1914. 
THE RURAL NEW-VOR.. 
669 
THE NEW MARKET SYSTEM. 
The new law creating a State Department of Foods 
and Markets is one of the most helpful pieces of legisla¬ 
tion that we have adopted in the present generation. 
There is, however, no magic in a law. To permit a 
thing to be done is not to do it. The law will not op¬ 
erate itself. If the work should fall into perfunctory 
hands the Department would be useless. It is a work 
that must be pursued with vigor, perserverence and 
determination. It will not move along like the tradi¬ 
tional sweet song. Every effort, every allurement and 
every device known to experienced manipulators will be 
employed to discredit the work and to defeat its pur¬ 
pose. Strength, cunning and experience will be com¬ 
bined against it. The interests opposed to it will be 
fighting for a privilege that they inherited, and for their 
own existence. There will yet be room in the produce 
trade for honest men and honest business; but there 
will be no place for the band of pirates who have 
dominated the trade for the last generation. 
Against a few hundred speculators in foods we have 
the whole producing and consuming population of the 
State. We must select one man to lead these people. 
This leader must be a man of vision, of enthusiasm and 
executive ability. He must embrace the whole State 
within his horizon. He must start ‘he food from the 
fields of farms to the tables of the consumers in a 
steady unobstructed stream, and if any man, or set 
of men, attempt to obstruct the channel or to deflect 
the traffic, he must not only prevent the obstruction or 
deflection, but he must strike down the hand that is 
raised against his work. 
We may just as well understand the task before us 
now as at any other time. We are about to throw 
over a system that has been ideal for middlemen and 
disastrous to producers; and establish in its place a 
system that ought to be ideal for producers and dis¬ 
astrous to crooked commission men and food specula¬ 
tors. The farmer has been producing food for a liv¬ 
ing. The consumer has been paying to the limit of his 
ability. The middlemen have reaped the profits, and 
perpetuated extravagance and waste. For every dollar 
the consumer paid, the distributor got 65 cents. The 
producer got 35 cents. We ai'e going to change this. 
We propose to give the consumer more for his dollar, 
and give the farmer more for his produce. The middle¬ 
man must be content with much less for his services. 
Does anyone expect the middleman to surrender his 
65 per cent, without a fight? We expect nothing of the 
kind. We look for a most interesting scrap. The end 
will not come all at once; but when the scrap is over 
the produce men, as we have known them in this genera¬ 
tion, will be no more. In their place will be merchants 
handling food products on a fair profit, and doing a 
legitimate service. No others will be able to stand the 
test of inspection and the competition of the open State 
controlled market. 
Our commissioner must establish grades and stand¬ 
ards and packages and labels. lie must develop local 
markets throughout the State, keep producers advised 
as to domestic and foreign markets, and "publish prices 
established by auction markets. We have a salary of 
$6,000 for the place; and we want a $50,000 man to fill 
it. There will be lots of $1,000 men looking for the 
$6,000 job; but no $50,000 man will seek it. If we 
get him, we must seek him. The man with vision 
enough to see the great possibilities of the work will 
be big enough to sacrifice personal interests for the 
sake of the single service he can render both the present 
and future generations. 
FINANCING SOUTHERN COTTON 
PLANTERS. 
Part II. 
Plowing begins in March. The planter must have 
food for himself and his family, and feed for his mule. 
He must have seed and fertilizers. He gets the first 
installment when the contract is signed with the “fac¬ 
tor” in the early part of March. You then see the planter 
wending his way home, the wagon loaded with his pur¬ 
chases. It is doubtful if much of the money ever finds 
its way outside of the city limits. 
The greatest hardship in this system to the planter 
is not so much the high rate of interest as in the fact 
that the crop is sold before it is planted, and eaten so 
to speak before it is gathered. No matter what the 
price, it must be delivered when picked; and it does no f 
require much imagination to see that the price will 
generally be lowest when deliveries are being made by 
producers, and highest after the crop has left the grow¬ 
ers’ hands. Besides cotton varies greatly in quality. 
