1464 
THE FOOD AND MARKETS DEPARTMENT. 
A Statement of Its Purposes. 
Part II. 
AUCTION MARKETS.—The department is author¬ 
ized to establish auction markets in the large cities of 
the State; to license and bond auctioneers; to cause 
inspection of food products; to investigate the cost of 
production and marketing of food products; to hear 
complaints and take testimony and compel the attend¬ 
ance of witnesses and the production of testimony in 
hearings, and to enforce the observance of rules estab¬ 
lished' by it for the grading, packing, storage and 
sale of foodstuffs within the State. The powers are 
ample to establish an economic and efficient medium 
for the movement of goods from the producer to the 
consumer. If the farmer and the city consumer co¬ 
operate with the department, farm produce of every 
kind will flow’ freely from one to the other at prices 
regulated by supply and demand. There can be no 
more prohibitive prices to consumers when the farmer 
is unable to realize the cost of delivery. If the farm¬ 
er will pack and ship in accordance with the informa¬ 
tion furnshed, and if the consumer will make intelli¬ 
gent selections, the problem of distributions ought to 
be solved through this system. Of course, everything 
human has its faults. Market conditions sometimes 
change suddenly; and shipments made and the in¬ 
formation furnished by the Department may at times 
reach an over-supplied market. With perishable products 
there must always be some risk, but this is all the 
more reason why the best possible information should 
be furnished, and experience and care should practically 
avoid the pitfalls. 
ADVERTISING.—When grades and packs are de¬ 
finitely fixed and the brands established, the products 
of New York State farms will be advertised by the 
department and a demand created for them with the 
best trade. There are 300,000 families at the mouth 
of the Hudson River, that never ask the price of an 
article of food, if the quality and grade is good enough 
to satisfy their fancy. The profit of this trade has 
gone to the men who select and assort the goods. The 
department proposes to get the benefit of this trade for 
the men who produce the goods. It will not be the 
purpose of the department to cause the disturbance 
of any legitimate existing business; but there must 
undoubtedly be a readjustment of conditions in the 
produce markets. Otherwise there would be no reform. 
EXTENT OF MARKET.—There will be more and 
more people to feed three times a day; and more and 
more food will be required to feed them. It is more¬ 
over intended to make food cheaper and more available; 
and in that way to increase its sale and consumption. 
Those dealers who are now in the farm produce busi¬ 
ness may need to change their methods; but they need 
not suffer from the change. While children are hun¬ 
gry and unnourished in New York City, food products 
should not be allowed to rot on the farms of the State. 
THE MIDDLEMEN.—We must always have mid¬ 
dlemen to handle produce and deliver it to the con¬ 
sumer. This is an economic necessity. It is a proper 
division of labor. Where the necessity of the middle¬ 
man exists he is as much a producer as the man who 
works the farm. If the farmer was obliged to cart 
his produce from Central New York to the metropoli¬ 
tan market, he could seldom sell it for the cost of de¬ 
livery. If the city man was obliged to go to the farms 
for his food, he would have no time for anything else 
and no money to pay for the food. It is an economic 
division of labor to have railroad employes, truckmen, 
wholesalers and retailers to deliver the food from the 
farm to the consumer. While the purveyors are deliv¬ 
ering the goods, the farmer is producing them and the 
consumer is earning the money in other occupations to 
pay for them. 
NEEDLESS EXPENSES.—But while the man who 
delivers food may be an economic necessity in its pro¬ 
duction and distribution, an excess of middlemen be¬ 
comes a wasteful extravagance. For the past 20 
years the delivery of goods to the New York City con¬ 
sumer has cost Go cents of every dollar paid for it. 
This has reduced the farmer’s share to 35 cents. It 
is believed that the department will be able to change 
this ratio. Its business will be to discover an eco¬ 
nomic system for the delivery of farm food products, 
and to find a means of delivering them within the limit 
of a reasonable cost. The present lines of both whole¬ 
salers and retailers that are required for this service 
will be encouraged and developed. No legitimate busi¬ 
ness needs to be disturbed, but an adjustment in some 
lines will undoubtedly be necessary. Where wasteful 
methods and duplication are found they must be elim¬ 
inated and the agents of them diverted to productive 
distributing activities. Speculation in food products 
must be done away with. 
DISTRIBUTION PROBLEMS.—We must create a 
free channel for the flow of food products from the 
farm to the city consumer. There must be delivery 
agents in it; but it must be free from speculative ob¬ 
structions. Food that comes to the city properly grad¬ 
ed and packed and labeled, should pass through the 
auctioneer’s hands straight to the retailer and from 
him to the consumer, at a reasonable profit. Again, 
cold storage space must be provided in the city to save 
deterioration and waste, and to secure a constant and 
regular delivery as needed, In some situations whole¬ 
salers may be needed to furnish higher grades and par¬ 
ticular delivery to classes of retailers. This will be a 
the; rural new-yorkek 
fancy trade that is willing to pay for quality and con¬ 
venience ; but the great bulk of trade should be dis¬ 
posed of in a single handling. 
