1914. 
THE RURAL, NEW-YORKER 
1421 
NATIONAL GRANGE MEETING. 
Part II. 
HE closing days of the annual session of the Na¬ 
tional Grange were occupied with its most impor¬ 
tant business. Considerable time was given to the 
discussion of co-operation in' buying and selling 
and the subject was viewed from many and various an¬ 
gles. By common consent certain fundamental princi¬ 
ples necessary to successful co-operation were adduced 
which may be stated as follows: Co-operation should 
begin with the smaller unit, as, for instance, the subor¬ 
dinate Grange, and work upward to county, State and 
national co-operation. Confidence must be established 
in the organization and its management. In co-opera¬ 
tive societies each stockholder should have one vote, and 
not a vote for each share of stock. High-grade products 
only should be bandied and these put upon the market 
in first-class order; honest packing and grading (as in 
fruit), absolutely essential. Co-operative organizations 
should be operated on a cash basis, credit ventures are 
uncertain. Adequate financial arrangements are abso¬ 
lutely essential. These general principles were incor¬ 
porated in the report of the committee on co-operation 
who also recommended the larger use of the parcel post 
as a means of saving the cost of transportation and the 
middleman’s expenses to a large degree as between pro¬ 
ducer and consumer. The committee also favored the 
appointment of a national market commission by the 
President. 
As to ship subsidies and our merchant marine the 
Grange went on record to the effect that if government 
funds were to be used to aid in building up an Ameri¬ 
can marine it should be for ships owned and operated by 
the government and it opposed the expenditure of the 
peoples’ moneys for building of ships to be operated by 
any corporation for profit. On the general principle 
that no government franchises shall be granted that are 
for the enrichment of the few at the expense of all, the 
Grange is a unit. This applies as well to the conserva¬ 
tion of our natural resources. It also emphatically as¬ 
serts its purpose to support a conservation policy that 
shall keep and develop for the benefit of all the people 
all the natural resoui’ces not yet surrendered to private 
ownership and the latter shall be taxed at a fair rate 
on their full franchise valuation. 
Good roads, especially good market roads, are de¬ 
manded by the Grange for the farmers’ benefit primarily. 
The good roads policy of the National Grange has not 
been concisely defined heretofore, so it was deemed ad¬ 
visable to formulate what may be styled the National 
Grange good roads policy, and to that end a committee 
was appointed which reported later to the session what 
it also later adopted as the Grange pronunciamento on 
the subject. It sets forth that the National Grange is 
the pioneer in national aid for good roads; that the 
roads needed first are those which put the farmer in 
close touch with the trading centres; that while scenic 
roads are desirable, when they can be afforded, market 
roads are indispensable and that the construction, main¬ 
tenance and control of these roads shall be kept within 
the smallest possible unit of population or area con¬ 
sistent with the highest efficiency of administration. 
The Grange goes on record against “the many bonding 
schemes advanced by those seeking touring roads, believ¬ 
ing the pay-as-you-go policy to be far more business¬ 
like.’’ As roads are local affairs their control should 
remain with the people in whose midst they are located. 
The Grange directs attention to the grave dangers ex¬ 
isting in bureaucratic control and to the fact that 
much of the good roads sentiment “comes from those 
who are more anxious to build roads for bonds than 
sell bonds for roads.” The legislative committees of the 
Grange, both national and State, are urged to use their 
utmost efforts to secure, first, business roads that will 
serve the best interests of both producer and consumer. 
On schools and education there were some important 
recommendations. It was held that the boys and girls 
of the country should be enabled to secure at least a 
high school education without necessarily leaving their 
home communities to get it. The unit of administra¬ 
tion of our schools should be large enough for tin 1 high¬ 
est efficiency but small enough to secure the largest pos¬ 
sible interest and co-operation of the people most direct¬ 
ly concerned. Legislation to change the units of admin¬ 
istration should be optional rather than mandatory. 
Courses of study should be such as to combine culture 
with efficiency and send out graduates ‘.‘equipped to live 
a life as well as to make a living.” The possibilities 
offered the Grange and the schools through the provi¬ 
sions of the Smith-Lever law, were called to the atten¬ 
tion of the Grange public. The advantages will be enor¬ 
mous, and the extension work in agriculture will be pos¬ 
sible to an extent undreamed of before. 
