THK RURAI> :NT=5'W-YOF?KTCR. 
685 
The Foods and Markets Department. 
A Statement from the Commissioner. 
Farmers ought to understand the situation of the 
Department of Foods and Markets. The Legislature 
passed its appropriation bill of some sixty-four million 
dollars- without including any appropriation for the 
Department. The original purpose to abolish the De¬ 
partment through the Kincaid bill raised such a pro¬ 
test from farmers, that some other means of defeating 
the Department had to be resorted to. The Kincaid 
bill was killed; and the Department simply put on a 
starvation diet. The supply bill carried an item of 
$15,000 for it. Some of the strongest and most prom¬ 
inent men in the Legislature were in favor of fair treat¬ 
ment for this Department; but the interests opposed 
to the producers exerted an influence that prevailed 
with some members who have come to believe that 
farmers will not resent opposition to their interests. 
In this we think they will have reason to revise a 
hasty conclusion. 
At all events, next year, we propose to ask candidates 
for the Legislature from country districts to declare 
their position in regard to the Department of Foods 
and Markets. If they equivocate or oppose, farmers 
will then know where they stand and how to vote. The 
responsibility will then be up to farmers themselves, 
and we have no doubt of the result. 
In the meantime the work of the Department will be 
hampered, but it will not stand still. I wish to have 
the farmers of the State fully understand my position. 
I accepted this work with considerable personal and 
business sacrifice, because I felt there was an opportunity 
in this Department to do something of real service for 
the producers and consumers of the State; but no man 
can successfully run a department of this kind without 
money to start it. The money supplied would pay ne¬ 
cessary salaries, rent, and incidentals, and leave possi¬ 
bly four or five thousand dollars for the real work. 
While I was willing to make a sacrifice to perform a 
public service the members of the Legislature who sup¬ 
posed I would be content to accept a salary and do 
nothing mistook my purpose- and had no conception of 
the ideal that inspired the men responsible for the crea¬ 
tion of the Department. Compared with the demands 
of private business in New York the salary is a small 
matter at most, but I cannot be placed in the position 
of spending ten thousand dollars in salaries and office 
expense for the privilege of using five thousand dollars 
or less in a vain attempt at real service. I was not 
working for a salary ; I was trying to find a way to 
market the products of farms at a profit. I might not 
have succeeded if given the means to try ; but I would 
at least have made an honest effort. 
To abandon the Department entirely at this time 
would be virtually to destroy it for good. I believe 
that it has great possibilities of good to the people, and 
I propose to make at least one more fight for the prin¬ 
ciple for which it was established. I will accordingly 
use all the money available to advance the work; but 
I shall not draw one dollar in salary from the .State. 
This will make available six thousand dollars extra 
for the working capital of the Department and it will 
enable us to do some things that we could not do 
without it. 
1. We shall continue to develop our plans for term¬ 
inal markets as the most important work before us. 
2. We shall investigate the cost of delivery of farm 
products and show' who gets it. We will try, through 
publicity, to reduce it, and divide the saving between 
the producer and consumer. 
3. We shall not be able to do as much organization 
work in producing districts as we hoped to do; but 
we hope farmers will take this work upon themselves 
and we will be in a position to help some. The Agricul¬ 
tural Department, the Grange and agricultural colleges 
will cooperate. 
4. While our system cannot be entirely satisfactory 
until we get our terminal markets, we have already 
nearly perfected arrangements to sell apples and po¬ 
tatoes at auction in the New York market next year. 
The details of this will be discussed later. With the co¬ 
operation of producers this will be a success and it is 
the one step most dreaded by men who have been re¬ 
sponsible for the deplorable condition of these products 
.under the present marketing system. 
5. Farmers will have an agency in the city to give 
marketing information and advice, and to look after or 
adjust any matters that affect their interests or their 
shipments. 
0. Among other things we hope to conduct an in¬ 
vestigation to show the present methods used by the 
milk trust to keep farmers producing milk at a loss, 
in the hope of providing a remedy. 
Much of the success of this work will depend on the 
cooperation given the Department by producers them¬ 
selves. Our study of the situation has revealed the 
cause of their abuses; and I believe they are anxious 
for an opportunity to help correct them. Beginning 
with our live poultry articles, we will give you the de¬ 
tails of market manipulations; and you will understand 
the size of the job undertaken to reform market condi¬ 
tions and to establish a system to move food products 
on the basis of honest supply and fair demand. 
JOHN J. DILION, 
Commissioner. 
The New York Live Poultry Market. 
The Inside Works Exposed. 
Part I. 
