1126 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER 
September 11, 1915. 
PUBLISHER’S DESK 
Our cherries are sold at auction, but I 
fear the number of bidders are restricted 
and that there is not a legitimate compe¬ 
tition. A friend put a note in a box of 
cherries requesting the buyer to write 
the price paid for the box. In due time 
the reply came: “I paid .$4 for your box 
of cherries.” The returns to the grower 
were S5 cents. These cherries were sold 
at auction and probably resold several 
times before they got to the consumer. 
California. G. w. w. 
All that the auction market can do is 
to make an exchange in the open, with 
full publicity before and after the sale. 
There has been no indication of a lack of 
competition in the auction market of New 
York for the sale of California cherries. 
At the ame New York State cherries 
were wasting on the trees for want of 
buyers at any price .during the past sea¬ 
son a carload of California cherries of no 
better quality sold at auction in New 
York at 25 cents a quart. These cher¬ 
ries are put up in very attractive form, 
and by keeping the local cherries out of 
the market, through maintaining low re¬ 
turns to the producer, the attractive pack 
from the West can be sold to the best 
trade at extravagant prices. It is plain 
that if New York cherries should come 
to the market at four or five cents a 
quart, and retail at a reasonable profit, no 
such extravagant price as $4 a box could 
be charged for California cherries. I have 
been called every name in the vocabulary 
of abuse because I publicly called atten¬ 
tion to this condition. If the grower of 
California, or the consumer of New York 
profited by the system, there might be 
some excuse for it. As a matter of fact 
it is a burden on both of them. The job¬ 
bers get their little toll, but the fancy 
fruiterer gets the lion’s share. The ar¬ 
chaic system of distribution in New York 
maintains the jsystem, and is responsible 
for it. The local cherries are kept out of 
the market because the foreign producer 
affords better opportunity for large profits. 
If the local cherries were let in, these ex¬ 
cessive •'’tail prices could not be main¬ 
tained. The publicity of the auction helps 
in the whole trade; and when we get the 
right kind of publicity in the retail prices 
we will be well on the way to a reform of 
distribution. We are trying it out on 
peaches now, and will attack the cherries 
next season. Everybody knows that high 
retail prices restrict consumption, and 
cause a surplus, in the wholesale trade, 
and a surplus always means low prices. 
We are only beginning this work. We 
cannot do it all at once, but a few years 
will sl> marvellous changes. In the 
meantime this story of S5 cents for a $4 
box of cherries is according to some critics 
another vain repetition of an economic 
fallacy. 
I have before me a copy of a circular 
from “The National Marketing Commit¬ 
tee, 32 Bliss Building, Washington, D. 
C.” As chairman of the Co-operative 
Committee of the California State Grange 
I ask your opinion as to the propriety of 
recommending the grange to take mem¬ 
bership in said organization. I would be 
gratified to read in your paper as full and 
explicit an explanation of its workings, 
reliability and ability to make good as 
you can publish. I am a subscriber to 
your paper and am pleased at the pro¬ 
gress it is making. In California we are 
greatly interested in the marketing prob¬ 
lem. * G. W. W. 
California. 
The National Marketing Committee 
has its headquarters at Washington, Id. 
„C. The officers are: President, Duncan 
N. Fletcher, United States Senator from 
Florida ; vice-president, William T. Creasy 
of Pennsylvania; second vice-president, 
William Kent, Congressman from Cali¬ 
fornia ; secretary-treasurer, George P. 
Hampton. New York. The executive 
committee consists of these officers and 
W. S. Goodwin, Congressman from Ar¬ 
kansas ; C. B. Kegley, of Washington; 
P. D. Norton, North Carolina ; Clarence 
,T. Owens, Maryland; H. S. Mobley, Ar¬ 
kansas ; J. A. Falkoner, Washington, aud 
Obadiah Gardner, Maine. The member¬ 
ship is small, and is composed largely of 
Senators, Congressmen and officials or 
ex-officials of the Federal government, but 
not entirely. While as far as the general 
public is concerned the committee seems 
to be self-constituted, it includes the 
.names of men of national repute, and it 
is to be assumed that they are actuated 
by a spirit of public interest. Certainly a 
vast and fertile field awaits their outline. 
There is much that the Federal govern¬ 
ment could do to help organize an eco¬ 
nomic system of food distribution that 
States or local sections cannot do so well, 
if at all. Whether the committee as at 
present constituted has a comprehensive 
view of the subject and its needs we are 
at this stage unable to tell. Nothing has 
yet been disclosed to show that it has. 
If the purpose is a sincere one to perfect 
a system of distribution the committee is 
capable to perform the task. If, however, 
the main object is one of politics or pur¬ 
sued with a view solely to political prom¬ 
inence, then little of practical importance 
can be expected from it. We have had 
all the research and statistics and discus¬ 
sion of the subject that is needed. What 
wo want now is something practical. The 
farmer who has been x’eceiving 35-cent 
dollars and the consumer who has been 
paying 05 cents of the dollar for the de¬ 
livery of his foods are in no mood to read 
long government reports and bewildering 
statistics. The consumer wants cheaper 
delivery and the farmer wants a market 
for his produce and a better share of the 
dollar. It is reported that the committee 
now propose to publish a weekly paper. 
