1913. 
We have here a great bunch of letters from Con¬ 
gressmen before parcels post was started. Most of 
them were to give “careful consideration.” When 
pressed to get busy they give dismal stories of the 
fearful expense which parcels post would mean. 
There would be a terrible loss to the government! 
What wise old owls they are. They were enjoying 
the franking privilege for their own profit and let¬ 
ting nice slices of graft get by them, and yet how 
they held up their economical hands when we asked 
for parcel post. But what bluffers they were. Here 
is the latest: 
Mr. Burleson told the committee he was sure the 
new rates would increase the revenues of the Post 
Office Department greatly, besides adding largely to the 
popular benefits from the service. Though the Senate 
Committee a year ago estimated the rates ordered to-day 
would result in a loss of eight cents on each 20-pound 
package, Mr. Burleson said the estimates of his depart¬ 
ment experts foretold a profit of 10 cents a package. 
If our people had not used the pitchfork on some 
of these men they would be giving “careful consid¬ 
eration” still, and pleading poverty for poor old 
Uncle Sam. That excuse never will work again. 
* 
I hope, sometime before I die, to be able to find in 
your paper the advertisement of some farmer who 
wants to do business direct with the consumer of farm 
products, through the medium of our parcel post. The 
right man, with the right goods, at the right price, has 
the whole city before him. Will he wake up to the 
opportunity to be presented, beginning August 15? 
New York. j. n. f. 
Your dream will be realized all in good time. 
After August 15 we can mail 20 pounds for 24 cents, 
and it will not be so long before this weight limit 
will rise to 50 pounds and over. Do not expect that 
any one farmer can supply all sorts of farm produce 
through the entire year. This is an age of special¬ 
ties. It would not pay any farmer to produce eggs, 
butter, fruit, flowers and vegetables. He will do 
better to ship one or two products which he can 
grow in a superior manner. What will soon come 
is co-operative growing and selling. A dozen or 
more farmers will combine and divide the business 
of production, so there 'will be a dozen different 
products to sell—each one grown by an expert. 
These men will combine to sell so as to do a yearly, 
direct, retail trade with city consumers. This is 
the only way to do such business in a satisfactory 
way, and we shall see it in practice soon. 
* 
We would like a discussion of that wool proposi¬ 
tion stated on page 91(5. Every farmer uses or 
would like to use woolen garments for himself and 
family. He cannot get them now at any fair price, 
but must be content with shoddy stuff. lie may get 
a 35-cent dollar for his pure wool, but then he must 
pay a 200-cent dollar when he buys that wool back 
in needed clothing. Would he be willing to exchange 
part of that wool for pure all-wool goods to be made 
for him at the factory and shipped direct to him? 
He would in this way deal direct with the factory 
and cut out some half dozen buying and selling mid¬ 
dlemen. There are a dozen other things which 
would grow out of this. The quality of other woolen 
goods would be improved. Smaller woolen factories 
would be encouraged to start up and handle local 
supplies of wool, and here would be another needed 
example of what farmers can do if they will only 
combine for business. Instead of having the manu¬ 
facturer of our necessities so far away that you 
can hardly see him he would be within reach of 
your hand. The “way out” lies along just such 
plans for doing business. 
* 
For some years now we have been asking why 
some horticultural society does not liven up its 
meeting with a live kitchen wire. They have apple 
packing contests and speaking contests for the young 
men—but why not pie-making contests for the girls? 
We want to see big cash prizes offered for the best 
apple pies baked at the meeting. Let each girl 
have a handful of flour, sugar, spice, apples or what 
she calls for, and a place at a hot oven. Give her 
the " raw materials" and let her make the pies right 
at the meeting. We will guarantee three times the 
crowd around this exhibit that you can ever find 
at packing apples, speaking or judging fruit. They 
are getting close to such things out on the Pacific 
coast: 
. the Spokane exhibition each high school will enter 
tnree boys in the manual training and three girls in 
_ e domestic economy contests. The boys will take the 
• "i t , eria ? band and with the aid of their tools 
ana skill will produce the finished product and the 
guis will start with the recipe and ingredients and will 
u>ok tilings, perhaps better than mother used to do it, 
all in view of the spectators. 
I hat is a sensible thing to attempt. Why not try 
something of the sort in the East? The apple pie 
is the best advertisement to use in disposing of the 
surplus apple crop. Men must pack while women 
must bake; and the woman’s work is more impor¬ 
tant 
THE RURAL, NEW-YORKER 
What is the commercial value of a ton of corn 
silage? This becomes important, since silage is 
being sold in some localities like hay or grain. Some¬ 
times the contents of a silo will be sold at auction. 
