1401 
Making Milk Dealers Pay Up 
Last month the Department of Foods and Mar¬ 
kets discovered a milk dealer who paid a farmer for 
milk graded C at 10 cents a hnndred jmnnds less than 
the price for grade B, hut this C grade milk went 
in with the B grade and was sold as such in the 
city. The Department reminded the dealer that 
he had either cheated the farmer out of 10 cents a 
hundi’ed on his milk for 11 months, or'had violated 
the health laws of the State. If he persisted in 
the assertion that the milk was C grade, he would 
he self-convicted of violation of the law. lie dis¬ 
covered that the milk was actually B grade, and sent 
the farmer a check for 10 cents a hundred for all 
the milk delivered for 11 months. On an average 
dairy of five cans a day this Avould amount to 
practically $150 a year. 
Last week the Department figured the price for 
'A'ugust and September for a Delaware County 
dairyman on his milk returns and found a shortage 
of $21 and collected the difference and sent the 
cheek to the producer. 
It is evident that many producers are suffering 
losses on these accounts, some knowingly and for- 
hearingly and others unknowingly. The Department 
will be glad to take up any cause of complaint for 
producers and if irregularities exist to adjust them. 
-J 
Milk “ Investigation” Still On 
The Federal Committee Is now patiently and 
laboriously conducting its Investigation of milk, Wliat 
will happen Avhen they get tlirough, and who will 
conduct the next investigation, is yet a matter of 
speculation; but it is too much to expect that this 
should be the last. We are getting used to them 
now, and we would i>robably feel lonesome without 
them. 
It is expected that the committee will sit during 
the month of December, and make its report by 
January first. It is expected to make a price for 
milk for the first three months of the year. As a 
start the price to the farmer fo/ December was 
reduced a half cent. X;o change was made to the 
consumer, so that the dealer gets the extra half 
cent for December. The consumer is assured that a 
great saving has been secured for them because 
tlie old price of 14 to 20 cents a quart for B grade 
milk has not been increased. On that basis you 
can Imagine any degree of advance that might have 
been made, and j’ou can make the saving as large as 
you like. The farmer being relieved of the specula¬ 
tive ailment, in his case the figures are definite, 
lie gets a half cent a quart less and pays four 
dolh^rs a ton more for feed. The city housewife has 
been pledged to save butter and cream. She has 
saved 400,000 quarts of milk daily. Now the experts 
of the Board of Health are counting the milkless 
children, and have discovered that they grow thin 
and pale and anannic. Everything is tried except to 
reduce the excessive cost of distribution, and every¬ 
thing except this will fail. 
Farmers and Organized Labor 
A ‘(CONFERENCE OF WORKERS.—Something 
really worth while happened in New York bust week. 
It was a conference between men who labored on 
tbe farms and men who labored in the factory and 
the shop. These two groups of food producers 
and laborers produce the wealth of the world, and 
^strangely enough in this country they produae 
wealth in equal proportions. Farmers produce 
annually ten billion dollars worth of products. The 
mines produce about two billions and a half, and 
the men at the forge, and the lathe, and the bench, 
add eight i)illions to the value of raw material. 
The farmer feeds commercial labor and organized 
labor produces supplies and comforts for the farmer. 
Heretofore these two groups have been kept apart 
by middlemen and speculators and gamblers in food 
products. Through the control of the implements 
of disti-ibution this system has managed to keep 
the prices low at the farm and high at the home of 
the worker in the city. Both groups begin to realize 
the situation, and each group independently recently 
expressed to Commissioner Dillon a wish to get 
together for mutual benefit, and the meeting last 
week was in response to the mutual suggestions. 
TWO IMPORTANT COMIMITTEES.—It was 
thought best at the beginning to have only a small 
meeting in the form of a conference. Some 60 or 
70 men responded from both sides, and re.sulted 
in the appointment of two important committees. 
One of these is a State committee, representing a 
a chairman at large, and a member from each county 
in the State. This committtee is charged Avith the 
duty of making a formal address to the farmers 
of the State and the appointment of a time and 
S-Ae RURAL NEW-YORKER 
place to hold a State convention for the purpose of 
perfecting a permanent organization. The other 
committee is already permanent. It consists of a 
chairman and 10 other members. Five of these will 
represent organized labor and five will represent 
organized fai-mers. One member is to be appointed 
from each of the five farm organizations of the 
State, including the Orange, the Agricultural Society, 
the Fruit Society, the Vegetable Growers and the 
Dairymen’s League. The function of this committee 
is to find a common ground of action for organized 
farmers and organized labor, and to unite the forces 
of both organizations for such measures as are 
approved. 
