More Milk Investigations 
Two milk investigations are again under fray in 
New York. One is at the expense of the State, 
the other at the expense of the city, and both at the 
expense of the producers and consumers of milk. 
The numerous investigations that have gone before 
were useless. These promise nothing better. 
When investigations run into anything important 
the facts are either kept out of the record, or kept 
out of public view afterwards. For two years now 
reports of the costs of distributing milk in cities 
have been pigeonholed in the Department of Agri¬ 
culture at Washington on the ground that the in¬ 
vestigations cost money paid in taxes to which milk 
dealers contributed, and for that reason the in¬ 
formation should not be used against them. This 
is emphasized by the assertion that farmers would 
use the information in a propaganda to reduce the 
cost of distribution. It is understood that similar 
reports are pigeonholed in the .State Agricultural 
College at Cornell. If the inquisitors are not averse 
to offending the milk trust, we would suggest that 
they take a trip to Ithaca and Washington and hunt 
up these reports and make them public. We assume 
that the investigations were made on the extrava¬ 
gant systems of distribution yet in use, and that in 
consequence the cost is higher than it should be, 
but the arguments used to justify the suppression 
of them indicate that the costs are less than the 
milk trust of New York would like to face. We 
venture the assertion that by modern methods the 
costs would be reduced still further, but by all means 
let us have the reports as they are. Now that we 
know they exist what possible excuse can be made 
to keep them longer under cover? 
Milk Buyers’ Bonds For All 
The District Attorney of New York is on the 
wrong track. The Levy Dairy Company complained 
that Commissioner Porter discriminated against it 
in demanding a bond for $100,000 to insure the pay¬ 
ment of milk bills to farmers, because Levy cut the 
price to consumers below the trust prices. lie testi¬ 
fied that it .rested with him to decide when a dealer 
must put up a bond. Straightway the prosecutor 
charged discrimination on the ground that Levy was 
required to put up a bond while other dealers escaped, 
and demanded Porter's removal. If he had commended 
the Commissioner for doing his duty in this case, 
and demanded his removal on the ground that he 
had neglected to require bonds of the other dealers, 
and thereby caused a loss to dairy farmers of more 
than a million dollars during the past year, he would 
exhibit a better understanding of the milk situation. 
We can understand the academic proposition that 
one person must not be discriminated against under 
ihe law in favor of another; but it is not easy to see 
how the District Attorney is going to help consumers 
by making it easy for dealers to cheat farmers out 
of their milk bills. 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
puted by the Warren formula. The gain was in 
maintaining the $4.01 price for the remaining days 
of January after the strike ended. Net returns for 
the contract period would, of course, show a loss, 
not a gain; but the result of a fight of this kind 
cannot be measured in a limited period. The real- 
profit or loss will show in the use made of the ex¬ 
perience and the effect on the future condition of 
the dairy industry. 
The Farmer and War Prices 
In a recent issue of Hoard's Dairyman Mr. I. H. 
Wallbridge of Michigan gave these tables of figures 
to show how the things which farmers sell and what 
they buy have increased in price. These figures are 
given below. While they refer to prices in Michigan, 
very much the same proportionate increase would be 
found at any other point: 
WHAT THE FARMER HAS TO BUY 
Price 
Price 
Per Cent 
Article 
1916 
1918 
Increase 
Plow points. 
... $0.33 
$1.00 
200 
Walking plow . 
32.00 
146 
Sulky plow.. 
60.00 
71 
Manure spreader . 
300.00 
72 
Grain binder . 
225.00 
67 
Binder twine . 
.10 
.26 
160 
Nails . 
.08 
100 
Hay rope . 
.37 
105 
Mower . 
85.00 
88 
Barn siding. 
48.00 
71 
Cultivator (riding).. 
. . . 35.00 
60.00 
71 
25th Lever harrow.. 
.. . 25.00 
45.00 
SO 
Average increase . 
102 
WHAT THE 
FARMER SELLS 
Price 
Price 
Per Cent 
Article 
1916 
1918 
Increase 
Butterfat . 
$0.47 
42 
Poultry . 
.27" 
SO 
.37 
48 
Hav . 