We know of one case where a man sold his dairy 
herd and still filled the silo. He sold by the wagon 
load to neighbors. In other cases silage is sold in 
sacks like grain or beet pulp during the Winter. 
These sales make it necessary to put some sort of 
a price on the silage. The usual rule has been to 
figure good silage at one-third price of good hay. 
Thus when hay sells at $15 per ton the silage would 
bring $5. Recent experiments in Missouri show that 
a ton of corn silage had about half the feeding value 
of clover hay. The two were more valuable when 
fed together, but we think the silage values ought 
to be overhauled and figured at half the price of 
good hay. 
* 
Everybody knows, or should know, The R. N.-Y.’s 
position in regard to horticultural novelties. Dur¬ 
ing the season we receive hundreds of letters from 
people who ask if they shall take the big stories of 
the introducers at their full value, and stock up 
heavily with trees or plants of a new, high-priced 
variety. We assume that intelligent people will use 
a fair amount of horse sense in settling this ques¬ 
tion. When a man introduces a new variety he can 
have little protection under our patent laws. If a 
man patent a new broom, he can wait for years 
until use has fully demonstrated its value. Then 
he can sell it at his own price and control the sale. 
This is not true of a new strawberry or peach. The 
introducer cannot control its propagation after he 
sells a living specimen,-for the patent laws do not 
control things which are self-producing. Therefore 
an introducer cannot wait as a manufacturer can 
until his new variety has been tested everywhere 
and proved to be superior. He must pay for his 
time, his business risk, and obtain his profit by rapid 
sales, while he controls the stock. That is why 
most novelties are put on the market before they 
are fully tested everywhere. The better class of 
these novelties has been tested enough to convince 
the introducer that he really has a superior thing. 
Up to a certain point he»is justified in claiming su¬ 
periority for his goods. The buyer, however, should 
not take the introducer’s word without fair discount. 
Our unvarying advice is never to buy heavily of a 
high-priced novelty unless you absolutely know its 
value, or are prepared to lose cheerfully a good 
share of your money, in case the novelty proved dis¬ 
appointing. For example, we should consider it the 
height of folly for a man to plant acres of a new 
strawberry which sold at $15 or $20 a thousand. 
That would be a gamble pure and simple, for the 
fruit from such planting could not bring in money 
enough as compared with old varieties to pay for 
such expense. The sale of plants from that variety 
would be largely a gambling speculation which 
might, or might not pay. If you take our advice, 
therefore, you will buy sparingly of high-priced nov¬ 
elties, and use them for fair testing, or for founda¬ 
tion stock. Use ordinary common sense in studying 
the descriptions printed by the people who sell these 
novelties. Do not plunge unless you are prepared 
to risk your money without subsequent complaint. 
A 36-CENT MILK DOLLAR. 
Some daily papers, like the New York Times 
delight in maligning the farmer, or trying to show 
that he is getting rich at the expense of the con¬ 
sumer. The Chicago Record-Herald does not oper¬ 
ate that way. It tries to show something of the 
truth about farmers and their business. In a recent 
excellent article it shows that a dairyman who 
supplies milk to Chicago gets 36 cents of the con¬ 
sumer's dollar. This dairyman lives at Huntley, Ill. 
On the day reported he received $1.40 for 100 pounds 
of milk, which meant 4S quarts. This meant 2 9-10 
cents a quart. This milk was retailed at eight cents 
a quart in the city. The handlers received for the 
can of milk $2.44 more than was paid to the dairy¬ 
man. Figured on what the consumer pays, the pro¬ 
ducer got 3(5 cents, while the various handlers re¬ 
ceived (54 cents. The freight charges to Chicago 
were 26% cents for the can of milk, so that a state¬ 
ment of the business runs as follows: 
The consumer pays. $3.S4 
The producer gets.$1.40 
The railroad gets. .26% 
The retailer gets. 2.17% 
Total .$3.S4 $3.S4 
The dairyman figures his investment as follows: 
Laud. 160 acres at $175 an acre. $28,000 
Horses, tools, etc. 2.000 
Forty cows at $100 each. 4.000 
Total . $34,000 
The land did not cost him that much, but that is 
its valuation- now, the basis upon which he pays 
©19 
taxes. He claims that his loss on milk cans alone 
when they are lost, strayed or stolen, is $60 a year, 
or $5 a month. He says the life of a good well- 
worked dairy cow, giving a heavy mess of milk, is 
about four years. The average price paid for such 
a cow is $100. They are then sold at about $30 
apiece. With 40 cows, this man has to buy about 
30 new ones each year, which means $1,000 paid 
out for new cows, and $300 received for the old ones. 