The Grange opposed the proposition to let the con¬ 
tracts for carrying the mails on rural roads to the 
highest bidder. It favored the removal of all limitations 
from the amounts that may be deposited in postal sav¬ 
ings banks and the use of savings funds to make loans 
to farmers; it recommended uniformity of laws as to 
methods of assessment of taxes and valuation; it pro¬ 
tested against the seating of United States Senators, 
whose election can be shown to have resulted from the 
corrupt use of funds or methods of coercion. It ap¬ 
proved the proposition to celebrate the fiftieth anniver¬ 
sary of the organization of the Grange at the annual ses¬ 
sion of 1916. It voted to secure a codification of the tax 
laws of all the States for use in the Granges for better 
enlightenment on the subject of taxation. It opposes an 
amendment to the Federal Constitution giving suffrage 
to women, and declared it a State matter, although ex¬ 
pressing its support of the principle of equal suffrage. 
It demanded more restrictive laws in regard to immi¬ 
grants and advocated some rigid educational test; it de¬ 
clared that no farm credit law would be satisfactory to 
the Grange, nor meet the fullest needs of agriculture, 
which places in the hands of private capital the power 
to make interest rates on mortgage bonds without limi¬ 
tations by Federal law; it opposed proportional repre¬ 
sentation in the National Grange, and it voted to hold 
the next annual session in California. J. W. D. 
New York State Agricultural Society. 
T HE seventy-fifth annual convention of the New 
York State Agricultural Society will be held in 
the assembly parlors of the Capitol in Albany on 
Wednesday and Thursday, January 20th and 21st. An 
evening session will be held in the Assembly Chamber 
on Wednesday evening, and a banquet in one of the ho¬ 
tels is planned as a fitting close of the convention. The 
banquet will probably be a dollar a plate, and promises 
to be the largest banquet ever held in the city of Al¬ 
bany. This will be a new departure for the Society, and 
nroraises to be very popular. The speeches at the ban¬ 
quet will be brief but numerous, and will cover a wide 
field of subjects, by both men and women of national rep¬ 
utation. 
Another new feature of this convention will be at¬ 
tendance of women. Last year the association broke 
away from its previous custom and elected a woman, 
Mrs. Julian Heath, President of the National House¬ 
wives’ League, as the first vice-president. Mrs. Heath 
promises the attendance of a large number of her 
League, and all the women of the State are cordially in¬ 
vited to be present. The farm women are especially in¬ 
vited, and arrangements are being perfected for their 
entertainment, and committees will be in waiting to see 
that their comforts are looked after while in the Capi¬ 
tol City. The program for the convention is nearly 
completed, and men of State and National reputation 
have accepted invitations to discuss the achievements 
and needs of the farming interests of the Empire State. 
This being the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Asso¬ 
ciation, all the living ex-presidents are expected to be 
present, and many of them have already promised to 
come. This convention has got to be one of the features 
of the calendar for the farmers of the State, and it is 
intended to make the seventy-fifth anniversary the larg¬ 
est and best in the history of the Society. 
New York State News. 
LANNING FOR NEW STATE FAIR.—It is said 
that there are three plans, at least, for the reorgan¬ 
ization of the State Fair management. One idea 
is to make the Fair a bureau of the State Agricul¬ 
tural Department, the Commissioner to appoint a super¬ 
intendent of the Fair who shall be responsible to him 
alone. Another plan is to have a large commission with 
the Lieutenant-Governor at its head, with representa¬ 
tives from the various agricultural, horticultural, cattle, 
dairy, sheep, and other societies of the State. These 
commissioners would draw no salary and the manage¬ 
ment would be in the hands of a superintendent ap¬ 
pointed by the commission. The other plan is to have a 
commission of three, the Lieutenant-Governor, the Com¬ 
missioner of Agriculture and a Fair superintendent, the 
latter to be in constant charge of affairs, and who would 
be paid a good salary. Legislation on the subject may 
be expected early in January. 
STATE FORESTS AND THE CONSTITUTION. 
—One of the matters that will be brought to the atten¬ 
tion of the constitutional convention next year will be 
the elimination therefrom of the section which prohibits 
the removal of any timber from the forest preserve and 
declares that the preserve shall be forever kept as wild 
forest lands. Most of the forestry organizations and 
the State Forestry College are said to be behind the 
movement. It is estimated that the State is losing a 
million dollars a year by not using the forest lands “in 
a reasonable way.” The State is expending approxi¬ 
mately $85,000 a year in the protection of these forests. 
THE EDUCATION CONVENTION.—Addressing 
the State Teachers’ Association Dr. Thomas E. Finne¬ 
gan, Assistant Commissioner of Education, arraigned 
the present system governing rural schools and declared 
in favor of the township unit system, making the town 
the unit for the administration for school affairs in 
rural districts. His plan also includes a system of spe¬ 
cific instruction for rural school teachers. Dr. A. C. 
