1 I :< IT V v; 1 
A Crisis in the Milk Business 
COMPLICATED CONDITIONS.—If all of the 
parties interested should set out to make the biggest 
mix-up possible in the milk situation, they would 
find it difficult to muddle matters ^y worse than 
the present situation. The Dairymen’s League has 
made a price for milk for October and November. 
The dealers are paying the price some places and in 
other places they are not paying it. Some producers 
have markets for their milk and some have not. 
The dealers are operating many of their creameries, 
but some of them they ha'^'e closed. In some places 
they are apparently grading and testing the milk to 
the satisfaction of the patron.s, and in other places 
patrons complain that they are not getting returns 
for the fat content, and in some places the price for 
C grade milk is being paid, and the B and C grade 
milk all shipi^ed together. At some creameiies the 
producers have made concessions for surplu.s milk, 
and in other places no such concessions have been 
made. After years of effort the dealers have finally 
succeeded in putting the thin edge of the surplus 
pi’inciple into a cleavage of the producers’ fortress. 
They can be tru.sted to use sledge-hammer blows to 
drive it home and widen the clejivage. As yet it has 
merely found lodgment, and producers must remove 
it before the wedge finds permanent lodgment and 
the .structure is destroyed. One tap of a hammer 
now in the right place Will remove it. 
A CITY SURPLUS.—In the city, dealers haA-e in¬ 
creased the price to consumei’s and are forcing a 
small consumption and increasing the sui-plus. In 
addition to this they haA-e milk and cream in stor¬ 
age and manufactured milk, Avhich they stored up in 
the eai-ly .<<ea.son at low prices, AA-hich they are now 
forcing on the market in competition with loo.se 
milk. It is asserted that 400,000 cans of milk are 
held back at tlie present time in order to manipulate 
tlie market. 
SABOTACE.—Several co-operative farm creamer¬ 
ies operating under the title of Farmers’ Co-opera¬ 
tive Milk Marketing Association haA-e offered to sell 
milk to grocery associations at one cent a quart less 
than the price charged by the regular dealers. This 
move is resented by the old dealers, and last Aveek 
attempts Avere made by them to break up this com- 
]tetition. The dipped milk sold out of the can by 
the grocers is delivered at the store door dn the 
morning often before the storekeei)er arrives. The 
co-operative milk disappeared and the empty cans 
Avei'e found in the vacant lot near by. In some cases 
the milk Avas sour. Detectives Avere put on the case, 
and on Tuesday morning of last Aveek two men Avere 
discovered putting junket tablets in the milk cans 
that stood on the sideAvalk opposite a store dn Wil¬ 
kins Avenue, The Bronx. The men AA-ere arrested 
and held over for examination. They first admitted 
they Avere guilty, but on the advice of counsel denied 
it They Avill haA-e to answer in court latei’. Wide 
imblicity Avas giA-en this offense through the Depart¬ 
ment of Foods and Market.s, and Commissioner Dil¬ 
lon has called tlie attention of the District Attoimey 
of the City and the Attorney General of the State 
to the matter, and it is probable that these vigorous 
and vigilant methods Avill put a stop to that kind of 
crime. The incident indicates the natin*e of the 
fight on by the dealers to maintain their position in 
the trade. They realize that the delivery of milk 
straight from the farms to the consumers will mean 
an end to their monopoly and extortion in the trade, 
and they Avill u.se every means po.ssible to defeat the 
economic distribution. 
POLITICxVL CAPITAL.—In the meantime an elec¬ 
tion is approaching in the city. The politicians are 
trying to appease the people by investigations and 
to capitalize the situation for favor. Recommenda¬ 
tions for city pasteurization plants are now being 
made, and lest this AA'ould alienate the faA'or of 
dealers the effec-t is softened by suggesting on the 
other hand the granting of exclusive franchises to 
milk dealers for the distribution of milk and the 
dividing of the city into zones for exclu.sive opera¬ 
tion, as Avas suggested in the Wicks bill. In all, five 
iiiA-estigations are Ainder Avay, and we are promised 
another in the near future. 
'ONE WAY OUT.—^The trouble Avith the situation 
is that the authorities AA-dth poAver to handle the mat¬ 
ter efficiently and definitely fear to take the respon¬ 
sibility of doing so. The only solution of the prob¬ 
lem in sight is the plan so long advocated by Com¬ 
missioner Dillon, to establish a creamery and a sell¬ 
ing depot for milk dn the City of New York AA-here 
milk could be prepared and sold direct to the trade, 
and the surplus, if any, AA-orked into by-products and 
sold promptly and fresh to the city trade. The pro¬ 
ducer would then get the benefit of the high prices 
when milk is scarce, and he AA'ould be in a po.sition 
the moat out of the surplus, and to take 
Oic RURAL NEW-YORKER 
care of any surplus that did exist _AA-ithoAit serious 
embarrassment. As a matter of fact, by making the 
price right to the consumer through aiv elimination 
of excesstye costs of distribution, the surplus would 
not be an importaiAt problem, if, indeed, any surplus 
did exist at all. The Towner bill was intended to 
furnish this kind of a city plant. It failed for want 
of support. Under present conditions it would prob¬ 
ably go through if the Legislature were in session 
now. As a matter of fact, there is abundance of 
money and an abundance of aiithority in the lav/ for 
e.stablishing a plant of this kind right away and 
at once, and the money would be better employed 
for this practical purpose than in conducting inves¬ 
tigations aboxit a subject that has already been in¬ 
vestigated to death. Everybody knows the facts 
now, and the thing to do is to take the milk from 
the farmers where it is created and lay it doAvn at 
the door of the city consumer at a reasonable cost 
of distribution. This will disturb the milk dealers. 