20.00 
100 
<)ats . 
.75 
51 
Barley . 
1.20 
50 
Hogs . 
.20 
100 
Cattle . 
.16 
100 
Wheat... 
1.60 
2.10 
31 
1.40 
12 
(’orn . 
1.60 
12S 
Apples. 
1.00 
11 
Average increase. 
71 
277 
are fewer than that many sheep in the world,* with an 
average of about five pounds each, and it takes 10 
pounds of raw wool to make four or five of cloth. 
Then there are carpets, rugs, underwear, upholstery, 
hosiery, and some for dress goods for women needed. 
Can you see any reason why wool ever should have been 
low? 
I can. Just one. It was pushed on to the market as 
if it was always a drug, and of course there was no 
more paid for it than necessary. The consumer may 
wonder at any talk of wool ever being cheap, but the 
price he paid had no relation to the fraction we got of 
the “35-cent dollar.” He has not looked after his inter¬ 
ests any better than we did. lie has looked at us with 
unfriendly eyes. He abhorred the tariff and used his 
efforts to break us up. He did break us up, hundreds 
and thousands of us, and it is time he would look at us 
as friends. T\ e are. T\ e want him to wear our good 
virgin wool, so he will look respectable, and so his cloth¬ 
ing will be lasting and serviceable, and we hope for him 
that he gets it at a just price. This is a matter en¬ 
tirely between him and the man he buys from. 
Be this as it may, the future of our nice friends, the 
sheep, looks good for three or more years. A dearth of 
clothing and a famine in wool; it will be impossible, 
under any circumstances, to reach normal before that 
time, and the men who sent their sheep to the slaughter 
when -‘the armistice made havoc with wool” made the 
\Aorst mistake of their lives. There are no “tremendous 
supplies-of wool in Australia,” nor “large volumes of 
wool in Africa” or anywhere else, and “England may” 
not i elease large quantities for us, or anyone else. 
ar m? ett " fixed for clothing in America than anv- 
heie. I here is no oversupply in anv country, while 
many are destitute, and the wool has been destroved' 
fieimany cannot have any until others are clothed Thev 
can continue to sport their paper pants. Sheepmen ex- 
pect to get pay for their feed. once, and they do not need 
a Ohio D ° r 3n a * : P resen t. W. W. REYNOLDS. 
Letters from Dairymen 
The Helvetia and Hyland condenseries at Westfield 
and Elkland, Tioga County, Pennsylvania, have refused 
to pay the League prices, and the members of the League 
here are yet on strike. President Cooper and two 
other officers of the League have been here, but the 
situation was not changed by their visit. The territory 
iurnished an average of 100.000 pounds daily during the 
year, and the present situation 'is considerable of a 
hardship. Our members feel that they should be pro¬ 
tected. " s. 
Pennsylvania. 
Enclosed is one dollar for The IL N.-Y. for one 
year. Can you tell me how New York farmers can make 
milk and receive cost of production at the February 
and March price agreed upon—with grain costing more 
than during the war? george w. karris. 
Connecticut. 
You say “Dairymen Win Again.” The price for 
January is $4.01, February f $3.54, and March, $3.51. 
Will you tell me if it does not cost as much to produce 
a quart of milk in February or March as it does in 
January? If not, why not? If it does cost as much, 
what have the farmers gained? e. h. c. 
New York. 
Every dairyman, of course, knows that other 
things equal, it costs as much to produce milk in 
February and March and in April too, for that mat¬ 
ter, as in December and January. Heretofore the 
dealers maintained a uniform price for bottled milk 
the year around: but always cut the price to pro¬ 
ducers during these months, regardless of the cost 
ot production, because the supply began to increase 
in these months, and Prof. Warren accepted this 
custom as a basis for apportioning the yearly average 
cost for the different mouths. With the recent ad¬ 
vance in the cost of feed, however, the real cost of 
producing milk in February is necessarily greater 
than in January, and not much difference when com- 
Thus on the average the things which the farmer 
buys have increased 102 per cent, while the things he 
sells increased in price 71 per cent, or a difference 
of 31 per cent in the purchasing power of a dollar. 
