795 
Delays in Shipment; Excessive Charges 
FARMERS’ LOSSES.—The farmers scarcely real¬ 
ize the losses sustained by them in the New 
York market, due to the delay iu shipments of per¬ 
ishable products by transportation companies. The 
best trade for this class of goods in the city of 
New York takes place in the early morning between 
2 and 4 o’clock. Many of the best buyers come 
from outside the city, and others within the city 
want the best stock, and in time for early deliver¬ 
ies. When goods fail to arrive, these buyers take 
the best they can get, or substitute other products 
and go their way. The delayed perishable goods 
arrive later. The best buyers are gone, and the 
goods cannot be held, and must 'be sacrificed to the 
poorer trade. On Saturday, June 2nd, for example, 
the shipments of strawberries from the Carolinas, 
Virginia and Maryland were some hours delayed. 
The stock was medium to good. If it had arrived 
for the early morning trade it would have sold from 
Sc to 12c per quart. It arrived about si.x hours 
late, and most of it sold from 4c to 5c. In this case, 
the shipper was not to blame. The commission 
dealer was not to blame an|J certainly the buyers 
were not to blame, for they were on the ground early 
iu the morning, and looking for the goods. The 
whole responsibility rested Avith the Pennsylvania 
Railroad for their failure to deliver the goods on 
schedule time. Railroad officials often lecture the 
farmers about inefficient methods. They are par- 
ticularl 5 " active this year, as other years, to en¬ 
courage a large production, but one experience of 
this kind, and they occur frequently, does more to 
discourage production of food than any other one 
agency. It would hake a great deal of appeal to the 
farmers’ patriotism to overcome the effect of a 
discouragement of this kind. It is a matter of in¬ 
difference to the railroad whether the goods sell for 
enough to pay the cost of transportation or not. 
4'hey are sure of the full rate, no matter Avhat the 
pi'ice is to the producer. 
LOSSES IN VEOETARLES.—A car of vegetables, 
including cabbage, corn, tomatoes and cucumbers, 
reached the city last Aveek from Florida. It Avas all 
in fairly good condition, though the corn and cucum¬ 
bers Avere a little over-ripe. Still it Avas all good 
food. The freight charges Avere $?>S5. The goods 
could not be sold for enough at the time of ai-rival 
or since to cover that enormous freight charge. The 
producers Avere at a loss, but the railroad company 
got Its full tariff charges. This is another instance 
of the discouragement of production. It is one of 
the reasons Avhy it is necessary to make a si)ecial 
l»atriotic appetil to farmers for the production of a 
supply of food. When the railroad and the dis¬ 
tributing system take their toll, the consumer pays 
high and the producer often gets nothing. Toma¬ 
toes, corn, beans, beets, cabbage and carrots are 
now .selling Avholesale at prices that make but small 
net return.s to the grower, yet the consumer is pay¬ 
ing high ])rices for them and is complaining of the 
high cost of living. 
THE GROWER’S POSITION.—^The Florida gro\A'- 
er gets 5c a pound for his potatoes in Ne\A' York. 
Out of this, he must pay the high c*ost of sped, the 
use ot his ground, spraying, fertilize)-, hell), digging, 
])acking, containers, cai-tiige to depots, fi-eight rates 
and commission for sale. Out of this 5c per pound, 
he i)ays all of these charges. The New York dis¬ 
tributor t.'ikes them fi-om the dock, oirries them 
three to five miles up town and sells them for 10c 
per pound. For his AA’ork of two or three hours, he 
gets as much as the fjirmer does for months of 
work and all the expense of lu-oductiou and Avhole¬ 
sale deliver.A'. ITitil Ave effect a more economic sys¬ 
tem of deliA'ery, the.se things go on. In oi-der to 
do this, the Government must take a strong hand. 
Ileretofoi-e it has refused to recognize the condi¬ 
tion. The Government has, hoAvever, recognized the 
short supply and the necessity to appeal to farmers 
for greater production and unless it takes meas¬ 
ures noAV to effect an economic distiabution. the next 
lime it appeals to farmers for greater production, 
it Avill talk to deaf ears. 
S-/5C RURAL NEW-YORKER 
can the farmer be put in that position? Only in one 
Avay —and that is the one food problem of the Avorld to¬ 
day—by selling direct to the consumer, and so not losing 
seventy per cent, of his price. I care not how this is 
done—whether by co-operative agencies like the Orange 
Growers of California; or by government distribution, 
as Dillon advociitcs; or by government regulation, as 
Perkins suggests. 
