Waste in Distribution 
The Greatest Problem Now Before Us 
That is the greatest problem before the American 
people today. Under the i)i*esent system of pro¬ 
ducing and delivering food the producers are being 
ruined and the consumers are being robbed in or¬ 
der to enrich a small element of society which has 
gained control of distribution. This has been true 
for years, hut only recently has the idea got into 
the thought of the plain j)eople. Uj* to this time 
the thing has been indefinite—now it is becoming 
fi.ved and sure. The new.spapers have been for 
years conducted in the interests of the distributors 
and handlers. This has been very largely because 
the producers have not made any organized effort 
to put their ca.se before the public. Now this is 
being done, as it should be. by the farmers them¬ 
selves and there is evidence of a great awakening. 
The Evcni}if/ ^fail of New York prints the car¬ 
toon .shown on this page, and also prints a strong 
article from which the following extracts are taken: 
Mr. Hoover tells the country that middlemen an¬ 
nually extort hundreds of millions of dollars from the 
consumers of the country. The farmers can report 
that these .same middlemen annually extort hundreds 
of millions of dollars from them. It is not the farmer 
who today makes the money which the desi)erate con¬ 
sumer in New York is paying. For example, he does 
not receive one-half of the 10 or 12 cents per quart 
which we are paying for milk. * * * * 
•lust picture what goes on in Denmark, a country 
where farmers are prosperous. Con¬ 
sumers buy cheaply, and there are no 
robbers who stand between them. In 
this country the farmers are not pros¬ 
perous, the consumers do not buy 
cheaply, and there are robbers be¬ 
tween them. In Denmark, on a coun¬ 
try road in the afternoon, one can 
see a man wearing the cap of the 
Farmer.s’ Cooperative Association 
inishing a cart through the village, 
gathering from each house a dozen or 
two dozen eggs, tubs of butter and 
I)ackages of chee.se. As he takes the 
jiroduce he stamps the eggs and re¬ 
cords the (piantity delivered in the 
record book of the member. At the 
•‘lid of his three or four mile trip he 
meets a half dozen other men at a 
small transfer station owned by the 
cdbpcrative a.ssociation. At the 
transfer .station great wagons or 
trucks are loaded with the products 
brought in by the handcarts, and the 
trucks haul their loads to a nearby 
railroad station. At the railroad .sta¬ 
tion enough is concentrated to till a 
railroad car. * * * * 
The farmer in America is not get¬ 
ting enough for his products now. 
The consumer in America is on the 
verge of desperation. The farmer 
cannot be paid more, under the pres¬ 
ent .system of distribution, without 
ruining tlio.sc who must u.se his pro¬ 
ducts. Yet there is a way in which 
the farmer can get more than he gets 
now and the consumer can pay less. 
The way has been developed in ali 
European countries. It is the way of 
cooperative organization of iiroducers 
aiid consumer.s. 
There is more of it, and it is 
all good. It points the way to bet¬ 
ter things. The town and city i»a- 
pers have been full of sneering and 
abuse of the farmer, and it has doiu* us great harm. 
The way to overcome it is to jiut our own side up 
to these iiapers, so siniidy and with such truth that 
they iiiii.'it take notice. 
RURAL. NEW-YORKER 
mers, and only one source of supply for the con¬ 
sumer. It is possible, however, that the .'^tate may 
hold that an organization of this kind is against 
public interest, and may inquirt' into the legality of 
the organization. 
859 
crowd. No finer opportunity could be offered fur 
looking over some of the best fruit orchards ’ 
country, as well as for talking at close range 
some of the best fruit growers. Remember tin 
■—August 7-11. 
1 the 
with 
date 
Supplies for the Canning Houses 
The Department of Foods and Markets is in 
touch with the canning houses all over the country 
and has received from them the estimates of the 
kind and amount of fruits and vegetables that they 
wish to buy for their supplies this year. These re- 
(piirements include peas, pears, grajies. corn, bar¬ 
reled apples, bulk apiiles. caulillower. pluni.s. cher- 
rie.s. strawberrie.s. currants, tomatoes. Some of the 
requirements are needed in large volume and most 
of them in carload lots. The information the can- 
ners ask is the amount that a neighiiorhood can 
ship, the way in which it may bo packed and the 
price. Of course this is a community and not an 
individual proposition ; except very large producers, 
individual farmers cannot undertake to handle or- 
der.s of this kind. The buyers prefer to deal with 
farm organizations and coiiperative associations in 
order to get the right volume and the right deliv¬ 
eries. Where such organizations exist and the pro¬ 
duce is in the hands of a manager with .some knowl¬ 
edge of salesmanship, contracts can be made with 
some of these canners, and the dei)artment will be 
glad 
with 
to 
the 
Wanted ! More Help Less Advice 
From the N. Y. Evening Mail. 
l)ut the growers’ associations in touch 
manufacturers who want the kind of fruit 
or jiroduce the neighborhood is ijroducing. 
