1913 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
THE TAG TAX ON FEEDS. 
Great opposition has developed to Assem¬ 
bly bill 955 before the New York Legisla¬ 
ture. It has passed the Assembly and is 
before the Senate. This bill puts a tax of 
20 cents a ton on concentrated feed. We 
give below fair arguments on both sides. 
First comes a defense of the bill and rea¬ 
sons for its introduction. 
Statement Fob the Tax Bill. 
A great deal of misinformation seems to 
be prevalent in regard to Assembly bill No. 
955, which was introduced at the request 
of the Agricultural Department, at Albany. 
This bill seeks to put a tax of 20 cents per 
tom on concentrated commercial feeding 
stuffs. As the law now stands, concen¬ 
trated commercial feeding stuffs, so-called, 
don't include the whole or ground parts, 
either separate or mixed, of wheat, corn, 
oats, rye, barley, or buckwheat, neither 
does it mean cornmeal and bran or bran 
and middlings, nor corn and oats called 
mixed feed, and it does especially apply 
to the higher priced concentrated feeds, or 
to many of the feeds known as horse, dairy 
or stock food. 
In Bulletin 351, issued by the Geneva 
Experiment Station, being a report of the 
inspection of feeding stuffs, will be found 
the information that out of 447 brands 
of feeding stuffs inspected in 1912, 13 per 
cent were found below guarantee. It is 
also shown that out of 319 different com¬ 
pound feeds, 221 contained oat hulls or cob 
meal or ground cocoa shells or weed seeds, 
and some few had a very large percentage 
of sand. The consumption of these com¬ 
mercial feeds in New York State is in¬ 
creasing wonderfully and the need for im¬ 
mediate provisions to make more rigid in¬ 
spections and more thorough analysis is very 
necessary. The present law taxes each 
brand mannfactured in the State $25. This 
system of taxation is both crude and in¬ 
adequate. In the middle West and in sev¬ 
eral of the prairie States the brand tax 
has been abandoned and the tonnage tax 
has taken its place. 
The consumers of commercial feed in New 
York State and every other State have de¬ 
manded protection from adulterated feed 
stuffs and to make this protection efficient 
the tax should be wisely placed upon the 
tonnage basis. In Indiana a tax of 16 
cents a ton has been levied without work¬ 
ing any hardship to the consumers of feed. 
It has also served to acquaint the con¬ 
sumers with the fact that many of these 
feeds, while coming up to the bag analysis, 
contained large quantities of screenings, 
weed seeds, oat hulls and cob meal which 
possesses almost no food value. 
There can be no question as to the jus¬ 
tice and equity of a tonnage tax, and the 
question of how high that tax should be 
decided only on the ground of how efficient 
inspection is needed. The brand tax has 
always operated towards reducing the num¬ 
ber of brands. The number of brands 
should be increased and more nearly the 
local and seasonable requirements. Besides 
this consideration, the fact that the De¬ 
partment of Agriculture in this State has 
been in the past, and i^ now seriously 
handicapped for want of funds to protect 
and encourage the agricultural interests of 
the State, should certainly bring to the 
support of this bill all the people who wish 
to see the department put on a self-sus¬ 
taining basis. It is only when the depart¬ 
ment is on tills basis that it can be kept en¬ 
tirely free from political intluenees. 
Objections to the Tax Bill. 
A tax of 20 cents per ton on concen¬ 
trated feeds may be variously estimated 
to produce a revenue from $75,000 to $150,- 
000. This tax must and will be paid by 
the ultimate consumer, the farmer, just as 
all taxes of this kind are passed along. 
There is no more excuse for taxing feed 
stuffs than there is beefsteak, drygoods, 
shoes or any other necessity of life. The 
history of every Northern State collecting 
such a tax was that the revenue was three 
times the amount required for legitimate ex¬ 
penses and the surplus cau readily be used 
extravagantly, misused or diverted to other 
purposes. 
The expense of tags and labor of affix¬ 
ing them is to the manufacturer not less 
than $1 per car or five cents per ton, which 
the farmer must also pay. Investigation 
has shown that all taxes are doubled and 
trebled when they come to the consumer. 
Feeds Invariably sell in multiples of five 
cents per bag or in even dollars per ton. 
An addition of one cent per bag or 20 
cents per ton cannot be and will not be 
absorbed by the seller and the price will 
be advanced to the next multiple. Liko 
the anthracite wage Increase and the to¬ 
bacco tax, the consumer will pay tripl e 
the amount of the tax. 
The tax tags are a nuisance—the acciden¬ 
tal loss of one in transit or the theft of one 
immediately places the feed dealer in viola¬ 
tion of the law with all the heavy penalties 
that go with it. In the Summer most ship¬ 
ments go by water and tags easily become 
torn off. Tags are always affixed with 
hooks, which are bad things, and have 
caused several deaths of feed dealers in the 
last few years through injury. The death 
of Mr. Thomas of Varysburg was due to 
blood poisoning caused by a hook on a 
tag. 