RESOLUTIONS ADOPTED.—The conference pass¬ 
ed re-solutions by unajiimous A'ote requesting the coun¬ 
cil of farms and markets to appropriate sufficient 
funds to the division of markets to continue to en¬ 
courage organizations of producers in the country and 
of consumers in the city with a view of establishing 
closer relations between them and reducing the cost 
of food distribution. It also indorsed Commissioner 
Dillon’s plan of terminal markets under State control 
in the cities and particularly depots and facilities 
for direct delivery of milk, both in cans and bottles, 
to stores. 
JUSTICE AND FREEDOM.—In this meeting or¬ 
ganized labor and farmers grasped hands across the 
chasm that separated them so long. These men 
made history. Thej^ came not alone to save a few 
dollars -from the greed of middlemen, but they came 
to declare their independence and their freedom, 
and to demand a recognition of their intelligence 
and their rights. They seek a fair material reward 
for labor, but they contend particularly for the 
ideals of justice and commercial fi’eedom. 
LECISLATIVE CONTROL.— We ai-e asked if 
this means that organized farmei’s and organized 
labor are going into politics? No and j'es. We know 
that the control of utilities of production and di.s- 
tribution in this country could never have been 
accomplished without a partnership of the men who 
control them with the agencies of government. Give 
us a fair deal in politics and gOA-ernment, Ave Inn-e 
no wish to establisb ourselves in their place. We 
are content with our business pursuit.'*, and to jnake 
sure that Ave get it Ave propose to put at least 50 
farmers in the New York State Legislature. They 
will meet there Avith men from organized 
labor. We AA’ill not select men because they can pay 
campaign fund.s, nor aauII \A^e accept men aaJio en¬ 
gineer a propaganda for tke-ir own ambitions. We 
hope to select men Avho by proA-eu Integrity, ability 
and loyalty demonstrate their fitness for the work Ave 
Avant done. We Avill a.sk no concessions and demand 
no hiAv that does not square AAuth conscience and 
justice, but we will demand moans to curb greed 
and eliminate special privilege. 
FREEDOM AND I'OWER.—We Avill demand an 
open free channel of distribution for food from the 
farms Avhere it is created to the home of the family 
in the city Avhere it is consumed. We AAill abolish 
secrecy and exchanges and manipulators and specu¬ 
lators and gamblers from our food markets. We 
will overthroAV the .system that licenses middlemen 
to cheat the producer and SAvindle the city consumer. 
If the friends of vested interests and monopoly con¬ 
trol get in the Avay Ave Avill remind them that they 
are under scrutiny and that the farmers and organ¬ 
ized labor represents tAvo-thirds of the votes of the 
State. 
College Education or $1,000 
T HAVE ju.st finished reading Mrs. E. M. Ander- 
1 .son's opinioirs, page I2S.S, on the A'aiue of college 
training to a man Avho plans to take U]) actual farm¬ 
ing. My home is in Chautauqua Co., N. Y., also, and 
I liaA’e just finished a four-year course at Cornell, 
AA’hich might tend to giA'e me a different vioAvpoint 
from that Avhich she expresses. 
Her argument that the niftn and not the college 
training determines a person’s success is all sound 
enough, but I cannot agi'ee Avith her other views. A 
man Avho has been brought up on a farm and has a 
natui-al liking for the place, makes a big mistake if 
he refu.ses the offer of a college training in ])referenco 
to the $1,000 cash. Mrs. Ander.son seems to overlook 
the fact that there are other things in life besides 
the actual science of profitahlc farming. A man in a 
college toAvn secures training in many other lines 
than Avould be possible on his home farm. He meets 
different classes of men, and learns to hold his OAvn 
in competition Avith them. Further, he gets some of 
the educationai advantages of fine music and e.xcel- 
lent reading. He learns also hoAV to conduct himself 
respectfully in the presence of others. He learns, 
in addition, something of different classes of society, 
that he is not ai)t to meet on the home place—this 
provided he has the initiative. Summing it all up, 
he gets a culture from college training that he 
could not secure at home. 
I believe that a man Avhodias not had much farm 
experience is at a great disadvantage, and Avith him 
it is more of a problem Avhich to accept, the $1,000 
or the college course, especially so if he is very keen 
in his liking for the practical side of it. When such 
a proposition as the above is made it seems to me it 
resolA’es itself into a question of hoAv much actual 
farm experience has the man had. 