The Borden Farm Products Company 
The Borden's Condensed Milk fVlmpany has or¬ 
ganized what .seems to be a subsidiary of the com¬ 
pany and known as the Borden Farm Products 
Company Incorporated. Our conclusion that this 
is a subsidiary of the Boi-den's Condensed Milk 
Company is drawn from the fact that the stock of 
the Borden Farm Products Company Incoi-porated 
is entirely owned i)y the Borden’s Condensed Milk 
Conij)any. The earnings of the subsidiary company 
will therefore go to the Borden’s Condemsed Milk 
Company and the i)rofits will be absorbed, dividends 
and otherwise, by the stockholders of the Borden’s 
Condensed ililk Company. This organization seems 
clearly enough to be a wheel within a wheel. With 
one comi)any to pay expen.ses and another to take 
profits, it ought to be easy to devise a set of books 
to show .small profits in the distribution of milk. 
It seems to be the intention that the subsidiary 
company Avill handle the loose milk iiart of the 
business, buying the milk from the farmers, con¬ 
trolling the pasteurization and disti-ibution to city 
consumers. The current informal ion is that this 
company has bought out several of the large milk 
distributors as previously reported in The R. N.-Y., 
and the negotiations are iiending for the purchase 
of the business of other companies. If the jiroce.ss 
contiiUH'.s much furtluu'. tlu'iv will be oiu* and vir¬ 
tually only one comi»any to buy milk from the far- 
list 
the 
ad- 
be 
New York State Fruit Growers Meet 
Each year the New York .'‘>tate Fruit Growei’s’ 
Association jilans for a Summer outing. This gives 
the members a pleasant chance to get together, and 
also a fine opportunity for comparing methods of 
handling fruits. This year’s outing will be held 
August 7-11. The procession, for that is what it is, 
will start from the l*ontiac Hotel in Oswego, Au¬ 
gust 7th. The first trip will be along the famous 
fruit-growing sections of Oswego County. Wednes¬ 
day the trip will be through Wayne County, a 
of orchards along the lake, and then back into 
interior. Governor Whitman has promised to 
dress the growers on Wednesday, and there will 
a showing of experiments in various forms of spray¬ 
ing and dusting. Thursday forenoon will be spent 
ill looking over the garden section of Irondeciuoit, 
famous for all sorts of inten.sive culture. There 
will be luncli in Rochester, and the afternoon will 
be silent around Hilton, looking over some of 
finest apple orchards in the State. Friday will 
spent running through Orleans County, a good pro¬ 
gram having been worked out. so as to vi.sit a num¬ 
ber of line fruit farms. On Saturday the growers 
will travel through the upper part of Niagara 
County, and in the afternoon visit the training 
camps at Youngstown, Ft. Niagara, and Niagi; 
Falls. This jiromises to be the best outing the 
ciety has yet attempted, and it would pay any fruit 
grower to get out his car and travel along with the 
Are the Factory Hands Slackers? 
You are giving us the best farm paper that I know 
of. Ihe luunufacturers arouud here promised the far¬ 
mers help when they needed it thi.s year; I will enclose 
clipping from the liiiif/haiiiton Press of .lime 2.‘I, so 
that you can see how we are getting it. We are hav¬ 
ing so much wet weather that the hill farmers are not 
getting the crops in very fast. I am past 70 and 
wife ()2 past and am trying to work lOO-acre farm 
* f’mmot get help, cannot afford to pay the price 
of .'t;2.;)0 per day for eight hours’ work and very in- 
efhcient at that. We are up and at it at d.-’Id a. m., 
and keep at it until 0 p. m. I always worked like that 
and am healthy and strong yet and very optimistic- 
never had much pay for our labor. Two year.s ago 
we had a good crop of potatoes and sold them from 
20 to 40 cents per bushel; just about one-half what 
they cost us to raise then. I knew that the dealers 
were selling at 100% profit. I said to one of them 
one day that they ought to allow us part of that 
profit. He replied that “you farmers are foolish to 
raise .so many that the market is overstocked.” So last 
year I did not try to overstock the market and now 
they are very high in price; but very few farmers 
around here got the high price. Those who had them 
to .sell mostly sold at harvest time for about $1 per 
bushel. Seed potatoes have been very scarce and high 
111 price this Spring and many farmers around here 
have had to buy. The city people think that the far¬ 
mers are getting big profits for produce but the farmer 
does not get it for the reason that he has none to 
sell. Milk and a few eggs an* all 
that the average farmer has to sell at 
present. Cows on grass now and 
most of the farmers have cut out the 
enormous feed bill. w. ir. n. 
