289 
IShe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Protect the Co-operative Milk Creameries 
Witli the approach of Siirinj; the milk situation is 
uncertain. The Federal Commi.ssion is expected to 
make tlie price for March. How the price will be 
made for April and .succeedin!? mouths is yet a mat¬ 
ter of speculation. 
Some of the farmers’ cooperative creamerie.s are 
hariuff difficulty now in making contracts. As yet they 
are without an outlet. In some cases they are being 
offered less than the Federal Commission price by 
the dealers. The big dealers have two causes of 
opposition to the farm-owned creameries. First, 
there is eight to ten thousand dollars’ profit in oper¬ 
ating a .‘>00-ean plant themselves. They prefer to 
make the profit in preference to letting farmers 
make it. Second, the cooperative farm creamery is 
the one big factor the farmers have in controlling 
the price themselves. It is the backbone of the 
Dairymen’s League. For these two reasons the big 
dealers prefer to buy from the producers where no 
farm plant exist.s. The officers of the League have 
now organized two .subsidiary companies embx-acing 
farm-owned idaiits in which they are personally in¬ 
terested and some others. This milk they sell; but 
they do not undertake to make sale for other 
farm-owned plants and do not take all farm-owned 
plants in the subsidiary companies. This leaves 
siK'h plants to their own resources. In such cases 
th.e members of the farm-owned iilant are worse off 
than if they had no plant of their own. We believe 
it is a mistake for the I^eague to neglect the.se plants. 
'I'he more we have of them the better. Producers 
.should be encouraged to build them, and the best 
encouragement is to find a market for theii’ milk. 
There is no surer Avay to discourage them than to 
leave them .at the mercy of the big dealers. 
The best .service the League could render ]iro- 
ducers now is to reduce the cost of delivering milk. 
We have rei)eatedly shown that this can be done by 
selling milk direct to the stores in cans or bottles 
a. the tr.ade demands. This Avill reduce the cost 
to the consumer and increase the consumiition. The 
more we sell the less will be the .surplus. We can¬ 
not maintain the price to the producer if the cost 
to the consumer is made so high that she reduces 
her use of it. Put we might just as Avell be plain 
about the matter first as last. Subsidiary com- 
jianies ari* not organized to reduce cost of service. 
They are organized to play favorites, and the result 
usually is either to increa.se costs or to absorb ]>art 
oi a cost that is ali’eady too high. The time to 
stoi> this favorite business is right now.at its incep¬ 
tion. Whether the organizers realize it or not, the 
.sulisidiary companies are a confusion and a danger. 
Fully discussed and understood, the members of the 
League would never iieiunit them. Fvery member 
must have equal jirotection. q'he Avay to in.sure 
such equal protection is to abandon the sub.sidiary 
companies now operated for the siiecial benefit of a 
part of the membership, and let the League do all 
of the busine.ss for the benefit of each and every 
one of its members alike. 
Farmers are Waking Up 
Ask any fanner anywhere why he does not pro¬ 
duce more food. He will tell you he jiroduces more 
now than he can sell at the co.st of producing it. 
.\sk the average housewife in the city to save 
food. She will tell you she is unable to buy enough 
with her income to go the rounds of her table. If 
she could get mor(‘ it would all be con.sumed. No 
ciuuice of waste with her. Of the dollar she pays 
for food Ho cents on an average goes back to the 
farmer who grew it; (>5 cents remains with the 
middleman. Acres of potatoes remain undug in the 
ground all over the .^tate and carloads are stored 
Jn the fann cellars. Many have frozen. I'here are 
no facilities for storing or moving them in cold 
weather. Food administrators tell farmers to ship 
them, and advise (amsuiners to eat th(*m. Ship them 
and they freeze. In the city stores they cost six 
cents a pound. We make bread chea-per than po¬ 
tatoes or corn, and then tell i)oor i)eople to eat 
l>otatoes and corn. We make reward for labor more 
n\ the city than in the country, and then advise 
peoi)le to stay on the farm. We make men who 
distribute food rich ; we keep men who ]»roduce 
food i)oor; and then ask faianers to produci* more 
food. We are spending millions of State niom'.v to 
teach this uneconomic propaganda th.it the wasteful, 
speculative middleman system of distribution may be 
preserved. Why not stop this di.scoui-agenient of 
jiroduction and do something to jiroduce food with¬ 
out a loss? For the money now Ava.sted we could 
nuild up a system to take food from the farmer’s 
hands after he has jiroduced it; sell it for him In 
Tne hes': market undei- the law of sni)i)ly and de¬ 
mand ; .store it and jireserve it when neces.sary; 
keep it out of the hands of the speculator and 
gambler; sell it direct to the retailer or consumer, 
and send the producer an accurate return, and 
a fair share of the consumer’s dollar. A saving of 
live per cent would pay for the facilities to do this 
in a year; and a 20 per cent saving would not be 
too much to expect. This reform is opposed because 
the rich, powei’ful, well-organized distributing com¬ 
panies seem to control the men who make and 
admimistei* the laws. We mu.st drive the middlemen 
out of the government business before we can estab¬ 
lish an economic system of distribution. Farmers 
imw realize this. When they organized the Depart¬ 
ment of Foods and Markets they knew Avhat they 
wanted. They know what stopped the progress of 
that work. The le.solutious at Utica, Ilochester and 
Syi’acuse show the farm temper. They are going 
to get the agricultural affairs of the State back in 
their own hands. And the man who stands in their 
way has a .surprise coming to him. The first thing 
they do will he to develop the system of distribu¬ 
tion that Governor Whitman lias attempted to de¬ 
stroy for the benefit of middlemen and siieculators. 