There are in all probably as many as 30 different 
grades as a result of growing, picking and caring for 
it. The price varies with the grade, and if the “fac¬ 
tor” is inclined to make the most of the situation he 
finds an opportunity in fixing the grade and corres¬ 
ponding price. Whether the “factor” is unscrupulous, 
fair or altruistic, depends on the individual, but I 
doubt if a system could be devised to put him more 
completely in control of the situation. 
I do not write to criticise Southern people or South¬ 
ern customs. The Southern man may find as much to 
criticise in us as we do in them. The Southern people 
are courteous, hospitable, generous and chivalrous. I 
found the “factors” courteous and I have no doubt 
that their sympathy with the grower, in his position is 
genuine, and at times leads him to unusual risks. The 
factor and the planter understand each other better 
than a stranger can understand either of them. I write 
not in the spirit of criticism, but in the hope of making 
a suggestion that may yet be found helpful. The trou¬ 
ble is not with the men, but with the system. The 
Southern farmer gives himself up too exclusively to 
the growing of cotton. The system is partly responsi¬ 
ble for this. As we have seen, his mule and his chat¬ 
tels generally are pledged in advance for a cotton crop. 
To default in payment is the same to him as it would be 
with a banker or a manufacturer. He is in a system 
that makes and preserves records. Let him default 
once and his standing and credit ars gone. Pie must 
produce cotton to meet the debt. But the Southern 
farmer of the future will diversify his work. Today 
the Georgia farmer buys Alfalfa from New Mexico, 
fruit from South America, vegetables from Florida, 
pears from California, and apples from New York and 
Oregon. He goes to Missouri for his mules, to Minne¬ 
sota for his flour and to Wisconsin for his butter. 
Many of these products, and good substitutes for all of 
them, can be grown on the farms of the State. A 
banker with a large and valuable farm told me he 
could not raise oacs and corn i > sell at a profit. He 
admitted cow peas and vetch grow luxuriantly and of 
course, make an excellent hay for milch cows. I asked 
him why he did not go into the dairy business. He 
said there was no dairying in his section except to 
supply liquid milk. The butter came from the North. 
I told him how a cooperative creamery might be built 
for $2,000; and butter supplied to all local trade from 
neighboring farms. He listened with great interest, 
but finally said: “Yes, but that requires organization.” 
The air was enough to say that makes it impossible 
there. It required organization to establish his bank, 
and to erect a large number of cotton mills in the town, 
and to build a two million dollar power plant. It is 
never difficult to find men ready to organize capital 
where there is a . romise of rich reward. With organ¬ 
ized producers the profits are widely distributed and 
consequently the work is not so attractive to the genius 
of organization. Cooperative organization is as essen¬ 
tial to the farmers of the South as it is to farmers 
everywhere else. It will not come all at once. It 
bad better not. A slow growth is better for permanent 
results. Probably twenty million dollars worth of cot¬ 
ton is delivered to the Augusta market. For the most 
part the growers get a meagre living out of it. If these 
growers were united in cooperative organizations to 
furnish their own credit, buy their own supplies, and 
market their own product, they would save for them¬ 
selves not less than five million dollars annually; and 
would probably be the most prosperous farmers on the 
face of the earth. j. j. d. 
KANSAS WEIGHTS AND MEASURES. 
The Weights and Measures Law, administered by 
the State Board of Health, states that unless there is a 
special written contract to the contrary, feeds made from 
the common cereals must be packed 100 pounds gross. 
The consumer can find protection under this law if, 
when he orders a sack of corn chop, for example, he 
discovers the package delivered to him weighs only 9S 
or 97 pounds, or even a less amount, gross. 
This comes from the Kansas Agricultural College, 
and refers to the Kansas law. In the East we 
have been led to believe that Kansas is such a rich 
and fat State that laws to protect grain buyers 
would not be needed. Yet it seems that some 
Kansas dealers are giving “short weight” and sys¬ 
tematically robbing buyers of 20 to 30 pounds out 
of each ton. Buyers acquired the habit of buying 
grain by the “sack” instead of by the pound, and 
the sack seems to have been steadily shrinking. 