“It does not matter whether this is the thin edge of 
Socialism or the broad edge of I’aternalism. The point 
is, the farmer must realize a profit that will pay him to 
increase output. Otherwise all the starvation in the 
world will not force an increase of food. If you don’t 
make profits you cannot afford man po\yer. 
“This does not mean increased prices to the con¬ 
sumer. Prices could be cut thirty p<n- cent, to the con¬ 
sumer and yet increased forty per cent, to the farmer. 
Such increase would enable the farmer to compete 
against factory wages. 
“This is the problem—and the only problem—for 
those to work out who ask America to feed Jthe world; 
and the problem must be worked out now, or the world 
will go hungry before 1918. We are paying now in high 
cost of living for the neglect of this problem for forty 
years.” ^ 
The Postal Market—To Save Waste 
According to the Department of Agriculture, the 
farmer receives on a yearly average 40 cents for pro¬ 
ducts which cost the consumer $1. The editor of The 
R. N.-Y. who has made a careful study of the subject 
for 25 years, puts the figure five cents lower than the 
government report, and calls the unfair apportionment 
of compensation a “35-cent dollar.” At this rate the 
housewife is paying 65 cents for the delivery of 35 cents 
worth of food. Surely a distributive service is not 
AA'orth double a productive one. It is exactly like paying 
an experienced chef $1 for making a cake and a waiter 
$2 for passing it around among the guests. 
In our scheme of life the middlemen are only waiters 
engaged in a menial task, passing around products 
which are made with great labor by expert Avorkers. 
Surely they do not deserve double the compensation of 
the producers who perform a far more difficult task. It 
is distinctly wrong in principle to compensate an in¬ 
ferior service at a higher rate than a superior one. The 
evils arising from our use of this unfair principle in 
merchandising are threefold : 
First, the unnecessarily high prices due to the heavy 
transmission charges, put food in sufficient quantity 
out of the reach of a vast number of people who are 
in consequence, poorly nourished, inefficient and of 
lessened value to the State. 
Second, the demand for food is thereby lowered, and 
the farmer’s income, already inadequate, is still further 
reduced, his “35-cont dollars” being fewer as a result. 
Third, the unjust ratio of compensation between the 
producer and the transmitter, unbalances the whole life 
of the nation, draws the country lad away from the 
healthy, wholesome life in the open, and overcrowds 
the cities, the 65-cent end of the game being more at¬ 
tractive to him than the 35-cent. 
At this critical time when all of the nation’s resources 
should be used to the best advantage, the people can¬ 
not afford to pjiy the heavy charges named. - The ser¬ 
vice is not Avorth the price paid. Carrying an article 
to the user should not cost more than 10 cents on the 
dollar. 
How, then, can this service be furnished at such a 
low figure? Only iu one way—by making a short, 
straight path between the producer and the consumer, 
eliminating all middlemen by means of a postal market. 
This market would be operated as a sort of clearing 
house by an official connected with the post office. Food 
Avould be handled only in standard packages and stan¬ 
dard grades, many of which are already put up iu this 
way, viz., milk, butter, eggs, bread, berries, oranges, etc. 
The bulk of the deliveries would be made on standing 
orders iu the same way that butter and eggs are now 
sometimes handled. This would reduce the work of 
transmission to a minimum, little or no clerical work 
being needed. The promptness of delivery would insure 
freshness iind iivoid the tremendous loss by decay or 
deterioi'atiou unavoidable under present methods. 
This plan of marketing would abolish speculation 
Avhich is such a large factor in the “liigh cost of living” : 
It Avould eliminate a horde of profit-taking middlemen, 
another great factor ; finally it would abolish the enor¬ 
mous waste just mentioned. With these factors re¬ 
moved a distributive service could be furnished at a 
cost of 10 cents on the dollar. The postal market would 
cut the price of foods in two and solve the high cost of 
living question iu the right way, the only way it can be 
settled permanently, namely by making a straight path 
between the producer and consumer. R. L. GREENE. 
Indiana. 
had a carload of seed potatoes shipped in and the.v A\'ere 
.sold to farmers at wholesiile price. 