Mrs. Anderson says that all the college-trained 
(one excepted) men in her community are hired out 
as ordinary day laborers. The reasons for this can 
probably be found among the folloAving: 1. The 
men had little previous experience on farms. 2. The 
men did not have a real liking for farming, anyAvay. 
3. Their parents are not oAvners of any farms or 
much property, or the Avork of running the farms 
Avould have been turned over to the boys—or at 
least shared. 4. The men have not got it in them to 
make successes. 
One thing more; these men who are noAv Avorklng 
as hired help, if they are made of the right stuff, 
Avill, in the future, run a far more efficient farm and 
clear up a much neater profit annually, than will 
men of similar capacities, without the college train¬ 
ing. I have had seven full Summers of hard farm 
Avork, so I knoAV something about it. 
J. P. GRIFFITH. 
Nebraska Produced Wheat at a Loss 
N page 1209 is a letter from M. W. Cole of the 
Million-Acre Wheat Committee regarding the 
cost of producing Avheat. In this letter reference is 
made to figures given by G. E. Call (should be L. E. 
Call), Professor of Agronomy in the Kan.sas State 
College of Agriculture, to the effect that the cost of 
producing wheat is 79 cents a bu.shel. This figure 
Avas published in 1914, and no doubt represented the 
cost of producing Avheat at the time Avhen it Avas 
obtained. But .since then there has been such an in¬ 
crease in the cost of labor, machinery, tAvine and 
other items as to make the price of 79 cents much 
too loAV for present-day conditions. I am enclosing a 
ncAvs item recently prepared by the Department of 
Farm Management of the University of Nebraska, 
Avhich shows the cost of raising the 1917 Avheat crop 
in that State. T\ heat is raised in Nebraska under 
much the same conditions as in Kansa.s, The differ¬ 
ence betAveen the.se up-to-date figures and those quot¬ 
ed from 1‘rof. Call is striking. 
During the Avar our country must produce more 
food than it ever has before. To accomplish thi.s, 
prices for farm products Avill have to be kept above 
the cost of production, unless farmers are conscripted 
foi farm AA'ork. President Wilson recognized these 
facts AA'hen he made the statement that producers 
should receive a reasonable profit over and above 
the co.st of production. This applies to agriculture 
as AA’ell as to other industrie.s, k. 
TiiK COST OF Nebraska’s avheat crop 
The city man should have no room for complaint over 
the price of wheat, according to the Department of 
Farm Management of the Nebraska College of Agricul¬ 
ture. This department has determined that the Ne¬ 
braska farmers as a Avhole are receiving for the 1917 
wheat crop only about tAvo-thirds of the cost of produc¬ 
tion. 
Farmers Avho had no loss from winter-killing and 
Avhose fields yielded 20 to 30 bushels per acre, are, as a 
matter of course, making money at the present price. 
They comprise, hoAvever, but a small per cent of the 
Avheat groAvers. 
The high cost of AAiheat production this year is due in 
great part to the abandonment of 75 per cent of the 
Winter Avheat acreage because of Avinter-killiug, and the 
low average yield of that Avhich AA-as harvested, esti¬ 
mated by the bureau of crop estimates at only 12 bushels 
pel aci e. JIan, horse and machine labor are expensiA'e, 
and the cost of putting out and haiwesting Avheat counts 
up surprisingly fast. 
It is estimated that 10.4 hours of man labor and 26.5 
hours of horse labor Avere expended upon an acre of 
Avheat Avhich yielded 12 bushels. AlloAving 30 cents per 
hour for man labor, Avhich is far beloAV Avhat the skille I 
Avorkingman of the city demands, and 15 cents per hour 
for horse labor, gives a labor cost of $7.10 per acre. 
To this cost must be added seed, thrashing at 5 cents 
per bu.shel, twine, taxes, equipment cost and interest on 
the capital invested in land. The average production 
cost of each acre of Avheat harvested in Nebraska in 
1917, according to the best data available, Avas .$17.37, 
The cost per bushel including storage Avas $1.51. 
This cost is for the 25 per cent of the Avheat area 
Avhich Avas harvested. If the cost of the area Avhich Ava.s 
abandoned is added $5.90 per acre, the cost per binshel 
nearly doubles. The averaye cost of the Nebraska 1917 
wheat crop, including the cost of putting out the wheat 
which was winter-killed, teas more than $3 per bushel. 
Instead of making a big profit upon Avheat at its present 
price, Nebraska farmers are actui^lly bearing a loss of 
eleven million dollars, according to the department of 
farm management. 