It Avill concentrate their fire on the man who under¬ 
takes it, but it Is the only way to secure a full sup¬ 
ply of milk for the city at reasonable places to the 
consumer. The consumer is paying for B milk in 
bottles from 14c to 20c a quai-t. At best the pro¬ 
ducer gets even iioav less than 7c out of this. We 
are getting a little away from the 35-cent dollar, 
but everybody knows that the milk can be distrib¬ 
uted cheaper than it can be produced. A modest 
estimate would be a saving of from 2c to 4c per 
quart. Ea-cu buttermilk is being sold by dealers at 
10c a quart. Five cents would give them ample 
profit. 
THE PRODUOER’kS PROBLEM.—-Analyze the 
situation as Ave may, and scold whom we please, the 
milk problem is one for the milk producer to solve. 
It is his business, and it ought not to be left to the 
city, State, Federal Government, or anyone else. It 
is a problem for the farmer alone, and for his or- 
’ganization. The producers are well knit together, 
ready to handle the problem, and we believe they 
are capable of all the financing that is necessary. 
The big men in the organization familiar Avith busii- 
ne.ss problems miist give their time and their talents 
to developing facilities for economic distribution of 
their milk. They have a responsibility. They may 
lie doAvn and go out of the business and devote 
themselves to other things, but that wotild be to 
shirk a responsibility and to consent to the destruc¬ 
tion of an Important industry. That is not the way 
to face duty In a crisis. All the people must have 
food. Children must have milk. It must all be pro¬ 
duced on the farms, and it would be a crime against 
huinan'ity to neglect our oppoi'tunity to put the busi¬ 
ness of distributing milk on an economic basis that 
the people may be fed at a reasonable price, and that 
the great agricultural interests of the State may be 
fully developed. 
Legislative Candidates, Tioga Co., N. Y. 
We have had a number of letters about the 
political .situation in Tioga Co., N. Y. The Repub¬ 
lican candidate is Daniel P. Witter, avIvo has already 
.served a number of years at Albany. We asked 
Mr. Witter for a statement of his views, and received 
the folloAA-ing; 
My attitude toward farm legislation has not changed 
except to be strengthened, if possible, during the past 
year. As proof that I will carry out the expressed AA’ill 
of my constituents, I refer you to my record as an 
Assemblyman for the seven years I have been a member 
of that body, especialljy during the recent special 
session. n. p. aa’ITTer. 
The Democratic candidate is Paul Smith who goes 
on record as follows:— 
My general stand on farm legislation will be to op¬ 
pose all that Avhich I and my constituents believe to be 
unjust and detrimental to our interests, and to work 
for and A'ote for legislation which we think will be bene¬ 
ficial to us, and, at the same time, just and reasonable 
to all. 
In ansAver to your second question, I haA'e no particu¬ 
lar bill in mind at the present time which I think I 
would introduce, unless it be one Avith reference to 
tuberculosis in cattle. Ilov'ever, it is not j’et clear in 
my mind just what amendments Avere made to the agri¬ 
cultural laAv along that line this past .session. One thing 
I am in faA'or of is some sort of a State or municipal 
distributing plant for milk in NeAv York City, and 
Avould work hard for such a thing to be .brought about, 
unless I AA"as made to see the situation differently from 
Avhat I do uoAv. 
I am a farmer, my father and I being in partnership, 
and we are heavy milk producers; probably the largest 
producers in the county. As a director of the Dairy¬ 
men’s League, I suggested that the League endor.se the 
ToAvner bill, AA-hich it later did. I aa'OuM be guided by 
the expressed wishes of the farmers, and would try to 
get their opinion on mattei-s of interest to them. 
PAUL SMITH. 
Tioga i.s a Republican County and party feeling 
as A’ery strong:—much stronger than it should be on 
State and local questions. Paul Smith is w'ell 
kiioAvn throughout the county, and his nomination is 
distinctly in the interests of daiiTmen, Avho are in 
a large majority iu Tioga, 
1209 
Letter from the Million-Acre Wheat 
Committee 
In your issue of October 6th appears a Tetter signed 
by Charles H. Porter of Albion, N. T. There are so 
many mis-statements of facts and so many erroneous 
conclusions in this letter that it really does not deseiwe 
serious attention. 
