1913. 
■41 
FARM CREDITS IN THE UNITED STATES. 
No. 2. 
Last week we discussed the difficulties 
and expense that farmers in this coun¬ 
try experience in financing farm mort¬ 
gages, and in securing capital and credit 
for the operation of the farm. In 
previous articles of this series, we have 
seen that practically every country of 
Europe has adopted a system of finance 
suitable to agricultural requirements 
both in realty loans and in personal 
credit. We have no such system. Our 
banking system and bonding laws were 
devised for other interests. They are 
not adapted to the needs of the farm. 
The national banks are by law forbid¬ 
den to loan on farm mortgages; and 
as a rule do not loan to farm interests. 
With us every business is provided with 
a system of credits and finance suitable 
to its needs, except the business of the 
farm. Let a man propose to build a 
railroad, develop a mine or start a store, 
or organize a company for any purpose 
whatever, the facilities of our banks, 
and our stock exchanges offer him the 
means to finance his undertaking. Even 
the form of credits and nomenclature 
of the banks and exchanges—and often 
these institutions themselves—are at the 
disposal of get-rich-quick promoters and 
gold-brick vendors with schemes to rob 
the producer and inexperienced in¬ 
vestors of their meagre savings. The 
farmer is the main support of many of 
these enterprises, legitimate and other¬ 
wise. He produces the raw material to 
clothe and feed the whole people. Let 
the farmers of this country take one 
full holiday and neglect their milking and 
next morning twenty millions of city 
breakfast tables will be in confusion. 
Let them continue the holiday for a 
week, and your city families will be in 
despair. If the farmers of the countrv 
went on strike for three months, and 
consumed their own products, moss 
would grow on the stone steps of your 
banks and on the marble columns of 
your stock exchanges. The farmer’s as¬ 
sets in lands and buildings and produce 
are the most stable in the world. His 
habits of prudence and thrift and in¬ 
dustry afford the strongest element of 
moral credit, yet he alone is without 
the facilities to finance his business 
promptly and economically. 
A banking system suited to the pe¬ 
culiar needs of the farm is an acknowl¬ 
edged necessity. Bankers and states¬ 
men and economists and students almost 
universally admit the need of it. 
banners demand it, and it remains only 
to devise the legal machinery to put it 
in operation. 
What will the system be? Before 
discussing that feature, it may be well 
to dispel some illusions that have 
found occasional expression in the dis¬ 
cussion of farm credits. To the few 
who have made a study of the subject 
as practiced in the countries of Europe, 
the principles are simple enough, but it 
is not at all strange that people who 
have received their information from 
the mass of confused published matter 
on the subject in this country, should 
entertain some erroneous impressions. 
This confusion has been encouraged by 
the fact that in some of the European 
countries, cooperative banks have been 
to some extent subsidized, and other¬ 
wise favored by government assistance. 
This has led to the erroneous conclusion 
that cooperative credits meant that any¬ 
one could join a cooperative society 
and get money out of it or from the 
government without regard to his ma¬ 
terial or moral worth. Of course co¬ 
operative credit means nothing of the 
kind. In the first place the government 
is not expected with us to furnish a 
cent. In the countries of Europe where 
cooperation has been most successful 
no government subsidv has been asked 
or accepted. We ask the government to 
do for the farm system of finance even 
less than it has already done for the 
system devised for other business inter¬ 
ests. We ask it only to give us the 
legal _ machinery by which we can 
mobilize and standardize our own forms 
of credit and market the evidences of 
our wealth for purposes of credit. We 
ask less because in times of stress the 
government places treasury deposits in 
the banks devoted to other business 
interests. We do not ask this, but the 
present banking system is under govern¬ 
ment control and supervision, and we 
ask even more stringent supervision, 
and control of our system. No one 
then need hope to get anything out of 
the government through cooperative 
banks on the lines proposed. Govern¬ 
ment aid is a different proposition, and 
what may or may not be done in that 
line later on is entirely beside the pres¬ 
ent question. Moreover each member 
5FHEC RUHAt, 
of a cooperative credit society or bank, 
is personally interested to see that mem¬ 
bership is confined to worthy farmers, 
and that no member be allowed to bor¬ 
row from the organization except those 
who demonstrate personal worth and 
produce satisfactory security. It is a 
system that tends to increase the aver¬ 
age of moral worth in a neighborhood, 
because a moral delinquent cannot hope 
to benefit by a system that depends on 
the confidence of his neighbors. It en¬ 
courages thrift and system, and prompt¬ 
ness, because all of these qualities are 
insisted on by the cooperative credit 
system. If you have farm property 
in any shape, the system will enable 
you to use it as credit for productive 
purposes at a moderate rate of interest. 