Give us such a system of distribution and there will 
be no hunger and no need to appeal for more food. 
With a fair deal in the market the American farmer 
will feed the world. 
The Distribution System is Wrong 
New York State has a Gouncil of Farms and 
Markets with an army of inspectors to enforce 
laws. The city of New York has a Department of 
Health with another army of inspectors. l>ut the 
laws are not enforced. 
1. It is unlawful to sell cold storage eggs as fresh 
eggs. Yet they are so .sold all ovei* the State, and 
notoriously so in New York City. 
2. It is unlawful to adulterate milk. Yet milk is 
skimmed in every big ])lant in the city, and in many 
all over the State. 
It is unlawful to sell milk more than .2(> hours 
after pasteurization. But this is done constantly by 
dealers in the city. The change of dates on the caps 
is a constant occurrence. 
4. It is unlawful to substitute one grade of milk 
for another. Yet drivers and retail stores have a 
.supply of caps and make clianges at pleasui-e. 
r». It is unlawful to hold cream beyond ji re.-ison- 
able time. It lis held in cold storage for mouths 
until it is nothing but fat and whey. ’I'lieu it is 
mixed witli fre.sli cream, and condensed milk, worked 
up and passed out as fresh cream. 
0. Perfectly good fresh fruit and vegetables are 
condemned by the Board of Health, and dumped so 
that the shipiier gets only a certificate in return 
after paying the freight, as well as furnishing the 
good.s. Last Summer the mayor’s committee j»ickcd 
up 40 tons of this food, put it in cans and sold it. 
'Phe farmers who grew it and shipped it and paid 
freight for it never got a cent. Governor Whitman 
vetoed a bill passed by the Legisbature la.st Winter 
to prevent this waste-and i)ilfering. 
A Department of Agriculture that i»ermits such 
things to he done is worse than no department at 
all. It gives i)rotection to the system, and leads the 
fjirmer to a feeling of false security. The depart¬ 
ment knows that these things are done. It has 
authority to stop them. It has men and money to 
enforce the law. If left to them.selves the inspectors 
will probably do their duty. But today the State 
policy is to do nothing to interfere with the pre¬ 
rogatives of the men who put up for campaign funds. 
The State employe Avho interferes with that jiolicy 
would soon lo.se his job. To correct the abuses we 
must begin at the toi», and make the present sy.stem 
ui'iiopular and iini)ossible. 
Land Bank of the State of NewYork 
The last report shows there are Havings and Loan 
associations in 47 counties of the State, in 29 counties 
of which the total mortgages outstanding amount to 
Sf4S,104,550. In these 29 counties 4t) associations have 
made loans on farm property, amounting in all to 
149,27.4. Df this amount ,$.Y2(>.999 is in Ht. Lawrence 
County, .$190,850 in Ontario, $82,150 in Cattaraugus, 
.$4:5,585 in .lefferson, $:51,:i00 in Monroe, .$:;2,14() in 
Franklin, $.41,417 in Sullivan, $2S,.S.50 in Ulster, $4;>.4.5<) 
in Otsego and $75,700 in Oswego. ’Phis is encouraging 
foi a farm loan business. 
It is no doubt a larger Farm Loan Laud Bank busi¬ 
ness than was expected for one yeai'. 15ut it is not as 
large as it should be, nor as large as it would be if tin* 
system were better known. ’Phe Land Bank syst<*m 
of New York State has many advantages. 
1. It encourages thrift and saving in the individuals 
of a community. 
2. It keeps the accumulation of savings in the neigh¬ 
borhood and brings foreign money in to supplement the 
home saving.s. 
4. It puts the management in the hands of the peo¬ 
ple, and develops their .skill and courage, and experience 
to finance their own affairs, and to invest their own 
money. 
4. It gives safe appraisals and more economic super¬ 
vision. The people of a neighborhood know values, and 
exercise daily observation as a factor of supervision of 
the loan. The foreign bank must depend on local ageut.s 
or visitation by foreign agents not familiar with local 
values and able to make only occasional and expensive 
visitations. 
The Federal system may legally loan only ,45 per 
cent of the value of land and buildings. The New York 
State system may loan as high as 75 per cent through 
the Association. The local associations may take into 
account the moral risk of the borrower. ’Phe foreign 
system cannot do this. 
Farmers should become members of local building and 
loan associations where they exist. Where none exist, 
new a.ssociations should be organized. Experienced or¬ 
ganizers will be sent to any neighborhood that desires 
to org.-mize to take advantage of the land bank system 
cf the State of New York. 