There are quite a number of farmers here who raise 
pickles for pickle factories. The price for several years 
past hits been 75c per liushel for pickles up to four 
inches long; 25c for large :uid 15c for nubs. The farm¬ 
ers were not satisfied with this i)rlce this year, so they 
got together and demanded $1 for small, 4()c for large 
and 25c for nubs. The two old factories tluit were 
doing business here for years would not comply with 
these terms, but a neAV factory is going to start up 
here and they contracted for these prices. Now since 
the farmers have accomplished this they made this or¬ 
ganization x)ermaneut and will try to accomplish other 
things, such as buying coal, feed and so forth by the 
carload lots. JOHN krieg. 
Indiana. 
A City Man as Farm Worker 
To a man born and raised on a farm and having lived 
on the farm for over 30 years it seems almost incredi¬ 
ble that a man should be as ignorant of farm conditions 
as the “city workman” who writes asking for^ farm 
work, on page 755. This man wants a job at .$60 per 
month for the year, and yet admits that he ciinuot “raise 
chickens, do garden work, take care of horse, milk cows, 
plant and raise vegetables and small fruit.” What can 
this man do that he should even expect his board, say¬ 
ing nothing whatever about Avages? Again, this man 
says he is “47 years old,” and hence he is 20 years past 
his prime. What wages would he expect if he was 25 
or 30 years old? I am not censuring nor blaming this 
man; he is a student of that part of the city press that 
is putting out so much of this guff we read. This man 
thinks his proposition very fair and doubtless thinks 
that every farm is a gold mine. Well, it is, but the 
nuggets are small and scattering and most of them are 
away down deep, out of sight, and there is no magic 
“water” or gold “wand” that will tell the farmer just 
where the gold lies ; he must dig for himself, and if be 
misses the first time he must “try, try again.” If this 
man, and others like him could realize that not one far¬ 
mer in 1,000 is making $720 and his board iu a year he 
Avould see how utterly foolish his proposition is. 
Wiscon.sin. F. c. 
A City Workman Talks 
I read an article on page 644 by Geo. Prosser of 
Long Island, with which I wish to take issue. I would 
like to suggest to Mr. Pi-o.s«er that he try the city for 
a time and see how much time he has to spare. I am 
an iron moulder and a reader of Tin; R. N.-Y., and if 
it wasn’t for the Iron Moulders’ Union I probably 
wouldn’t have time to read it. Our unions enable us 
to get AV'hat we want and for the farmers who think 
they are not getting what belongs to them I suggest 
that they organize. He speaks about the long hours 
a farmer puts iu and the short hours they have in the 
city. I am familiar with both conditions, and will say 
there is scarcely one man in one hundred in the city 
who has one dollar on the profit side of the ledger after 
he pays his expenses for the year. Nor would our 
working 12 to 16 hours per day cheapen manufactured 
goods to the farmer, but the employers might declare a 
larger dividend. The writer has been looking for a 
farm for a couple of years, but so far has been unable 
to buy one for what it is worth. To me it looks as if 
some one would want to get rid of that life of drudgery 
of 12 to 16 hours per day and get into the city where 
he has time to spare, but for three years I have been 
unable to locate one who wishes to make the change. 
To convince anyone who might think I loaf will say 
I raise a garden, keep 30 hens get more eggs than some 
farmers get from 100. raise about 60 young fowls every 
year and take care of 15 to 20 colonies of bees located 
three miles from my home, a bicycle being my mode 
of travel. CHAS. E. summer. 
Ohio. 
“ Forty Years of Neglect 
On the editorial page there is reference to an article 
by A. Laut in the Saturday Evening I’ost. Here is 
the concluding part of it: 
“But all these things—loans, help to get seed, substi¬ 
tutes for food and feed, savings through administrations 
to the Department of the Interior—all these are sub¬ 
sidiary to the main fact; iind the main fact in the food 
pi’oblem you may as well burn into your mind : The 
farmer must be put in a position to pay us good Avages 
as the factoi-y, b(“ it steel or shipbuilding. When the 
farm worker receives as good wages as the factory 
worker, with the wluilesome surroundings of outdoor 
life for his family and absolute .security from want, 
horses and chains will not drag him to town. 
“When the farmer can pay as gmid wages jis the fac¬ 
tory, labor will come back to the land in floods. How 
How Kansas Farmers Worked Out 
I notice in your paper how the farmers are treated 
in New York and New Jersey. Do not think that the 
Legislatures can or will help you. You must help 
yourselves. Organize under the Farmers’ E. and C. 