Thus the expenses for labor, cows and cans will be 
figured as follows: 
Annual loss on cows. $700 
Two men at $30 a month each . 720 
Loss on cans. gq 
Total .$1,480 
The daily average for the 40 cows is 80 gallons of 
milk, which brings him in about $3,796 a year. He 
has taxes, insurance, and the upkeep of the place to 
pay. All this amounts to $500, with net returns 
thus far $1,816. This man and his wife are obliged 
to work days, nights and Sundays to keep the dairy 
going, and in addition the labor of the children and 
members of the family also thrown in. If this 
man and his wife pay themselves the modest sum 
of $1.50 a day, they would have left $730 with which 
to buy all their food, and their feed, and pay the 
wages of the members of their family who work 
hard and constantly along with them. This dairy¬ 
man figures that it costs him at least $35 a month, 
outside of what he raises on the farm, to feed his 
family and hired men, and there is nothing in this 
statement to cover the loss of cows, the loss of 
horses, or the other losses which are sure to occur 
on any dairy farm. The Record-Herald says that 
in view of these figures it is small wonder that 51 
dairymen in the district where this man lives went 
out of business last year. It is a good sign when 
strong and influential daily papers in the city are 
willing to state the facts as in this case. Most of 
such papers spend their time trying to prove that 
the farmers are becoming millionaires through sup¬ 
plying food to the cities, and that they are respon¬ 
sible almost entirely for the high cost of living. 
This statement of the Record-Herald is true, and 
we wish that more of our daily papers would tell 
the truth in this way. If the consumers in the city 
could only understand the real situation, and realize 
what the 35-cent dollar means, they would be glad 
to unite with the producers and remedy the trouble. 
THE CROP OUTLOOK. 
Early in the season the hay prospect for the entire 
country indicated a larger yield than last year, but 
since then the crop has been cut severely by drought. 
Michigan appears to have suffered least of all Northern 
States, the crop in many sections being heavv. New 
York, Pennsylvania and New England have been badlv 
pinched, though local showers saved the crop here and 
there. Ohio, Indiana and Illinois are considerably 
under last year. Iowa and Wisconsin will average 
higher. The outlook as a whole makes high prices prob¬ 
able, though it is scarcely likely that the top-notch fig¬ 
ures of the last two years will be exceeded, as they 
were at about the limit of economic buying. 
Russian Grain Crops. 
The International Institute of Agriculture gives the 
following estimates for European Russia : Production 
of Spring wheat, 511,101.000 bushels; all barley, 530,- 
297,000 bushels; all oats, 1,029,623,000 bushels; the 
estimated production compared with last year is for 
all wheat, 26.5 per cent more: for all barley, 16.3 per 
cent more; and for all oats, 5.8 per cent more. 
Iowa Crop Notes. 
Haying is practically finished and the bulk of the 
small grain is in the shock. Thrashing is being rushed, 
and early reports indicate fair to extra good yields. 
Late oats were damaged some by the hot weather that 
prevailed during the third week of the month, but are 
turning out better than anticipated two weeks ago. All 
growing crops are in a flourishing condition in the 
northern counties, but corn, potatoes, pastures and 
garden truck need rain badly in the southern half of 
the State. In some localities in the southeastern coun¬ 
ties, where there has been only .05 inch of rain during 
the last thirty days, corn is firing and is at a standstill, 
pastures are brown, late potatoes are dried up and 
water for stock is getting scarce. The dry weather 
has, however, enabled farmers to secure the hay and 
small grain crops in good condition. 
GEORGE II. CH APPEL. 
European Crop Prospects. 
Full reports from the hop gardens in every hop-grow¬ 
ing district in Bavaria point to a good crop. Reports 
received by the leading hop houses here indicate that 
equally promising conditions exist in the hop gardens 
of Baden, Wurtemberg, Posen, and the Altmark. Of 
all the German hop districts only Elsass reports unsatis¬ 
factory conditions and a prqjiable partial crop failure. 
Many of the hop gardens there have already suffered 
much from insect pests, the ravages of which continue- 
in spite of all efforts to check them. 
From Austria-Hungary conflicting reports are still 
received. The Bohemian hop gardens have suffered 
considerably from insect pests. In the Steiermark the 
stand is good and in Siebenburgen promising; in Gali¬ 
cia and Upper Austria rather uneven, but not entirely 
unpromising. In Hungary the hop gardens seem again 
this year to be among the most favored. 
Reports from the Belgian hop districts indicate a 
fairly good crop. T.atest reports from Russia are much 
more favorable than the earlier indications promised. 
The insect peats have almost entirely disappeared and 
the plants have shown new vigor. Present indications 
are for a satisfactory although somewhat late crop. 