New York. 
B. N.-Y.—^Tlie clipping referred to 
.states that factory hands who prom¬ 
ised to go out and work on farms 
now refuse to go. Here is a sample of 
it: 
“I have been to every factory list¬ 
ed with us as having promised to 
furnish certain numbers of men. In 
each instance the managers or em¬ 
ployers have called the Volunteers’ 
in and told them of the chance to go 
to the farms for short periods, and 
in every case the men have refused. 
“When asked why they refused 
they said they never had any inten¬ 
tion of going, and when asked why 
they enlisted they said they did it 
for fun, or to win a bet or gave some 
other nonsensical or frivolous answer. 
Of course their employers cannot 
force them to go to the farms, but 
their refusal to an.swer the call they 
promised to heed is putting the far¬ 
mers in a difficult position. 
“The significant part of all this is 
the fact that the most of these slack¬ 
ers are men with farm experience. 
They know how serious is the farm¬ 
ing situation, and they know that 
unless help is given to produce the 
crops and harvest them prices of food¬ 
stuffs are going to be higher, and the 
produce is going to be scarce. But 
this has no effect on them. They are 
a collection of bluffing slackers and 
they ought to be made to suffer for 
their attitude.” 
^ What a fine joke it is to get far¬ 
mers to plant extra crops on the prom- 
is of help later on, and then repudiate 
the ju-omise when the crisis comes. 
, . The same paper also prints the fol¬ 
lowing : 
“Some of the men who have been out and have come 
back .have reported unfavorably on the scheme, and 
this, no. doubt, has had its effect. But in most 
cases of this kind the men have been at fault and have 
been sent back because they did not give .satisfaction. 
Alany of them would not obey orders, and not a few 
of them had the drink habit and the farmers could not 
put up with them.” 
the 
be 
Lira 
so- 
A Well-earned Dollar from Washington 
This one-dollar bill I am .sending you has a little 
hi.story connected with it. About two weeks ago I 
wa.s very bu.sy finishing up my Spring work, when I 
noticed a car stop at the gate. A man jumped out 
and came over to where I was working, introduced 
himself as a railroad man, and said he had two lots 
over on the carline, about one-half mile, he wanted 
plowed and put in potatoes. I told him I was rushing 
to finish up my work, as the mules and man were go¬ 
ing away in the morning to be gone two or three 
week.s, plowing and seeding. He pleaded so hard for 
me to go and help him I finally told him to have his 
potat^s there after dinner and I would be there at 
one o clock. He asked me what it would cost him and 
1 told him I would let him pay me what he thought 
it worth. Afyself and mules worked five hours with 
plow and harrow, and this great railroad employee and 
dictator of high wages gave me the $1 bill that I am 
sending you for subscription to The R. N.-Y., so we 
will get our money’s worth out of that afternoon’s 
work in the long run anyway. 
We have taken considerable interest in the di.scu.s- 
siou of the city rube on the farm, as we have attempt- 
"’ork both male and female. I gave the last one 
$1 and told him to go to the city on his wheel and get 
me a half round sciuare and be sure not to come back 
until he got it. We sent his clothes by express that 
same^ day. As he has never come back I suppose he 
is still looking for the square or has got a job as 
county agriculturist at .$200. 
If I should have a few days of leisure on the farm 
aiul went to the railroad and got a job as conductor, 
engineer, fireman or any other profession, or if I went 
to the city and worked at painting, carpentering or 
any other yvork I would be a “scab.” The .same fel¬ 
low who brands me a “scab” {Continued on page 86-5) 