EARLY DAYS IN THE BUSINESS.—In 1S90 
the shipments of live poultry to the New York 
market, including express shipments, did not aver¬ 
age 20 carloads per week. At this time all of the 
poultry was shipped to various commission men, who 
sold it to the various slaughter houses aud butchers 
throughout the city, and prices were anywhere from 
eight to 12 cents per pound, for live fowls. The use 
of patent cars built especially for shipping live poultry 
and the increased production of poultry throughout the 
country made a continued growth in the receipts. The 
Health Department, as early as 1896, began making 
stringent regulations regarding the handling of live 
poultry, restricting the points at which the poultry 
would be held alive, awaiting slaughter, and the rules 
and regulations have boon changed from time to time 
until at the present time there are about 180 places 
designated at which live poultry can be held for slaugh¬ 
ter and slaughtered in Greater New York. But recent¬ 
ly the Department has amended its rules so that there 
will probably be a great increase in the number of 
points at which slaughterhouses may be operated for 
the handling of poultry arriving in the market alive. 
In 1900 the receipts of live poultry had grown to a 
weekly average of 40 carloads, arriving by freight, 
and usually one to five cars by express. At about this 
time the receivers decided that they should have closer 
cooperation, and formed what was known as the New 
York live Poultry Dealers’ Protective Association. By 
1905 they had a close working arrangement and had 
limited their sales entirely to a party of dealers known 
as “jobbers.” They then drew up a plan by which all 
the poultry was received by the six or seven concerns 
designated as “receivers,” and all turned over to the 
six or seven concerns known as the “jobbers,” and after 
having been turned over to the “jobbers,” they turned 
it over to some 90 concerns known as slaughterhouse 
men. These slaughterhouse people killed the poultry 
and delivered it to the retail kosher butchers of New 
York. The results of this operation from the producers 
and shippers’ standpoint were as follows. 
HOW IT WAS WORKED.—The poultry arrives in 
New York Gity very largely on Monday, Tuesday and 
Wednesday and no price was made on the poultry un¬ 
til the total receipts for the week were fully known, 
although the poultry was distributed as above de¬ 
scribed. After the poultry had been distributed, on 
Wednesday or Thursday, at about ten o’clock in the 
morning, a meeting was hold and the matter was talked 
over among the receivers and jobbers as to what price 
they would return the country shippers and vote to es¬ 
tablish a market for the week. After the agreement 
had been entered into at what the price should be that 
the receivers should charge the jobbers for the poultry, 
this information was given out to the press and wired 
out to the country shippers, the wires always reading 
“market settled at such and such a price.” The com¬ 
bination had a close working arrangement with the job¬ 
bers who charged an additional profit to the kosher 
killers, the receivers charging the shippers five per cent, 
for receiving and turning the poultry over to the job¬ 
bers, and the jobbers charging from five to 25 per cent, 
additional, when turning the poultry over to the kosher 
killers. Then the joint profit of the receivers and job¬ 
bers was pooled and divided between the various con¬ 
cerns on a percentage basis, which they had arranged 
among themselves. This combination regulated the re¬ 
ceipts of poultry, allowing no poultry arriving after 
noon on Thursday to be slaughtered until the follow¬ 
ing week. They further limited the poultry that should 
be distributed at a maximum of 55 cars per week, and 
in this way were able to bold off the market all ears 
arriving in excess of 55 cars, and discouraging ship¬ 
pers from forwarding poultry in any great amounts, 
except on certain Hebrew holidays. In 1910 it was re¬ 
ported that they had in the pool $700,000. 
UNSATISFIED SHIPPERS—At about this time 
poultry dealers of Chicago and Kansas City came to 
New York to investigate the handling of their ship¬ 
ments of live poultry to the New York market. They 
met Bernard Baff & Son, who were killers of live 
poultry aud distributors, buying from the trusts. Mr. 
Baff informed them that he had paid that week, for 
several carloads of their poultry, in cash, 19 cents per 
pound. The market that week was voted by the com¬ 
bination at 16 cents per pound, which was the price 
returned to all western shippers for their poultry, less 
all charges such as five per cent, commission, 20 cents 
per coop for cartage, $12 per car for unloading charges 
for feed, and in fact every charge that could be placed 
against the poultry, was charged to the shipper. They 
discovered that on the 12 cars of poultry which they 
had in the New York market that week, they were 
receiving an average of about $600 per car, less money 
from their agents to receivers. They went to the of¬ 
fice of the receivers and notified them that they were 
dissatisfied at the treatment they were receiving and 
were informed that they, individually, could do noth¬ 
ing about it, but that in the morning if they wished 
they would have a meeting of the receivers and jobbers 
aud see if anything could be done. All the concerns in¬ 
terested in the business were present, one receiving 
concern having in the same building a jobbing concern 
so they received the poultry, and returned for it at 
the prices established by the combination, less charges 
and comipissions and pthejr charges, as the receiving 
company, and then sold the poultry as jobbers, to the 
kosher killers or whoever they might find as customers. 
The meeting lasted from ten in the morning until three 
in the afternoon. The president of the combination 
did most of the talking. He said that the combination 
was absolutely necessary on account of the credit sys¬ 
tem, and that the shippers had no reason for complain¬ 
ing; that they were being returned for their poultry 
all that it was worth. lie further stated that they had 
a strong political “pull”; that no one else could start 
a receiving or jobbing business nor secure a permit to 
slaughter poultry in Greater New York, other than 
those belonging to the combination; and that if the 
shippers were not satisfied with the prices which were 
being returned all they had to do was to stop shipping. 