THE CONSUMER’S SIDE.—This marketing prob¬ 
lem is a matter that interests any person who buys 
food. That involves practically every person in the 
State. It is not to the interest of the consumers of any 
particular city that the farmer loses money in shipping 
his produce to its markets. The city must depend on 
the country for its food. If the market is unsatisfac¬ 
tory, the farmer refuses to ship to it, or sends it only 
his poorest products. This results in short supply and 
compels the consumer to pay higher prices for an in¬ 
ferior article of food. If the prices are so low in the 
city that the farmer must let his goods rot on the 
ground, he raises fewer next year or none at all, and 
the consumer feels the result of this in higher prices. 
Hence it is to the interest of city consumers that the 
farmer find a ready market at satisfactory prices so 
as to encourage him to produce a steady supply of 
fresh graded food products. 
AVOIDING WASTE.—Waste is an economic sin 
and all sins are harmful. The man who causes waste 
in time of war or peace is, economically speaking, an 
enemy of mankind. The man who obstructs the chan¬ 
nel of trade, and causes food to rot on the farms while 
children are dying in the city for lack of sufficient 
nourishment is quite as responsible for waste as the 
man who wantonly burns a house. • The individual 
may be part of a system which he cannot control; but 
the effect is the same. The individual responsibility in 
that case is simply transferred from the individual to 
a craft or to the community. Everyone who studies 
the subject admits the frightful waste in our system of 
distribution. The State has recognized the necessity 
of reform in the creation of the Department of Foods 
and Markets. Hunger produces weaklings, and sick¬ 
ness and crime. These again create orphanages, hos¬ 
pitals and prisons. They are a serious expense to 
the State. A sound business policy as well as a human¬ 
itarian instinct demands that we reform our system of 
distribution of food products. j. j. d. 
MOVING LARGE FOREST TREES. 
IDL you give information as to moving native 
trees and shrubs? I want to move some pines, 
hemlocks and cedars eight or 10 feet tall, and 
have been advised to dig around the native tues 
now, then move when the frost is in the ground, sav in 
February or March. How far from the trunk should I 
dig the trench, and how can I lift the trees when they 
are frozen down at the bottom? Gan I do the same way 
with Azaleas, laurel, and other wild shrubs? e. d. c. 
Bantam, Conn. 
Large evergreens from the forest are difficult to trans¬ 
plant successfully, even under the most favorable condi¬ 
tions ; they usually make but few fibrous roots, and 
when the main roots are severed, as they must be, when 
moving them with a ball of earth or otherwise, the evap¬ 
oration of moisture through their evergreen foliage can¬ 
not be compensated for through their shortened root sys¬ 
tem, and the tree dies, literally from thirst. I have 
serious doubts whether the plan suggested would prove 
successful with evergreens as large as those mentioned, 
but as the only probable expense connected with the un¬ 
dertaking is the item of labor, a trial planting should be 
made, and if the trees should not live the loss would not 
be great. 
Before the ground freezes to any appreciable depth, 
dig around the trees, leaving a ball of undisturbed soil 
30 to 36 inches in diameter, gradually burrowing under 
the tree to a depth of 18 inches or so, working toward 
the center from all sides, until the tree is completely un¬ 
dermined, after which fill in around the ball of earth 
with forest leaves or other coarse litter, up to the level 
of the surface of the surrounding ground. The tree will 
probably need anchoring to keep it in a vertical posi¬ 
tion. When the ball of earth becomes sufficiently frozen 
it may be pried out with long levers made from saplings, 
and loaded on a stone boat and transported by horse 
power to the place it is to be transplanted. The holes 
for the trees’ reception should be prepared before hard 
freezing sets in and covered with a good layer of for¬ 
est leaves or straw to prevent freezing. If the ground 
should become too much frozen to complete the filling 
in of soil around the trees, leaves or straw may be piled 
around the trees until the ground is in proper condition 
to complete the work. 
Deciduous trees may be moved in the manner de¬ 
scribed above with very reasonable assurance of success¬ 
ful outcome. Their tops should be cut back at least 
one-third. In the removal of large or medium-sized 
trees from the forest to the home grounds, I prefer the 
following plan, which I believe is the most practical 
method for this work. 
In early Spring dig a trench around the tree, leaving 
an undisturbed ball of earth two feet or more in diam¬ 
eter around it, varying the size of the ball according to 
the size of the tree, going deep enough to sever all the 
roots running in a horizontal direction, and cutting the 
end of each root severed, smooth, with a sharp knife or 
pruning shears. After this fill in the trench with good 
soil, and do not disturb further until the following Fall 
for deciduous trees and Spring for evergreens. Having 
the horizontal roots severed the trees will force out in 
all directions myriads of fibrous roots, in many in¬ 
December m, 
stances completely filling the ball of earth, which will 
hold the soil intact almost as well as if the ground was 
frozen. At the time of removal the tap roots will have 
to be located and severed, when the tree, if not too 
large, may be carefully raised out of the hole by means 
of strong planks, or in the case of large trees with a 
block and fall attached to some sort of derrick, and re¬ 
moved to their permanent location in the same manner 
as directed for those with frozen balls of earth attached. 