The implication, hoAveA'er, in the first paragraph does 
not do justice to the farmers of Orleans County nor to 
the Million Acre Wheat Committee, and in view of this 
injustice I feel that it should be publicly stated that 
there has been no company fonned to sell seed of either 
wheat or rye to the farmers of this State. The Million 
Acre Wheat Committee, of which Governor Whitman is 
a member, has offered seed wheat and seed rye to 
the farmer’s of this State at $3 a bushel. This, in eA-ery 
instance, was offered only where local seed supplies 
were not sufficient, or where the quality of local seed 
Avas not of the best. The seed w-hich this Committee 
supplies was the best to be had in the markets, and it 
has been handled by this Committee, even at the $.3 
price, at considerable loss. To date, this loss will ag¬ 
gregate around $5,000, as most of this seed Avas moved 
by express, owing to the congestion of freight on all the 
railroads. 
In another place iu this same issue you say that no 
farmer has received $2.20 a bushel for his wheat, and in 
this connection I desire to say that Ave have actually 
paid the farmers as high as $2..50 for recleaned seed 
without bags or any incidental freight or express 
charges. When Mr. Porter says that farmers can get 
seed of their neighbors at market prices, he certainly 
does not mean the kind of seed which this Committee 
had to sell. And when Mr. Poiffer says that the farm¬ 
ers do not need recleaned seed of either Avheat or rye, 
he certainly is introducing .some dangerous theories into 
the ordinary agricultural practices of Orleans County. 
In the concluding paragraph of Mr. Porter’s let¬ 
ter he says “We demand, that this unjust law be re¬ 
pealed,” referring, no doubt, to the Federal law AA-hich 
fixed the price of the 1918 crop of wneat, the price of 
the 1917 crop having been fixed by the Federal Wheat 
Control Corporation. I quite agree with Mr. I’orter 
that the fixing of this price was an insult, but it Avas 
an insult to the patriotism of the farmer. The farmers 
of this State have raised many crops in the past at a 
loss when there avus no national call for the crops so 
raised, and they aa-ouUI, in the present great world¬ 
wide shortage of wheat, raise one or tAA-o crops at a 
loss if their country needed it. As far as the price-fix¬ 
ing taking away the rights for which our forefathers 
fought, it might be said that it is to pi’eserve our right 
to bargain for our crops that the farmers of this coun- 
ti’i" haA-e consented to the price fixing during this Avar 
for democracy. 
In a parallel column of the same issue of The R. N.-Y. 
under the heading “The Spirit of the City Paper’s,” you 
make the statement that Prof. Warren of Cornell shows 
the cost of wheat will be around $.31, while the average 
yield is 15 bushels per acre. The statement of Prof. 
Warren is evidently not founded on the average yield in 
NeAV Y’ork State. This average yield is 20 bushels to 
the acre for a 10-year period, and even admitting that 
Prof. Warren is fairly correct on his $31 estimate, at 
$2 a bushel, AA-ith 20 bushels the average yield per acre, 
there is still a margin of profit, and net profit, too, of 
$9 per acre, or nearly 30%, for growing Avheat in New 
York State. It is AA-ell to keep in mind in considering 
Avhether $2 is a fair price or not for wheat, which I be- 
lieA-e aroused Mr. Porter to write his letter to you, that 
G. E. Call, Professor of Agronomy in the State College 
of Agriculture in the State of Kansas, estimates that it 
costs 79 cents a bushel to pi’oduce wheat, or that there Ls 
$1.21 profit on $2 Avheat. I do not wish to enter any 
controA'ersy between Prof. W^arren and Prof. Call. 
“When doctors di.sagree” it is not safe for laymen to get 
mixed up Avith the machine. I am willing, hoAveA-er, to 
go this far: Neither of these professors i- right if their 
figures apply to New York State, and I will also ven¬ 
ture the prediction that, if the $2 price is continued, 
Noav York State will rapidly become one of the principal 
AA'heat-producing States of xTmerica, because this com¬ 
mittee has already in its hands sufficient data to show 
that our fanners Avill grow moi’e wheat for the harvest 
of 1918 than they grew in 1879, which was something 
over 700,000 acres, and since which time, they have 
ncA-er approached this figure. A full report of this com¬ 
mittee’s Avork will be published shortly which will beat- 
out these figures. ai. aa-. cole. 
Federal Crop Estimate of White Potatoes 
FOE THE UNITED STA-fES AS A AVHOLE 
October 1, 1917—452,923,000 bushels. 
October 1, 1916—285,437,000 bushels. 
ESTIMATE BY STATES 
Oct. 1, '17 
Oct. 1, ’16 
Bushels 
Bushels 
New York . 
. 41,600,000 
22,400,000 
Michigan . 
. 38.919,000 
15,360,000 
Wisconsin . 
. .37,859,000 
13,630,000 
Minnesota . 
. 33,430,000 
16,800,000 
Pennsylvania . 
. 32,742,000 
19,040,000 
Maine . 
... 20,836,000 
25,500,000 
Ohio . 
. 16,8a3,00O 
6,300,000 
Illinois . 
. 14,419,000 
7,250,000 
Iowa . 
. 14.;311,000 
4,830,000 
California . 
. 13.863,000 
10,575,000 
Nebraska . 
. 13,650,000 
7,665,000 
Colorado . 
. 9,144,000 
6,900,000 