This did not please the Chicago aud Kansas City peo¬ 
ple, but only one decided to try to change conditions. 
He told Bernard Baff that he would supply him, inde¬ 
pendently, with poultry outside of the combination, and 
closed a contract for five cars per week, covering a per¬ 
iod of several months in advance. For a number of 
years, no poultry outside of the combination had been 
received and distributed. The combination had ar¬ 
ranged that wherever a shipper had attempted to ship 
to some one outside of the combination that he should 
be punished. They sent buyers into the country, at the 
point where the unruly shipper was located, and raised 
the prices to a point that caused him a heavy loss. 
New York State News. 
CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION.—The Consti¬ 
tutional Convention reconvened on April 26, for its 
“long session.” Committee assignments were made dur¬ 
ing the recess and the convention “got away” imme¬ 
diately on reassembling. On the first day 26 proposed 
amendments were offered. The one commanding most 
of the convention’s thought for the time was an amend¬ 
ment offered by John Godfrey Saxe, former legal ad¬ 
visor to Gov. Glynn, to restore the State convention 
and wipe out the direct primaries in large degree. 
Other amendments of more than ordinary interest were 
these: To authorize the Governor to attend legislative 
sessions and introduce bills but have no vote; to cre¬ 
ate a criminal Court of Appeals; to make a three- 
fourths vote of a jury sufficient for a verdict; to permit 
the State to cut and sell dead timber and construct 
roads in the State’s forest lands; to abolish the death 
penalty. 
NEW LAWS.—The Governor has signed the bill 
relative to marking canned goods, which provides that 
nothing in the law shall apply to hermetically sealed, 
canned or preserved foods in containers labeled in ac¬ 
cordance with the agricultural laws. Another law pro¬ 
vides for the payment to physicians of the sum of 25 
cents for the recording of births aud deaths. This is 
to remedy, or help remedy, difficulties that have arisen 
over the non-registration of deaths and births. 
MO-DAY BILLS.—There were only about 400 30-day 
bills left in the Governor’s hands when the Legislature 
adjourned. This is about a third fewer than is usu¬ 
ally left for the Governor’s consideration. The money 
bills are the most important of any that he will have 
to act upon. The large appropriation and supply bills, 
the direct tax bill and the $27,000,000 bond issue are 
among these measures. 
FAIR DIRECTORS INDICTED.—Five directors 
and officers of the Niagara County Agricultural So¬ 
ciety have been indicted on several counts for the al¬ 
leged misapplication of State moneys paid for pre¬ 
miums. All pleaded guilty and were admitted to bail 
of $1,000 each on the conspiracy indictment. 
VEHICLE LIGHT BILL.—One of the new laws 
that will go into effect soon is that requiring vehicles 
on public highways to carry lights at night, visible 
from front and rear, in all cities, towns and villages. 
Violation is a misdemeanor, punishable by a fine of not 
more than $10. " j. w. D. 
Grain Notes and Movements. 
Shipments from Atlantic ports for week 
ending April 
and since July 1 last 
were: 
Week 
Since .1 uly 1 
Wheat, bushels . 
. . 7.303,000 
267,251.000 
Flour, barrels . 
. . 280,000 
12,289.000 
Corn, bushels . 
.. 1.777,000 
322,552.000 
(bits, bushels . 
68,840,000 
Rye, bushels . 
11,475.000 
Barley, bushels . 
69.000 
10,545,000 
Stocks in store were, i 
in thousands of bushels. 
Wheat Corn 
Oats 
New York . 
2,003 378 
1,483 
Boston . 
36 64 
4 
Philadelphia . 
790 389 
624 
Baltimore . 
1.127 505 
922 
Galveston . 
1.475 5 
Buffalo . 
7M4 
Chicago . 
1.448 8,295 
10,953 
Duluth . 
1.787 
New Potato Movement. 
The Government report shows a large acreage in the 
Atlantic truck sections this year, but dry unfavorable 
weather thus far. The first Florida potatoes are moved 
the middle of March, and shipments continue until 
June. The area this year is about 16,100 acres, nearly 
the same as in 1914. The Carolinas have 20,000 acres, 
a slight decrease. The Eastern shore of Virginia has 
100.000 acres, a 25 per cent, increase, while the Nor¬ 
folk section is practically the same as last year. 20.- 
500 acres. Prices of new potatoes show a very wide 
range of value, from $1 to $5 per barrel, the low priced 
ones being small, an inch in diameter or under. 
A steamer line has been established between Iceland 
and New York, with two sailings per month. This far 
north island, touching the Arctic circle, 250 miles east 
of Greenland, has an extensive fishing industry and 
raises sheep and ponies. It will send us wool, mutton 
and herrings, and take our manufactured goods. Ice¬ 
land has an area of 39,756 square miles—about the 
same as New Hampshire, Vermont. Massachusetts, 
Rhode Island, Connecticut and New Jersey, combined, 
but much of it is uninhabitable. It has about 40.000 
population. It is much nearer to Scandinavian Europe 
than this country, but the war has upset its European 
trade. . 