Union, then sell your own produce on the market. That 
is the way the fruit growers of California did. That 
is the way we in Kansas are doing. We own our own 
elevatoi's. We buy and sell our own grain. Before 
we did that we sold wheat on a margin of 22 cents 
a bushel. Now that we own our own eleviitors Ave sell 
on a margin of 11 cents a bushel, saving 11 cents a 
bushel for ourselves. The last two years buying and 
selling on a rising market has given us back all our 
money invested,” and also furnished us with a working 
capital. The great trouble with the farmer is that 
long usage on the down row has lost him his confidence 
in himself, consequently also in his neighbors. This 
condition needs an extra effort to shake off, but try 
to shake your.self—like a dog that is just awaking. Or¬ 
ganize under our union and become part of a strong 
body of men who know their business. c. F. 
Bridgeport, Ivans. 
11. E. Babcock. A 
Albany 
11. 1 
Allegany 
R.. i 
Broome 
J. I 
Bi 
Cattaraugus 
H. ] 
Cayuga 
E. ( 
Chautauqua 
11 . ] 
Chemung 
T. 
E 
Chenango 
E. 1 
Clinton 
C. 1 
Cortland 
A. ! 
Delaware 
E. 
Dutchess 
F. 
Erie 
W. 
Indiana Farmers Organize 
The farmers are working harder in Stiirke County, 
Ind., trying to raise more and better crops, than they 
ever did before, although the weather conditions so far 
have handicapped us. Both April and May we have 
had unusually cold weather, and June, so far, has been 
too cool for corn to make any headway. The ground 
was in good condition for planting corn, but is so cold 
it takes two weeks iind longer for it to come up. Oats 
are looking well ; wheat about half a crop. A lot of 
the wheiit Wiis entirely winter-killed, and was plowed 
up and sown to oats or jiliinted to corn, ’riiere were no 
loans made to any great extent. The banks of our town 
New York Farm Bureaus 
The following is a complete list of oi-giinized farm 
bureaus iu New York State. 
M. C. Burritt, State Director, Ithaca. 
k, A.ss't. State Director, Ithaca. 
II. E. Crouch, 90 Court House. Albiiny. 
R.. Q. Smith, Belmont. 
J. F. Eastman, Chamber of Commerce, 
Binghamton. 
H. K. Crofoot, Olean. 
E. C. Weathei'by, Auburn. 
11. B. Rogers, Jamestown. 
T. W. Vann, Chamber of Commerce, 
Elmira. 
E. I*. Smith, Norwich, 
t,’. B. Tillsou, Plattsburgh. 
S. Merchant, Corthiud. 
R. Eastman, Walton. 
F. 11. Lacy, Poughkeepsie. 
L. Markham, Chamber of Com¬ 
merce, Buffalo. 
A. Toan, Chamber of Commerce, 
F. Ross, Chamber of Commerce, 
Jtica. 
R. Teall. 112 Coui-t House, Syracuse. 
E. Milliman. Middletown. 
.1. Steele, Albion. 
V. Underwood, Oswego. 
S. Barlow, Cooperstown. 
G. Farber. Troy (Court House). 
S. Bird, Canton. 
S. Phelps, Saratoga Springs. 
F. Pollard, Cobleskill. 
C. I’arker, Riverhead. 
P. Smith, Liberty. 
R. Zimmer. Owego. 
B. Blatchley, Itluica. 
Essex 
II. 
Franklin 
C. 
Herkimer 
C. 
•Jefferson 
F. 
Madison 
D. 
Monroe 
L. 
I 
Montgomery 
W. 
Nassau 
T. 
Niagara 
N. 
Oneida 
O. 
T 
Onondaga 
1 
J. 
Orange 
T. 
Orleans 
L. 
Oswego 
E. 
(Hsego 
F. 
Ren.sselaer 
N. 
St. Lawrence 
E. 
Saratoga 
C. 
Schobarie 
R. 
Suffolk 
R. 
Sullivan 
H. 
I’ioga 
E. 
Tompkins 
V. 
Ulster 
W. 
Warren 
E. 
Wayne 
F. 
Westebester 
J. 
Wyoming 
H. 
G. Curtis. Chamber of Commerce, 
White Plains. 