But those who are looking for some¬ 
thing for nothing will be disappointed 
with the cooperative credit system. 
JOHN J. DILLON. 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK. 
DOMESTIC.—More tlian .$1,000,000 worth 
of automobiles have been stolen in New 
York city in the last five years. Fewer 
than half of these have been recovered and 
the situation is growing so acute that in¬ 
surance companies which have been obliged 
to stand the loss have hired private de¬ 
tective agencies to apprehend the bands of 
thieves who are leagued with the owners 
of disreputable garages. Numerous arrests 
have been made but a remarkably small 
number of convictions secured. 
The New York Telephone Company, which 
has been protesting against the use by H. 
Lee and Robert II. Sellers of the name 
of the Metropolitan Telephone and Tele¬ 
graph Company in selling bonds for their 
Telepost company and allied enterprises, 
filed suit December 26 in the Supreme 
Court for a permanent injunction. The 
complaint alleges that the name is being 
used as the result of a “wicked, evil, fraud¬ 
ulent Scheme” to sell bonds of little or no 
value to the public. 
Fairbanks and central Alaska held their 
Fourth of July and New Year's eve celebra¬ 
tion together December 31 with elaborate 
fireworks brought by the last steamer be¬ 
fore navigation closed. Summer twilight 
makes July fireworks displays impossible in 
this latitude, so fireworks were subscribed 
for last July, to be set off New Year's eve. 
Thousands of miners came to see the show. 
Bonfires on top of the snow kept the mul¬ 
titudes warm. 
A cashier's check for $20,000 was turned 
over to Clerk Darling of the United States 
District Court at Boston, December 27, by 
Charles F. Choate, counsel to the Barre 
Wool Combing Company of South Barre, 
Mass., to pay a fine of $1,000 each on 20 
British subjects which the company 
brought to this country to work in its mills 
in violation of the contract labor laws. 
The jury in the dynamite conspiracy case 
at Indianapolis reported in court December 
28, finding 38 of the 40 defendants guilty 
on all the counts of the indictments. Dan¬ 
iel Buckley of Davenport. Ia., and Herman 
Seiffert of Milwaukee, Wis., were declared 
not guilty and were freed. There were 52 
counts of conspiracy and unlawfully trans¬ 
porting dynamite, and the penalty is severe. 
Among the convicted are Frank M. Ryan, 
president of the International Association 
of Bridge and Structural Irou Workers; 
John T. Butler of Buffalo, vice-president; 
Herbert S. Hocken, formerly of Detroit, 
former secretary, and Olaf A. Tveitmoe of 
San Francisco, secretary of the California 
Building Trades Council. The full penaltv 
for the crimes is from 18 months to two 
years on each count of the indictment. 
There were 52 counts in all. The jury had 
been out 40 hours and 25 minutes. The 
verdict was a general one. The convicted 
men were sentenced December 30. Im¬ 
prisonment in the federal prison at Leaven¬ 
worth, Kan., was the punishment imposed 
on 33 labor union oflicials. Frank M. 
Ryan was sentenced to serve seven years, 
the heaviest sentence of all. He is the 
president of the iron workers’ international 
union. Of the 38 men convicted as con¬ 
spirators in the McNamara dynamiting 
schemes eight were given prison * terms of 
six years each. These eight prisoners were 
all affiliated with Ryan. Two men each 
were given four years, twelve men each 
were given three years, four men each were 
given two years, six men each were given 
one year and one day, and six men, includ¬ 
ing Edward Clark, of Cincinnati, a dyna¬ 
miter, who pleaded guilty, were allowed 
their liberty on suspended sentences. The 
elimination of those who received suspend¬ 
ed sentences left 33 who are to go fo 
Leavenworth, where the shortest sentence 
will be one year and one day. By the 
liberation of Hiram R. Kline, a ‘former offi¬ 
cial of the carpenters’ union. OPaf A. 