Large and medium-sized forest trees treated in this man¬ 
ner before removal, are very much more likely to grow 
than by any other method of treatment, particularly 
evergreens. 
Rhododendrons are quite accommodating in their 
habits, and may be successfully removed from their nat¬ 
ural environments to the home grounds almost any time 
they can be dug. Wild Azaleas are more sensitive to 
being removed to cultivated ground and none but small 
plants should be selected for the purpose. The Kalmias 
(laurel) are very difficult to transplant successfully 
from the woods to the home grounds, large plants very 
seldom surviving removal. Small plants, however, may 
be transplanted with reasonable assurance of success. 
This transfer should be made in the Spring, and if 
possible the young plants should be planted in partial 
shade. After one year under cultivation, they may be 
as successfully transplanted (all sizes) as the Rhodo¬ 
dendron. k. 
FERTILIZER FACTS ABOUT FEEDS. 
F I cut a crop and feed to farm stock, and return the 
manure to the field, how much less humus do I add 
to it than I. would if I plowed the crop under? Can 
you give the approximate fertilizer value of the com¬ 
mon mill feeds after being fed to dairy cows? It. seems 
to me that in order to buy feed intelligently we must 
know their fertilizer as well as their feeding value. 
Jamestown, N. Y. r. r.. s. 
The following table occurs in Hopkins’ “Soil Fer¬ 
tility and Permanent Agriculture”: 
Food stuffs 
Per cent digested 
of total in food 
Dry matter of food 
recovered in 
manure 
Dry 
matter 
Nitrogen 
Percent. 
Lbs.per 
ton 
Pasture grasses. 
71 
70 
29 
580 
Red clover, green. 
66 
67 
34 
680 
Alfalfa Jgreen. 
67 
81 
33 
660 
Mixed meadow bav. 
61 
67 
39 
780 
Red clover hay. 
61 
62 
39 
780 
Alfalfa bay . 
60 
74 
40 
800 
Oat straw . 
48 
30 
52 
1040 
Wheat straw .. 
43 
11 
57 
1140 
Corn stover. 
60 
45 
40 
800 
Shock corn . 
63 
42 
37 
740 
Oorn-and-cob meal. 
79 
52 
21 
420 
Corn ensilage. 
64 
49 
80 
720 
Oats. 
70 
78 
30 
600 
Corn. 
91 
76 
9 
180 
Wheat bran. 
61 
79 
39 
780 
Thus, when Red clover, green, containing one ton 
of dry matter is eaten, only GS0 pounds of the dry 
matter consumed will be returned to the land in the 
droppings. When Red clover hay is taken from the 
field only 7S0 pounds is returned when a ton is fed. 
In other words, a ton of clover plowed under will 
add nearly three times as much organic matter to the 
soil as can possibly be recovered in the manure if the 
clover is fed. 
The approximate fertilizer value of the common 
mill feeds can be got at as follows. The Ohio Expe¬ 
riment Station fed 2S steers for six months. The 
ration consisted of wheat bran, cornmeal, linseed 
meal, cotton-seed meal, corn silage, corn stover, and 
mixed hay. Eighty-three per cent, of the nitrogen 
was recovered, 55.6 per cent, of the phosphorus was 
recovered and 97.6 of the potassium was recovered. 
In the table below the results at the Illinois and 
Pennsylvania experiments are also given: 
Nitrogen 
recovered 
Phosphorus 
recovered 
Potash 
recovered 
Ohio (steers) .. 
83.0# 
55.6# 
97.6# 
Pennsylvania (cows) .. 
84.0# 
70.7# 
91.0# 
Illinois (cows). 
80.3# 
73.3# 
76.0# 
In the Pennsylvania and Illinois experiments milk 
cows consumed the feed so that these figures would 
be most suitable here. These percentages can be ap¬ 
plied to the fertilizing elements contained in the com¬ 
mon mill feeds and the result will be the approxi¬ 
mate fertilizer value of mill feeds when fed to dairy 
cows. The fertilizing elements in the common mill 
feeds are given in Henry’s “Feeds and Feeding.” 
Some of these are given below : 
Name of feed 
Fertilizing constitutors in 1,000 lbs. 
Nitrogen 
Phosphorus 
Potash 
Corn meal. 
I. ns. 
14.7 
LBS. 
6.3 
LBS. 
4.7 
Corn-and-cob meal_ 
13.6 
5.7 
4.7 
Gluten feed . 
40.0 
3.7 
.4 
Hominy feed (chop)... 
16.8 
9.8 
4.9 
Standard wheat.I 
Middlings (shorts) .. ( 
27.0 
26.3 
15.3 
Wheat bran. 
24.6 
26.9 
15.2 
Ground oats . 
19.7 
7.6 
5.0 
Cotton-seed meal. 
72.5 
30.4 
15.8 