Thompson, principal of the State Normal and Training 
School, at Broekport, argued for the home-farm school, 
as he styled it. He would have a rural community buy 
a good farm centrally located, wherein a school should be 
established as a community centre, with teachers and 
others employed of sufficient number to teach the school 
and do the work of the farm, making it a sort of expe¬ 
riment station for the community’s benefit. It could 
also be made a trade school where the trades that con¬ 
tribute to the needs of the farm could be taught. He 
believes that such a community school could be made to 
pay a financial profit. j. w. D. 
The Foot-and-Mouth Disease. 
T HE latest news of the outbreak of foot and mouth 
disease is encouraging. The Department of Agri¬ 
culture has raised the quarantine against Canada. 
They think the quarantine now established is suffi¬ 
cient ‘to stop the movement of infected cattle and the 
disease can now be held. In New York State the situ¬ 
ation is declared to be well in hand. The heaviest single 
loss was a dairy herd Qf 289 cattle on Long Island. 
This entire herd was slaughtered and was appraised at 
the valuation of $22,500. The disease was found at the 
Buffalo Stock Yards, which have now been cleaned. 
Otherwise this disease has been confined to only one or 
two sections of the State. In view of this the live¬ 
stock breeders and owners, in sections of the State 
where the disease has never been found, ought to be per¬ 
mitted to ship out their stock under fair regulations. 
The spread of the disease seems to have been checked. 
It will now be distinctly located in a number of small 
sections and stamped out. This policy, properly carried 
out, ought to permit the shipment of stock from districts 
where the disease was never found. The Department of 
Agriculture also refers to a rumor which has been circu¬ 
lated in some of the daily papers. These reports were 
that certain men are at work intentionally spreading the 
disease, in the hope of interfering with the export of 
meat for war purposes. Tracing this story down, it 
came to be a man in Nebraska who claimed to have 
heard conversations between two men who were 
equipped with syringes for injecting the germs of the 
disease. The investigation proved that this report was 
nothing more than a drunken dream, and this appears to 
be the foundation of sensational reports given in some 
of the daily papers. It is a foolish and wicked thing to 
spread these reports. The disease will now be quickly 
and promptly eradicated, and the general public has 
nothing to fear from the disease. It has caused trouble 
enough to our live-stock breeders, and it should now be 
promptly and quietly closed up. 
The Commission Man’s Side. 
T a recent meeting of the Medway Farmers’ Club 
the topic of the evening was: “Is the commission 
man necessary to the farmer?” and a well-known 
Boston commission man gave a general talk on the 
subject, or rather gave an example of some of the prob¬ 
lems he meets every day. Most of what he said was 
good sound sense, true to conditions as they now exist, 
as the writer well knows, having followed the market 
in selling farm produce for a number of years. A few 
of the incidents he related are useful and every-day ex¬ 
periences, some of which we might profit by. A strong 
point he made, and on which I agree having been caught 
that way many times myself, is not to try to force too 
high a price from a buyer, but be satisfied with a rea¬ 
sonable one This should give you fair returns and at 
the same time does not force up the retail price so as to 
cut sales and limit the demand at that end as an every¬ 
day customer who buys a certain amount regularly at a 
fair price is much to be preferred to one who comes 
only occasionally. The latter might pay more for what 
he bought, yet he would not be near as good a customer 
as the regular daily buyer at a less price, because what 
he does not take many times has to be sold for what 
you can get. This to a chance customer is usually much 
less than sales to regular customer, and makes the av¬ 
erage shrink quite a good deal. Another good point; it 
pays always to let the commission man know a day or two 
ahead if possible what you are going to ship him, and 
also if you are going to have a large increase above 
what you have been shipping be sure to let him know 
beforehand, and he can many times place it to better 
advantage than if he knew nothing about it, until it 
arrived. This perhaps might be after its best buyers 
of the day had purchased their supply, in which case it 
would have to be sold to a chance customer at what he 
was willing to give, or carried over to the next day. In 
the latter case two days stock must be sold in one day, 
which would not naturally help prices or sales, especial¬ 
ly when much stuff was coming in every day. At such 
times the buyer is far more particular to get strictly 
fresh stuff than when it is not plenty. One or two-days- 
old stuff is not fresh, and is hard to sell at a low price, 
and, of course, means very poor or no returns at all to 
the producer who sent it in. 