Tveitmoe, of San Francisco, remained as the 
only labor union official among the pris¬ 
oners not related with the ironworkers’ 
union. Tveitmoe was charged by the gov¬ 
ernment with having connived with Presi¬ 
dent Ryan and the McNamaras for the de¬ 
struction of life and property on the Paci¬ 
fic Coast. 
The village of Sodus, N. Y., was visited 
by another disastrous fire December 29, the 
third within eight days. A warehouse con¬ 
taining several hundred barrels of kero¬ 
sene was destroyed. Twice during a week 
previously a bad fire occurred. Altogether 
the property burned is valued at $250,000. 
Threats were received by village oflicials 
some time ago that if opposition to the par¬ 
don of “Big Ed” Kelley developed “veggs” 
would burn the place; Kelly and another 
“yegg” are serving life terms in Danne- 
mora for the murder of a night watchman 
of Sodus three years ago. An application 
for his pardon has been made to Governor 
Dix. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—Officials of the 
Indian Bureau are much pleased because 
at the State Fair at Muskogee, Okla., sev¬ 
eral full-blooded Indians won prizes over 
their white competitors for exhibits of 
corn, cotton, beans and some other farm 
products. Joe Kelly, a Mississippi Choctaw, 
took first and fourth prizes for his corn 
and a second prize for cotton, and Silas 
NEW-YORKER 
Bacon, of the same tribe, won first and 
second prizes for his field beans. There 
were other scattered prizes. 
The Connecticut Dairymen’s Association 
will hold its thirty-second annual conven¬ 
tion in the town hall, Meriden, January 21- 
23 ; annual banquet on the evening of the 
22d. Among speakers promised are Profs. 
Win. M. Esten, .T. M. Trueman. Dr. Charles 
Thom, Mrs. Addie M. Howe, Prof. Cyril G. 
Hopkins and Prof. W. A. Henry. 
The Peninsula Horticultural Society has 
a valuable program arranged for its twenty- 
sixth annual meeting at Wilmington, Dei., 
January 14-16. Beginning the evening of 
January 15, and continuing the following 
day, the Delaware Corn Growers' Associa¬ 
tion has arranged a valuable program at 
the same place. 
W. W. Finley, president of the Southern 
Railway Company, announced December 30 
a new step in railway cooperation in aid¬ 
ing farmers—the appointment of four 
agents to collect and give information as 
to markets, methods of packing, shipping, 
etc., to producers in the territory traversed 
by the lines of his company. These agents 
will have headquarters in Atlanta, Cincin¬ 
nati, St. Louis and Washington. 
PRODUCER TO CONSUMER REGISTRY. 
—51 rs. Julian Heath, national president of 
the Housewives League, has taken up the 
scheme of bringing together the farmer 
with eggs, butter and garden truck for 
sale and the housekeeper in the city who 
wants to buy the freshest and best, bv 
substituting for the middleman Uncle Sam’s 
parcels post. The League is establishing 
a parcels post registry which will act as 
a clearing house between the producer and 
the consumer. Registration will cost pro¬ 
ducer and consumer $1. It Is the League’s 
purpose to limit membership in the clearing 
house to _ housewives in this city and pro¬ 
ducers within the 50 mile zone of the par¬ 
cels post. Similar registries are to be es¬ 
tablished in other cities and in this man¬ 
ner the entire country may be covered in 
time. It is understood that the League 
intends to accept registrations from farm¬ 
ers of excellent repute only, who are will¬ 
ing to send their products to steady cus¬ 
tomers. Housewives desiring foodstuffs di¬ 
rect from the farm will be supplied with a 
list of producers and they can order in 
various quantities up to eleven pounds, as 
they please. It is expected that the 
League's parcels post registry will become 
very popular in time, not only because it 
promises economy, but because it will carry 
more or less of a guarantee that the con¬ 
sumer will not be getting cold storage ar¬ 
ticles under a “strictly fresh" label. The 
registry will be in charge of a committee 
of the local League, of which Miss Martha 
J. Fuller is chairman. The headquarters 
of the registry is at 175 West Eighty- 
eighth street. 
A PUBLIC MARKET IN COURT. 
In Circuit Court, 
September Term, 1911. 
State of Indiana, 
County of Allen. 
Michael Sheridan, et al., 
vs. 
City of Fort Wayne. 
Findings of Court. 
