cannot be avoided; the average 
housewife being finicky and paying only 
for her pick of the fruit and vegetables, 
after which the remainder is sold at a 
loss. This loss 1 make up in the sales of 
tea and coffee, receiving as high as 100 
per cent profit. Yet you never write a 
line in behalf of the poor Chinaman farmer. 
Only a day or two ago a relative from 
Delaware was in my store condemning a 
commission merchant for making no return 
for a shipment of peaches 1 made in¬ 
quiry in the matter, found the peaches 
were shipped on a Friday afternoon, reach¬ 
ing the market on Saturday after the 
close of business. The commission man 
good-naturedly had them put in cold stor¬ 
age in an effort to save them for Monday’s 
market, making no charge for the hand¬ 
ling. On Monday they had to be taken 
to the dumps, and yet this intelligent 
Firmer, for such he is. blamed the com¬ 
mission man for his own stupidity. I be¬ 
lieve there are always two sides to every 
question, and while your able efforts in 
behalf of poor farmers are to be admired, 
you seldom or never say a word against the 
fraud farmer. I remember years ago when 
the Hope Farm man lived in a flat in 
New York; during a very cold Winter he 
complained unjustly. I think, of the price 
of boiled ham being 40 cents a pound, 
while he could only get 5 cents a pound 
for his pigs in a pen on a farm; 10 cents 
worth of ham prepared and ready to be 
eaten is a long way from a live hog. I 
was amused at the complaint of ,T. Grant 
Morse, the writer and pedigreed cattle 
breeder, paying too much for a pedigreed 
horse and forgetting the fact that he, you 
and I buy cheap and sell dear. I certainly 
admired those horsemen and I think you 
were unfair in not saying a word of com¬ 
mendation about them. How do you jus¬ 
tify condemning a man for doing what you 
would do vourself? 
Dong Island. CHAS. H. SCHLOO. 
II. N.-Y.—We could easily match this 
with true stories of stones in butter and 
sand in sugar put there by grocers. That 
is not the point. How much does a farmer 
get of what his produce brings at retail? 
'I’here are cases on both sides of the ques¬ 
tion which might he used to make an ex¬ 
travagant statement, but we are after facts 
no matter what they show. Suppose Mr. 
Schloo tells ns how the average farmer 
can “buy cheap.” 
robbing both the producer and consumer. 
It seems to me that in small villages the 1 
farmer, by advertising in the local papers 
that he would be in town on a certain day 
and hour at a designated point with his 
load, might sell to good advantage direct 
from his wagon, and not use up a great deal 
of time. In the larger cities if the autliori- ! 
ties will not furnish a place, it seems as if ! 
the farmers’ exchanges might take hold of 
the matter, and in time make it a success, j 
P.ut under this system of ours the almighty 
dollar seems to be the one thing uppermost 
in all minds, and everyone who is given the 
opportunity grabs all he can. Truly it is 
the root of all evil, and it looks as if the 
only way to get justice is to do away with 
the love for the root. F. b. s. 
R. N.-Y.—And the job is worse than clean¬ 
ing out crab grass or Canada thistle. 
The New York State Fair. 
State fair week at Syracuse started cold 
and windy with attendance below the aver¬ 
age. As the weather cleared the crowd 
came in larger numbers and on several 
days filled the grounds. As years pass 
and the trees grow larger the fair grounds 
come to look more like a park, justifying 
the judgment which located the fair per¬ 
manently at Syracuse. 
There was an immense display of all 
farm products of this latitude. We shall 
give later studies of the various exhibits 
as they indicate the development of agri¬ 
culture in New York State. Fruit, dairy¬ 
ing and poultry are growing rapidly in 
importance and the exhibits of fruit, cattle 
and hens show the tendency of such de¬ 
velopment. One of the most attractive 
displays was that of exhibits made by 
various State departments—such as chari¬ 
ties, weights and measures and health. 
The State fair has now come to be a 
great industrial exposition—too large to 
be studied with any care in less than a 
week. It is a great gathering place for 
the farmers. Mayor Gaynor, of New York ; 
President Taft. Governor I)ix. Lieutenant- 
Governor Conway. and others, made 
speeches and gave the farmers more of less 
sound advice. As an exhibit and in its 
human interest the fair of 1911 will rank 
as one of the best. 
We have a fruit farm here of 9,500 trees, J 
with 6,500 sour cherry trees; the remainder 
are apple, plums and pears. This season’s ; 
crops are as follows: We picked 80 tons 
of sour cherries, 500 bushels plums and 700 
bushels pears. We have an orchard of Win¬ 
ter apples of 600 trees set nine years; we 
estimate the crop at 1.500 barrels. We also : 
have harvested 1,200 bushels Fall apples. 
Manlius, N. Y. o. h. p. 
We are having seasonable weather, with 
plenty of rain. Late crops are benefited. 