Muck the same thing is true all over the country. 
If it pays to weigh the milk and find the robber 
cows, it pays to weigh the feed and find the robber 
sacks. In old times soldiers used to “sack” a con¬ 
quered city. Do not let the feed dealers try it on 
your pocketbook. 
CO-OPERATION IN EGYPT. 
Even Egypt has started agricultural cooperation, 
backed by the law. Consul Garrels of Alexandria 
states that the new Egyptian law contains the fol¬ 
lowing : 
They must consist of a minimum of 10 members, all 
agriculturists, agricultural workmen, land owners, or 
tenants of rural estates belonging to the same or neigh¬ 
boring vilayets. The sole objects of these societies are 
as follows: The purchase in common of animals, ma¬ 
chines, and other agricultural things, the procuring of 
all agricultural implements and machines, the sale for 
the members’ account of the crops and agricultural 
produce, the loaning to members only in money or kind, 
such loans being destined for useful expenditure and 
authorized by the statutes, the receipt of deposits of 
moneys from members according to the prescriptions of 
the statutes, and the undertaking of agricultural works 
for the good of the societies. 
It was 115 years ago that Napoleon at the battle 
of the Pyramids exclaimed: “Soldiers, from yonder 
Pyramids 40 centuries look down upon you.” This 
impassive view has now been extended for another 
century. They have looked upon scenes of slaughter 
and still more pitiful slavery—countless millions of 
human beings driven like dumb brutes at labor for 
others until the manhood was crushed out of them. 
In all that time they have looked upon no brighter 
or more hopeful aspect of human life than now, 
when these descendants of hopeless slaves have 
come up to the dignity of cooperative work! For 
everywhere cooperation means freedom along the 
road to brotherhood, and think of New York behind 
Egypt in cooperative laws 1 
NEW YORK STATE NEWS. 
THE HOG SPECIAL.-—A “hog special” has been 
run through western New York recently, during a per¬ 
iod of 10 days, by the New York Central Railroad, 
under the auspices of the State Department of Agricul¬ 
ture. Lectures were given on board the train by ex¬ 
perts on the swine industry and pork production. One 
said that there were 8,000 less hogs in the State now 
than a year ago. The price has increased $1.25 per 
head on the average. Lack of attention paid to breed¬ 
ing and the ravages of the hog cholera are given as the 
causes for the falling off in numbers. A few animals 
were on exhibition in one of the cars which were taken 
from private pens because of the fact that when se¬ 
lection was made at the Buffalo stock yards so many 
were afflicted with the cholera that none could be 
found of such quality as were needed for exhibition. 
TROLLEY LINES CO-OPERATE.—According to 
a recent newspaper statement the New York Electric 
Railway Association is to put forth a strong effort to 
develop the inter-urban and suburban sections of the 
State traversed by the trolley lines, by inducing new 
settlers to locate there and to establish experiment 
farms along their lines and in various ways to bring 
the farming districts into more intimate relation to the 
urban districts as a means to better social conditions 
and improve market facilities. From the 500 rural 
communities that the inter-urban railways of the State 
now connect by 1,500 miles of track with the great 
metropolitan markets, every effort will be made for 
quick and reasonable shipment of farm produce. 
A GOOD TEXT.—Commissioner Huson took a good 
text for a talk before the Dutchess County Farm Bu¬ 
reau and other farmers at Poughkeepsie last week. He 
said: “Don’t compete with your neighbor; cooperate 
with him.” Continuing, he said: “A community of 
farmers all engaged in producing the same special ar¬ 
ticle is bound to attract attention to tne locality. In 
trade there is a tendency to get together and farmers 
should do the same. Millbrook is famous for its Shrop¬ 
shire sheep, so every farmer who keeps sheep at all 
should keep Shropshires in central Dutchess. In On¬ 
tario they are doing that with the Ilampshires with 
the result that buyers go there when they want Hamp- 
shires.” In Yates county Mr. Huson popularized the 
raising of pigs. He said that some of his neighbors 
wanted to breed a different kind of pigs when they see 
he was raising about 400 head of one breed every year. 