To enforce a tax tag law so as to pre¬ 
vent unfair competition from those who 
are disposed to evade it, requires much 
more expensive machinery than the mere 
collection of samples. It is questionable 
whether such a law is constitutional in 
that certain feeds arc exempted without any 
logical reason. It is a disgrace for a 
wealthy and liberal State like New York 
to pass such a law. It was endeavored to 
pass one in Massachusetts lately to pay 
the expense of the feed inspection, and op¬ 
position was so strong that the Legislature 
was forced to pass an appropriation for 
expenses and put the cost where it be¬ 
longed, as this law is for the protection of 
all the citizens. The farmer already has 
to pay two cents duty on every bag of 
feed or fertilizer which the government 
gets in tax on jute. If the State must 
have revenue, let them tax the luxuries of 
life, like beverages of all kinds, such as 
tea and coffee. 
One thing is certain, if this law is passed 
every manufacturer will quote, as they now 
do in other States where tags are employed, 
a set price for the feed and so much extra 
for tags. The tax tag law was so oppres¬ 
sive in Maine that it was expunged from 
the statutes, as Maine farmers hadi to pay 
more for feeds than those of other States. 
EVENTS OF THE WEEK 
DOMESTIC.—Judge Thompson in the 
Naturalization Court at Philadelphia March 
5 decided that the Canal Zone is a portion 
of the United States and that residence 
in the Canal Zone permits' a person to 
seek naturalization in this country. The 
decision was given in the case of Louisa 
Kuratb. The Government sought to bar 
the woman from naturalization although she 
had been employed as a Government nurse 
in the Canal Zone for the last six years. 
The case of Miss Kurath passed upon was 
the first case to come under the jurisdic¬ 
tion of !he Bureau of Naturalization since 
it became a part of the Department of 
Labor. 
St. Dunstan’s Roman Catholic Cathedral 
at Charlottetown, P. E. I., the largest 
church in the province, was destroyed by 
fire March 8. The loss is estimated at 
$309,000. The fire, supposed to have been 
started by an electric light wire behind 
the altar, broke out early and fanned by a 
strong breeze, rapidly spread through the 
edifice and attacked the Bishop's palace, 
where it was got under control. 
The Interstate Commerce Commission, has 
just instigated an investigatfon into the 
operation of private car companies which 
is regarded as one of the most important 
ever undertaken by the Federal body. The 
United States Steel Corporation, the Stand¬ 
ard Oil Company, the big packers and brert 1 - 
ers and the fruit growers’ associations, 
ail operating private cars, are concerned. 
The primary purpose of the inquiry is to 
determine the relations that exist between 
the railroads of the United States and 
the private ear companies. 
One hundred and ten passengers were 
rescued March 9 from the British steam¬ 
ship Lugano, bound from Liverpool to Ha¬ 
vana, which struck on Ajax Reef during 
a fog. The passengers were taken off by 
the wrecking tug Rescue, which brought 
them to Key West. 
Three hundred tons of dynamite, which 
were being loaded into the British tramp 
steamer Alum Chine, in the lower harbor 
of Baltimore, Md., off Fort Carroll, exploded 
March. 7, instantly killing from 40 to 50 
men, wounding threescore more, some of 
whom may die, and destroying propery 
valued at $500,000. The Alum Chine and 
a loading scow alongside her were blown to 
atoms; the tug Atlantic, which twice weut 
to the rescue of the imperilled seamen, 
was set on fire and later sank; the United 
States collier Jason, just completed and 
ready for trial, was raked to her deck and 
her armor riddled, and buildings in Bal¬ 
timore and cities and town many miles 
away were rocked by the force of the ex¬ 
plosion. The cause of the disaster is said 
to be the carelessness of a drunken steve¬ 
dore. In the estimate of property damage 
the principal loss was the Alum Cliiue, 
which cost about $375,000. Her cargo was 
worth $100,000. The Maryland Steel Com¬ 
pany sustains the next largest loss. A 
superficial examination of the collier Jason 
indicates a damage of $100,000. The wreck¬ 
ing of the tug Atlantic entails a loss of 
$35,000. The lighter and box cars were 
probably worth about $27,000. 
Seven persons were injured and six busi¬ 
ness establishments, four doctors’ offices 
and a sanitarium were destroyed in a fire 
caused by a natural gas explosion in the 
443 
business district of Hot Springs, Ark., 
March 7. The loss is estimated at nearly 
$500,000. 
The manufacturing and business section 
of Union City, Fa., was threatened with 
destruction March 8 when the factory of 
the Shreve Chair Company was burned. 
Before the firemen could get the flames 
under control the plants of the Variety 
Turning Company and the Hanson Furni¬ 
ture Company were badly damaged. The 
loss to tli£ Shreve Chair Company is about 
$325,000 and to the other two plants about 
$75,000. It is said that about 700 persons 
are out of work as a result of the fire. 