Potatoes are a failure. Corn crop will be 
good; farmers are busy plowing for Fall 
wheat. Hard times heard on all sides on 
account of failure of farm products: wheat 
90 cents, corn 65, oats 40. bivtter 22, eggs 
20, lard 11. new potatoes $1.25, peaches $1 
to $1.50 per basket. D. D. s. 
Middleburg, Pa. 
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THE OTTO GAS ENGINE WORKS 
3304 Walnut Street, P hiladelphia, Pa, _ 
—zazjiaag— cu jhtj., 1 . i . ■ ■ n Mncan ™*^——— 1 
FARM MANAGER WANTED 
Wanted—a praetieal Farm Manager of executive 
ability: thorough knowledge of all branches of 
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R.X. I,., 150 Fifth Avenue, New York City. 
$ 25.00 buys this 
Watts power corn 
sheller, (with a little, 
of course, added for 
freight, etc., to your 
station) which will 
shell 120 bushels of corn 
an hour. Less than half 
the cost of its nearest 
competitor. 
Has a feed grinding 
attachment for only 
$11.50 more, that equals 
the work of any $25.00 
to $35.00 
grinder. 
Pays for 
itself in a 
good two 
days run. 
Any farmer can shell when 
he wants to and sell at the 
right price. 
Guaranteed satisfactory 
5 days free trial. 
Dealers everywhere. Write 
for booklet. 
Seager Engine Works 
1028 Hazel St. Lansing, Mich. 
P RACTICAL FARM MANAGER open for engagement on 
up-to-date farm Thoroughly understands farm¬ 
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and gasoline engines. Can get results. American; 
small family; strictly sober; good refer, nces. 
Address: “P. L. E,” care Rural New-Yorker. 
Ox page 856 C. I. says potatoes wore 
$1.60 a bushel on the market at Rochester, 
N. Y. About the same time a working 
woman in New York City was paying her 
corner grocer 12 rents a quart for them, 
and peaches (which she said of course she 
couldn't afford) were 30 cents a quart. 
Consumer’s Dollar for Cheese. 
An cut the high cost of living. I note that 
The Louisville Courier-Journal of July 12. 
roil, quotes Wisconsin full cream cheese at 
15 cents a pound, wholesale, (on the above 
date). This is the cost to the retail mer¬ 
chant after the Wisconsin factory has added 
the cost of labor to the raw material, the 
factory profit on to that, the transportation 
charges on top of the factory profit, and the 
wholesale merchant’s profit added to the 
railroad freight. On the same date the same 
cheese retailed in our local market (a small 
country town) for 25 cents a pound. Would 
it not he proper for some aspiring Con¬ 
gressman to have another congressional 
committee investigate the farmer again, to 
determine why he is making the cost of liv¬ 
ing so high? The suggestion might also 
be offered that some of our aspiring politi¬ 
cians who are playing the role of states¬ 
man in the amateur league, adopt as a 
slogan : 
“The prosperity of the American farmer 
is a menace to the Nation.” 
Washington. a. c. auldon. 
Public Market at South Bend, Ind. 
This market was opened a few weeks 
ago, and has been successfully operated 
since Tuesdays. Thursdays and Saturdays 
of each week. Not having a suitable and 
central available place, other than the one 
selected, the authorities granted the com¬ 
mittee in charge the right to use a long 
wide cement bridge crossing the St. Joseph 
River, in the heart of the city. Wagons 
of produce are backed up to the curb on 
hut one side of the bridge, leaving ample 
room for the passage of vehicles. The city 
scaler is in charge of the market, and his 
word is law. It is thought both producers 
and consumers are benefited by dealing at 
first hands, the producer by selling more 
at a better figure, and the consumer by 
getting strictly fresh produce at a substan¬ 
tial reduction. The grocers complain, say¬ 
ing they sell but a fraction of the amount 
they used to handle. Patrons of the mar¬ 
ket are required to remain in position until 
10 a. m., the closing hour, unless sold out. 
Those wishing to dispose of their wares at 
wholesale can go down under the bridge or 
on other streets and barter with the host 
of wagon peddlers. a. w. b. 
R. N.-Y.—The South Bend papers have 
given much space to reports of the mar¬ 
ket. With proposed additions there will 
be room for 300 farm wagons. 
Cucumber Prices. 
I was on the public market in Buffalo 
last Tuesday. The price of cucumbers was 
(the highest) 50 cents per bushel, which 
would count about. 100. Four blocks from 
there I priced cucumbers in a grocery store 
and they asked throe and four cents each 
for a fair sample. What per cent, of the 
consumer’s dollar did the producer get here? 
New York. c. r. w. 
There is no doubt in my mind that the 
middleman, combined with the “trusts,” Is 
Is your farm the most attractive in 
your locality ? Could you sell out 
for more than the place cost you ? 
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N OTHING runs down a farm so 
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