The building of a market house by a 
city, and its maintenance should be. pri¬ 
marily, for the benefit of the people of 
the city. The people of the city need the 
produce of the farms and gardens, and the 
aim of the city government should be to af¬ 
ford every convenience to those who have 
such produce for sale that they may be 
encouraged to bring their goods to' the 
market, so that the people of the city may 
be able to buy of the market-folk at a fair 
and reasonable price. The aim should not 
be to raise revenue. Under the ordinance 
in question there has been collected each 
year over $3,500. 
The people of this city have caused to 
be erected a market-house; a great need; 
and are taxed to pay for it; and their 
desire is to obtain what the farmers and 
gardeners have to sell, as cheaply as pos¬ 
sible. The aim of the city government 
should be to afford them the means of 
gratifying their desire. 
The price for tables or stalls for the 
convenience of the farmers and gardeners 
to sell the things they bring to market 
from their farms and gardens should bo 
very moderate. And the charges for super¬ 
vising and regulating the market in an 
orderly maner should not be such as to 
be a burden on the market-folk. 
It is necessary that the farmers and 
gardeners should have a reasonable time 
within which to dispose of their goods. It 
should be borne in mind that the people 
who go to market to buv do not go to 
market very early. The time fixed by Sec¬ 
tion 2 of the Ordinance of the Common 
Council for closing the market at eleven 
o’clock a. m. on each market day, is not 
reasonable; the time should be extended to 
one p. m. on each market day. 
I think it would be economical and just 
that the market-folk should gather up the 
refuse of their produce and Take it away 
as the ordinance provides, and that the 
city should sweep and clean up the market 
place and street as has been done hereto¬ 
fore by the city. No charge should be 
made by the city against the market folk 
for lighting the market house, for water, 
for insurance, repair of building, for flush¬ 
ing sewers, nor for lamp renewals. The 
charges made should be only to meet the 
necessary expense for the proper regulation 
and conducting of the market, such as the 
salary, of the market-master, cleaning the 
market place and street, made necessary 
by the conduction of the market; pay for 
a police officer while attending the market; 
pay for the services of the sealer of weights 
and measures; pay for the sanitary officer; 
and a certain sum for the services of the 
clerk of the Board of Public Safety; a 
small sum for brooms and utensils neces¬ 
sary in the cleaning of the market place. 
I have, to meet contingencies, allowed 
six hundred dollars for the market-master ; 
for cleaning the market place and street, 
three hundred and fifty-five dollars; being 
about five dollars a day for market days: 
71 days each year for police officer while 
on duty attending the market on market 
days, one hundred and forty-two dollars; 
for the sealer of weights and measures one 
hundred dollars; for the sanitary officer one 
hundred and forty-two dollars; for the 
clerk of the Board of Safety, fifty dollars, 
and for the purchase of brooms and uten¬ 
sils, ten dollars. In addition I allow one 
hundred dollars for contingent expenses 
making a total of fourteen hundred and 
ninety-nine dollars. 
I fix as a proper charge for a year, for 
the stalls under cover, on market days, 
twelve dollars; there being 112 stalls at the 
rate fixed, amounts to $1,344. And in case 
any of the stalls in the market house should 
not be taken, then a charge of seventeen 
cents would be a reasonable charge for 
each time any marketer occupies such stall 
for the sale of his produce. 
As to the other places where produce 
is sold, and not under cover, ten cents for 
each day such places are assigned to those 
wishing to sell goods at the market. 
There are of such places, west of the 
City Hall, 23. 
There are 40 on Barr street between 
Berry street and Main street. 
There are 10 on Berry street east of 
Barr street. 
There are 23 on Barr street north of 
Maine street, making a total of 97. At the 
rate fixed per day. for 71 davs the sum of 
$088.70 may be realized, which added to the 
sum that may be realized from the renting 
of the stalls in the market house, of $1,344, 
making a total of $2,032.70. 
Therefore, Section 25 of the Ordinance 
that makes it the duty of the market-mas¬ 
ter to collect twenty-five cents from the 
marketers for a stand not under cover is 
declared to be invalid. Section 33 of the 
ordinance that fixes the rental for stands 
in the market house at $25 per year, is de¬ 
clared invalid. 
The marketers that have stalls In the 
market house, for their own interest, should 
use their influence to have all the stalls 
in the market house taken; otherwise it 
might appear that a sufficient amount 
would not be realized from the rates fixed 
to meet the legitimate charges I have named 
for carrying on the market. 