There is no objection to this provided 
the men who are interested pay for their 
own experience, but we see no reason why 
Grangers should contribute to it. We 
have a pretty fair supply of publications 
now, and every one of them, large or 
small, is anxious to publish anything of 
useful information about the food supply 
and the reduction of the cost of living. 
Surely no new publication is necessary to 
get the information before the people. 
The R. N.-Y. will welcome the new pub¬ 
lication, if it makes an appearance, and 
any information gathered in our years of 
experience will be available to its man¬ 
agement for the asking. We will wish 
it every success, but we cannot advige 
Grangers to join the committee for the 
purpose of contributing to the initial ex¬ 
pense of the experiment. They may well 
afford to keep in touch with the activities 
of the committee, and advise it from time 
to time of the real pressing needs of the 
producer in the difficult task of finding a 
^profitable market for his products. 
Last season I purchased an auto tire, 
’size 30x3%, from Chas. Friedlander & 
Go., of 58 Warren St., New York City, 
which they say in their catalog is cov¬ 
ered by the standard guarantee which I 
suppose is not less than 3,000 miles. 
After running this tire 800 or 000 miles, 
the rubber tread has peeled entirely off; 
all came off on a trip of less than 10 
miles. I wrote the company about it, and 
they replied that all tires are estimated 
to have been run 50 miles a day, etc/' I. 
do not average to run 50 miles in two 
weeks through the season, as I run a car 
but little. I am enclosing their guaran¬ 
tee as it appears on their catalog and 
wish you would see if you can persuade 
them to do the fair thing by me. The 
other three tires on my car had been run 
3.000 or 4,000 miles when I put this one 
on, and are still in good condition, as I 
can prove by good witnesses. F. w. A. 
Vermont. 
We took this complaint up with Chas. 
Friedlander & Co., of 58 Warren Street, 
New York, but the only satisfaction we 
were able to get was the statement that 
the tire was not guaranteed. The Ver¬ 
mont subscriber sends us a page from the 
catalogue and the paragraph describing 
the particular tire reads as follows: 
“A high grade tire guaranteed with the 
standard tire guarantee at lower than 
standard prices.” 
Prospective customers of this firm can 
take their choice between the statement 
of the firm to us and what they print in 
their catalogue. At best the transaction 
suggests the wisdom of car owners pur¬ 
chasing tires from firms that do guaran¬ 
tee their tires and then live up to the 
guarantee after making it. 
Philip C. Wadsworth, of Atlanta, Ga., 
lias been arrested on a charge of using 
the mails to defraud. Wadsworth pro¬ 
moted the sale of stock of the Cotton 
Growers’ Co-operative Society, a $50,000,- 
000 Alabama corporation, through which 
it was claimed American cotton was to 
be marketed on a co-operative plan to ob¬ 
tain reasonable prices. Representatives 
in each county in the cotton belt were to 
be appointed at $3,000 a year, and grow¬ 
ers were to receive 15 cents a pound for 
their cotton. It is alleged that the char¬ 
ter of the concern was obtained fraudu¬ 
lently ; that no part of the stock had 
been subscribed for; that it was never in¬ 
tended to have a bona fide capital stock; 
and that false representations had been 
made to prospective investors in letters 
sent them. Membership in the corpora¬ 
tion was to enable the society to build up 
a concentrated capital of stock of $1,000,- 
000,000. A bond issue of $200,000,000 
was to be issued with a reserve of $250,- 
000,000. Farmers were told they were 
‘‘easy marks” for permitting themselves 
to be mulcted of $120,000,000 each year 
by promoters. Evidently there was no 
limit to the amount Wadsworth hoped to 
get from them. J. J. D. 
‘‘I don’t ’old with ’ere vaccination, 
Mrs. Green. What’s vaccination done 
for my little Tommy? Since I ’ad ‘im done 
’e’s ’ad whopping-cougli, chicken-pox, 
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BOOKS WORTH READING 
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The Rural New Yorker, 333 West 30th St., N. Y. 
RIPPED 
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{Three proofs of ^ylllen progress.) 
Write today for advance literature and name of nearest dealer. 
THE ALLEN MOTOR COMPANY, 909 Allen Bldg., Eoctorza, Ohio 
{Automobile dealers wanted in open territory.) 
Lumber conditions are better for the buyer today than they have been in 
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Furthermore, the prospects are that they never again will be so favorable, for 
the minute Europe grows tired of fighting, millions and millions of feet of / 
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Your dealer in your home / 
^Southern 
/ Pins 
- Association 
. The Wood of Service' * 626K Interstate 
the United States Department of Agriculture has tested the merits of commercial A _ank Bldg, 
woods, that it may assist you in the use of lumber. Of Southern Yellow Pine / New Orleans, La. 
the Department says, in Bulletin No. 99: . , FR r- F 
“ Heavy, hard, very strong; tough; grain fine, even, straight; durable in ' ‘ ir ‘ et " c ^ our 
And when you build, use good, strong, durable lumber, 
town has it— 
SOUTHERN YELLOW PINE 
Contact with the soil. In a large part oj the country it is so univers¬ 
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/ 
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Barn and Bin Plans Q 
Silo Book.□ 
/ House Plans.□ 
Book of Lumber Tests... □ 
Southern Pine Association New Orleans 
/ 
/ 
It. F. D.. 
..State- 