FARM AND GARDEN.—Ex-Congressman 
Cannon has sold his farm, a 400-aere plot, 
at Fithian, Ill., to Edward Stephens and 
Frederick Endieott, both of Fithian, for 
$100,000. The laud was bought by Mr. 
Cannon in 1880 at $25 an acre. 
To learn whether the Illinois Milk Pro¬ 
ducers’ Association is trying to monopolize 
the milk supply of Illinois, Southern Wis¬ 
consin and Eastern Iowa is the purpose of 
an investigation begun at Chicago March 
fcy agents of the Department of Justice, 
which has been informed that the associa¬ 
tion constitutes a pool, through which the 
dairymen expect to sell their product to 
the retail dealers. Officers, of the associa¬ 
tion are: President, E. J. Fellows, St. 
Charles ; secretary, Albert T. Jack, Antioch ; 
•directors, C. II. Potter, Elgin ; F. II. Reese, 
Dundee, and John Read, Hampshire. Mr. 
Potter is president of the Elgin Board of 
Trade and a defendant in the pending civil 
suit of the government to enjoin the board 
from “fixing” the price of butter. At a re¬ 
cent meeting of dairymen in Chicago the 
speakers unanimously declared they were 
•doing business at a loss, the profits going 
to the better organized retailers. 
The bill before the Montana Legislature 
for a seed laboratory at the Montana State 
College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts 
has been indorsed by the Montana Seed 
Growers’ Association. The laboratory would 
provide equipment for milling and baking 
tests for a test of the germinating qualities 
of seeds and for the study of the weed 
seed content of samples of Montana grains. | 
When you write advertisers mention Thh 
R. N.-Y. and you’ll get a quick reply and a 
“square deal.” See guarantee editorial page. 
Make 
Extra 
Dollars 
Cutout the 
cost of some 
hired help by 
using a 
Rumely Automatic Baler 
It is the fastest and best baler, the only 
real automatic one on the market. 
Run it with a 
Rumely-Olds Engine 
6 h.p. or 8 H.p. 
Mounted on the baler truck 
This engine has a reputation—simply 
fill and start. It runs itself, adjusts itself 
—any load. 
Use this combination and bale yonr hay 
faster and better than you ever did before. 
The Rumely-Olds comes in every convenient 
size, and can be used all over the farm on 
a hundred jobs. Portable, Stationary and Skid- 
Mounted. Baler comes in sizes to fit your 
requirements. 
Write for DataBook, No. 344, on the 
Rumely-Olds Engine, and Data-Book, 
No. 245, on the Rumely Au¬ 
tomatic Baler. Ask for name 
of nearest dealer. 
RUMELY PRODUCTS CO. 
(Incorporated) 
Power-Farming Machinery 
LA PORTE. IND. 
The Flying 
Dutchman 
Trade Mark 
of the 
Moline Plow Co, 
nuummiiiJuiiirnmiiiiiiiiiL-' 
Look 
for the 
Flying 
Dutchman 
Dealer 
This Famous Trade Mark 
Stands for Reliable 
Farm Tools 
= 
E 
i 
Since 1855 Adriance, Platt & Company have been making 
the celebrated Adriance farm machinery. For almost the 
same length of time the Moline Plow Co. has been making 
Moline Plows and other farm tools that are equally well known. 
Recently these old established firms became associated 
together under the name of the Moline Plow Co., thereby bring¬ 
ing under one management and one trade mark a complete 
line of farm implements of unequaled dependability. 
All farm tools bearing the Flying Dutchman Trade Mark 
have behind them many years of manufacturing experience, 
and are backed up by the reputation and integrity of both 
Adriance, Platt & Co. and the Moline Plow Co. In material, 
workmanship, design, durability and economy of service, you 
may absolutely rely on every one of them to be the best 
that can be produced. 
Our Eastern Branch 
at Poughkeepsie, N.Y. 
For the convenience of our Eastern customers, a selling branch will 
be maintained at Poughkeepsie, N. Y. This Eastern Branch will be 
equipped to supply any of the famous Flying Dutchman Line, which now 
comprises the following well known farm implements: 
E 
E 
Moline Plows Moline Manure Spreaders 
Mandt Wagons Monitor Drills 
Henney Buggies McDonald Pitless Scales 
Freeport Vehicles Adriance Harvesting Machinery 
Many of the above need no introduction to you, and we positively 
assure you that the others are of the same unrivaled quality as the ones 
you already know. Ask your dealer to show them to you, or write for 
descriptive circulars to Dept. 107 . 
Moline Plow Co. | 
Moline, III | 
1 = minium minium miimuii minium immmisuii minium miniumuiuiuiiii r 
Adriance, Platt & Co., 
Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 