GOV. SULZER AND AGRICULTURE. 
Gov. Win. Sulzer of New York, in his 
inauguration address had the following to 
say about farmers, their business and their 
education: 
“We must keep the needs of the farmer 
ever before us. What the farmer produces 
is real wealth. To-day, when consump¬ 
tion has caught up with production, it be¬ 
hooves us to give attention to the land 
and every kind of assistance to the tillers 
of the soil. Those of the cities who would 
return to farms must be encouraged, and 
those of the farms must be aided to 
greater effort and larger profit. We are 
falling behind as an agricultural State. 
"To aid our farmers, legislation that will 
secure greater production should be pro¬ 
moted. Let our people be provided with 
constructive legislation that will enable 
farmers to cooperate among themselves, 
so that farmers and city people can have 
the closest possible intercourse and the 
products of the farm may be moved to 
customers with the least possible friction 
at the smallest expense and in the short¬ 
est time. We should help our farmers 
to secure the advantages of long loans at 
reasonable interest rates. The parcel post 
legislation just started should be further 
extended so as to include an express post 
in order to make still freer the exchange 
ot products between city and country 
“Agricultural education, now in its in¬ 
is^“tau-hT^n^ f P Stercd until agriculture 
, n< i* . only in a few colleges in 
the State but m every high school in our 
Commonwealth. Our game laws shonhl 
be strengthened to prevent thoughtless 
rh from trespassing on farms during 
the „ame season unless freedom to hunt 
has been granted. 
‘‘ The , State Fair must be made an agri¬ 
cultural, an educational and an industrial 
exposition, commissioned by men in sym¬ 
pathy with its interests and capable of 
directing tnis great enterprise in all Its 
channels. The State Agricultural Society 
which has become such a splendid clearin'’ 
HHtr °L fa M n thought. direction and pub- 
actMty hould be encouraged to greater 
“°“ r Department of Agriculture, one of 
* , usetu i administrative branches 
of the State government, must never be at 
h°Tf d r t<? bec °me Partisan in character, but 
motion ^ 7 t0 the me ° £ a ^ ic o!tural pro- 
“I recommend that whatever is within 
the power of the Legislature to do to sus 
tain, to promote and to upbuild the agri- 
cultural resources of the Empire State 
should speedily be done. I will work 
yoU ’ i* S wel1 as tbe rank and 
fide of farmers, to make the next two 
jears the most prosperous in an agricul- 
Whin t f hafc tbis . state has ever known, 
will flourish ” rmCr 18 pros P erous tb ® State 
The principal dairy product in our sec¬ 
tion of the country is cream shipped to the 
creamery and sold at Elgin price or one 
bl » ber - The price of butter in our 
local town, Deshler, is 25 cents, while at 
the county seat. Napoleon it is 30 cents 
per pound. Cattle are very scarce; veal 
is eight cents per pound. Farmers sold 
larger part of potato crop at 50 cents per 
bushel, but few potatoes buried. Chickens 
both young and old have sold at 10 cents 
per pound since October 1. Turkevs are 
scarce at 16 cents. Wheat is SI per 
bushel; no wheat raised in this county the 
past year. Corn at Deshler is 60 cents 
per 100. at Napoleon, 52 cents. Oats, 31 ■ 
clover hay. $10 per ton ; Timothy hay, $12’ 
Clover seed, $8 per bushel. Farmers sold 
apples from 50 to SO cents; onions red 
and white, 50; cabbage, three to five cents 
per head. Lard has sold at 12 cents The 
past year. Hogs, seven cents, have been 
higher this Fall. Some hog cholera In 
southern part of county. m. l. b. 
Hamler, O. 
The following prices were paid to farm¬ 
ers at Harrisonburg, Va„ bv dealers week 
before Christmas: Fresh eggs 26 Cush 
price, 27 trade; butter. 23 cash. 25 trade; 
large chickens, 9% cash, 10V, trade; hens 
over four pounds, 9% cash, 10% in trade. 
i. w. w. 
Corn, 62 to 68; calves, eight to 10; 
hogs, nine; hay, B.. $21 to $22.50; wheat 
straw. $10.50; potatoes, 80 : eggs, 35 cents 
a dozen; live chickens, 14 to 16 cents 
per pound ; cows, $60 to $100. 
Landsdale, Pa. t. h. g. 