The Dog Law and the Draft 
In the bust is.sue of The R. N.-Y. there appeared a 
letter .signed by F. ,7. Marsh, of Cayuga Co., regard- 
iiig payniout of losses sustuined by sheep owners 
from the depredations o-f dogs. At the session of the 
State Grange last week at Syracuse I introduced a 
resolution, which was adopted by that body, to remedy 
thus .state of affairs, by having the present law amended 
so that all fees received through the operations of the 
dog law be paid into the hands of the Commissioner 
ot Agriculture, and that payment for losses to all do- 
inestie animal.s be paid from these funds, upon warrant 
of the Commissioner of Agriculture, and at the end of 
each fi.scal year all unexpended balances be paid into 
the general fund of the State for distribution as pro¬ 
vided by law. 
Last Winter the writer attended the hearing of the 
committee having in charge the Wicks bill relative to 
the taxing of dog.s. As president of the Essex Co. 
Sheep Breeders’ Association, I did all that I could 
to secure the pa.ssage of the original measure, but as 
all who followed up the history of that legislation 
know, instead of getting a law to encourage the sheep 
industry, we got one that really meant the encourage¬ 
ment of the dog industry, the politicians, humane socie¬ 
ties. and dog breeders controlling the Legislature, as 
.such a formidable combination might be expected to 
do. Before the i)as.sage of the measure that finally 
became a law, I wrote to Senator Wicks calling his 
attention to the joker in the bill, and urged him to 
have it amended so that there would always be a fund 
that would be at the disposal of the Commissioner of 
Agriculture for the payment of damages to .sheep and 
other doine.stic animals, but to no avail. 
Owing to the fact that the district boards are reject¬ 
ing nearly every claim for deferred classification in the 
selective draft, where the claim is made on agricultural 
groumls, j)utting all agricultural labor in Class 1, or as 
near that class as is j)ossible. and as few agricultural 
laborers have made any claim on the grounds of de¬ 
pendency, the local boards are getting the dependency 
claimants as near Class 5 as possible, and not strain 
the rules so that the “hoops” will burst. The farmers 
are as usual getting “short changed.” ’Phe farmers of 
this section are .saying but little, are ju.st sitting 
“tight,” realizing that all this talk about patriotic 
service, instructions how to manage the farm, etc., etc., 
is “bunk,” pure and simple, feeling that if there was 
any neinl of increased production of footlstuffs the Gov¬ 
ernment would not be so unwi.se as to take away the 
very means upon which such increased production lie, 
i. e., taking away the boys from the farm. Fanners 
do not propose to take into their homes the criminals 
from the prisons as proposed by the Syracuse judge. 
’Lhe writer expects that there will be no surplus foml 
products on his farm in 1918, a farm that in 1917 
placed on the markets nearly $2,000 in foodstuffs. His 
only .son, who has managed the farm for years, being 
l)laced in Class 1, subdivi.sioii E, and an appeal refused, 
I shall sell soon at auction all the livestock on the farm, 
consisting of a herd of high-grade Ayrshire cow's, the 
result of 15 years’ selection ; a flock of registered Shrop¬ 
shire sheep, and conceded t.. be the best flock in the 
Champlain Valley. No cultivated crops will be planted 
in 1918, except w'hat little can be raised for the use of 
the owner and his wife, both of whom are well along 
on the shady side of life, and who are, by the affidavit 
of one of the most reputable physicians of the section, 
idiysically unable “to perform farm labor,” but I pre¬ 
sume some of these committees and commissions will 
arrange to secure food elsewhere than on the farm. 
R. W. EGOLESTON. 
The Farmer and the Miller 
I have been trying to get an answer to this question : 
I to(dc 210 pounds of good clean wheat to the mill; the 
miller was well pleased with the wheat. I got 118 
pounds of flour only for the 210 pounds of wheat (.44 
pounds for a bushel). Why cannot the farmer or any¬ 
one else take a grist of wheat to the mill and have it 
ground and get the flour and feed back, le.ss one-tenth 
for grinding? Is the miller entitled to any more than 
one-tenth for grinding it, or can he take as much as he 
likes? E. F. 
Livingston Co., N. Y. 
These questions were sent the Food Administration 
Grain Corporation which has charge of grain and flour 
sui)i)lies. 'riie answer follows and shows how little 
chance a farmer really has in such matters. WIe wish 
this farmer would push the case through! 
I know of no regulation which stipulates what the 
basis of exchange shall be, where a miller grinds wheat 
tendered him by a farmer, in return for flour on a toll 
basis. I am of the opinion that this has been a matter 
which has been regulated by custom. Complaints along 
this line have been so few that no regulation has been 
promulgated concerning same. These small mills have 
(inly been subject to license since .Tanuary 10, 1918, and 
the rules governing these small mills are very few, as 
you will note by copy of such rules and regulations, 
which I enclose herewith. 
It lo(dvS to me, however, if the farmer’s statement is 
cori-ect, that he was taken advantage of and was not 
given a fair return for his wheat. You can underetand, 
hi*w(*v(*r. that in view of the limited facts, xvhich we 
have before us, this can only be a superficial opin¬ 
ion. If the writer will make (Continued on page 305.) 