In another case a commission man had been hand¬ 
ling a man’s raspberries and making good returns for 
them. Two of his neighbors, hearing of this, and not 
being satisfied with what had been returned for theirs 
by their commission man, sent their pick to the. com¬ 
mission man who had made the good returns. The re¬ 
sult was all these lots coming when only one was ex¬ 
pected, they could not be disposed of to advantage, and 
a loss all round was the result The shippers lost by 
charging more than the difference they expected to gain, 
and the commission man lost the two new customers 
and the old one also. 
A commission man in Boston was receiving apples 
which while good in quality were not graded or sorted, 
but put up, all sizes, in bushel packages. These sold in 
Boston at 40 to 05 cents per bushel. The commission 
man took a trip out to this orchard one day and the 
owner asked about the market conditions, and stated he 
did not know how to pack his apples properly. He 
asked the commission man’s advice about packing. The 
commission man said : “I know how they should be grad¬ 
ed and packed, but do not know how to do it myself.” 
He was urged to try, however, and did so, but made a 
failure of the job. He then advised the orchard man 
to send to the college for an expert to do the packing. 
This was done, and the apples so packed were shipped 
in to the commission man. The next morning after they 
were received at Boston a buyer who had been taking 
the mixed packed apples at 65 cents or less, balked at 
paying $1 per box. which the commission man asked for 
the best grade of sorted apples which, however, were not 
the largest size apples, but were all of a size and even 
packed. After some talk, however, the buyer took a cer¬ 
tain number of the sorted apples and sent them to his 
store. In a day or two he returned and asked if anv 
more of those apples were left. If so he wanted all 
there were, and as many more as he could get. This 
was pretty good proof that it pays to grade and properlv 
pack all good apples if we want good returns for them, 
and a steady demand, as a satisfied customer generally 
comes back and becomes a steady buyer. 
A. E. PROCTOR. 
Meeting of Co-operative Associations. 
T HE second conference of the Co-operative Associa¬ 
tions of the State of New York will be held in the 
city of Ithaca on January 13, 14. and 15, 1915. A 
large attendance of association officers, managers and 
members is expected to be present. 
Invitations have also been accepted by a large num¬ 
ber of high-class manufacturers and wholesale dealers 
in farm supplies to send representatives with a view of 
establishing trade relations direct with the associations. 
Ihe advantages of these co-operative associations are 
apparent wherever they have been properly organized 
and managed. At first the farmers of Chautauqua Coun¬ 
ty hesitated about organizing. Several meetings were 
held before they decided to go ahead in even a limited 
way, and organized the South Shore Growers’ and Ship¬ 
pers’ Association, with special reference to the selling 
of tomatoes. S. J. Cook was fortunately made man¬ 
ager. In all the association handled 1,400 carloads of 
tomatoes and received one remittance of $90,000. As 
all the tomatoes were sold through the association there 
was no competition of one grower with another, and 
prices were better maintained. Another year the grow¬ 
ers will probably handle their grapes in the same way. 
Large Exports to War Zone. 
S PACE on vessels leaving New York for Europe is in 
great demand at present, as the railroads reachin 0 ' 
this terminal have been crowded with all sorts of 
war supplies. Thousands of horses and mules are 
being unloaded from Pennsylvania and New York Cen- 
t !' al tr »A ns - , on . e time there were 75 carloads of 
shoes. 60 carloads ot knit goods, 100 carloads of saddles 
oiul harness, thousands of tons of barbed wire, groat 
quantities of fur coats from Minnesota, 150 cars of auto 
trucks, and 25 cars of “caterpillar” traction engines. 
Orders said to be now in the hands of various inanu- 
facturers cover a daily output of 800 tons shrapnel ma¬ 
terial, 8_0.000.000 worth of vehicles; shoes. $2,000,000* 
sword and revolver sheaths. $1,000,000. while the West 
is being scoured for horses suitable for heavy cavalry 
work. A steel concern in Eastern Pennsylvania is be¬ 
lieved to have orders totalling $40,000,000. 
We recently printed a little “poem” on “richer milk” 
by the Holstein Office Boy. The poets are coming in 
like bees to reply. Their “poems” will be printed in the 
Christmas A umber. 
Dried swamp muck is a good absorbent to use in the 
stable gutters, but it makes poor bedding for dairy cows 
>\ hen they he upon it they become soiled and dustv. and 
it is hard to clean them properly. It will do for steers, 
but not for dairy cows. It is good for the gutters or 
manure pile. 6Utw;19 