But he advised them to raise the same as he did. 
SMALL FARMS NOT PROFITABLE.—Prof. K. 
C. Livermore of the farm management department of 
Cornell discussed the subject in which he is specially 
interested at a meeting of farmers at South Byron last 
week. He referred to a survey of farms in Jefferson, 
Tompkins and Livingston counties. 578 farms reporting. 
Actual visits had been made to all of these farms dur¬ 
ing a period of several years in order to get the figures 
as nearly accurate as possible. It was shown that on 
the farms of less than 50 acres almost universally the 
farmers’ sons had gone to the town or city to work, 
while on the large farms they had remained. It was 
also found that on these small farms the labor income, 
or what remains to the farmer after paying expenses, 
was less than nothing and it would have paid the farm¬ 
er to have gone to work for some one else as hired man. 
The larger farms made a much better showing. 
MANUAL OF CO-OPERATION.—The Depart¬ 
ment of Agriculture has recently issued Circular 94, a 
manual of cooperation. It is a very helpful piece of 
information on matters pertaining to cooperation among 
farmers. Marc W. Cole writes, “A Primer of Co¬ 
operation.” in which he condenses in three pages a vast 
amount of information. J. C. Bellingham of Schenec¬ 
tady describes “The Citizens’ Cooperative Supply Com¬ 
pany” of that city, which has a membership of over 200. 
L. C. Tuckerman gives an account of the wonderfully 
successful fruit growers’ association of the Hudson 
River Valley with headquarters at Milton. The second 
year of its organization the association did a business 
of $232,000 on a capital of $1,200. It has 84 members. 
Members of the American Commission tell how to adapt 
European systems of cooperation to this country. 
Emerson P. Harris describes a trial of an English 
plan in Montclair. N. J. The Montclair Cooperative 
Society started in 1912 with about 300 members. Their 
store is doing a business of $10,000 a month and sav¬ 
ing members from five to eight per cent. The cost of 
doing business there has been reduced to 13 per cent, 
on retail price, including 3 per cent, for delivery 
__ J. W. D. 
Direct Dealing With Farmers. 
I was quite interested in the story in a late R. 
N.-Y. of the cost of_ a barrel of apples, bought within 
100 miles of New York City, for which the purchaser 
paid $1.50, and which cost him $1.67 carrying charges 
delivered at his home in the city. I have been wonder¬ 
ing how he worked it to have such a charge. How far 
away from any recognized public carrier were they 
when he bought them, or did he send a private messen¬ 
ger for them? 
My own experience is quite different. I bought a 
barrel of Northern Spys in Orange County last Fall, 
and they were delivered at my house in Brooklyn by 
the Wells-Fargo Express Company for 60 cents." The 
farmer received $2.50 of the $3.10 it cost me; that is. 
he had 80 cents of each dollar I paid. My farmer 
friends 75 miles from the city have been getting from 
40 to 48 cents per dozen for eggs ever since the early 
Fall. I use about 1*4 dozen a week. I buy them for 
35 to 40 cents per dozen, and I have not had a poor 
one this Winter. Of course they are not the sanm 
eggs, but those I get from my grocer are good ones. 
I don’t see how a 35-eent dollar is figured from that. 
I bought my Winter supply f potatoes from one of 
my farmer friends referred to above. They cost nv 
when safely in the cellar, freight and cartage paid, 
$1.01 per bushel. The farmer got 75 cents of each do’- 
lar I paid, and the railroad and the cartman divide 1 
the other 25 between them. I look at this thing from 
the consumer's side. I don’t mean to pay a dollar for 
anything for which the producer gets only 35 cents. I 
wish the carrier and the distributor to get fair pay for 
their services, but not an unfair part of the price I 
pay. j. j. w. 
Brooklyn, N. Y. 