In our own case, if we include labor, fertilizer and 
lime among the articles we have to buy. the showing 
would be worse yet. Mr. Wallbridge also points out 
that while there was a decrease of 16 per cent in 
the labor supply, the farmers made a gain of 26 per 
cent in foodstuffs. This meant that each farmer 
and all his family must have worked harder than 
before. 
The Outlook for Wool Growers 
The sheepman has been a recluse, and has kept hie 
own counsel. He generally kept his sheep well, always 
with a hopeless feeling in regard to their profit, and as 
soon as the last fleece was tied he looked for someone 
to come and give him a chance to get the wool off the 
place. Sometimes he contracted it on the sheep's back, 
to be sure. It has always been a hard matter to get a 
big bunch of these secluded men together, or to get 
them to discuss the wool subject. If they were caught 
at a farmers’ institute or other meeting where the sub¬ 
ject was up, they staid, but every attempt or effort to 
get them to co-operate was a deplorable failure, until 
recently. 
T\ bile everything else under the sun was organized the 
wool grower stood alone, and the interests took his fibers, 
easy as stealing candy from a baby, and who can blame 
them? Reconstruction and organization are in the air 
now, and some germs have inoculated the sheepmen. 
Last year’s experience with wool fitted them for lodg¬ 
ment, and they surely “took.” There were fully 1.000 
delegates and laymen from all over Ohio recently listen¬ 
ing to “Co-operation in Wool Sales,” at Columbus. 
There never were that many bona fide sheepmen in any 
building on earth at one time before. They are taking 
time by the forelock, as it is some time before any wool 
will he clipped, and their slogan even then will be, “This 
is the year to hold wool.” The story that “there are 
450.000.000 pounds that the Government will dump on 
the market, and more constantly arriving.” does not 
trouble them, because it is not true. Even if it is. there 
is a world dearth of clothing, and of raw wool, and 
everyone will find it out before long. 
This alleged amount, and all our next clip, is not 
enough to fit out our own people. The soldier boys will 
want a new suit or two, each, this year, and ten millions 
of middle-class rich men have bought no clothes for two 
years because they were patriots and wanted to save 
wool, and because clothing had advanced. There is a 
call for 20.000,000 suits alone, a new call. Everyone 
has been economical and now must have clothes, and 
we are opulent in comparison with all other countries. 
There are more than a halt billion new suits needed 
right now in the world, and there never has been enough 
raw wool on earth, at one time, to make them. There 
A Resolution on School Matters 
At a regular meeting of the Ontario Countv. N. Y. 
1 Q 1 Q ’^ rg: ' n . lzatl . on ’ held at Canandaigua. January 7, 
1919, the following resolutions were adopted: 
aww f l EREA - S V w ? beli ? ve that the number of school 
di^tnct siiperintendenrs m the County of Ontario should 
be limited to two and that they should be elected In 
the direct vote of the people, and that neither said 
superintendents nor the State Department of Education 
f h . oald have the power to consolidate, and that no dis- 
tuct shcmld be consolidated without the request and 
vote of the districts affected thereby, and 
M I1EREAS, we believe the law requiring physical 
training in the rural schools to be unjust, and 
HEREAS. we believe that, the power to regulate 
the schools.shouhl be placed in the hands of the people 
of the districts where the schools are located and should 
department ra iZe<1 ^ the hancls ° f any official of the 
NOW, THEREFORE, be it resolved. That we re¬ 
quest our member of Assembly and Senator and the 
Governor of this State to use all proper and legitimate 
means to cause such amendments to be made or new 
lavs passed that the number of school district superin- 
\ u ° nnuio County shall be reduced to two • 
tbat they be elected by a direct vote of the people; that 
all power to consolidate rural schools be taken entirely 
irom the school superintendents and the State Depart¬ 
ment of Education and eliminated from and be placed 
in the hands of the people of the districts to be affected ; 
that such amendments be had or law passed that ali 
requirements for physical training in the rural schools 
no eliminated and that such physical training be not 
required unless requested and voted by the district 
requiring the same. MRS. h. d. converse, Sec’y, 
The Ontario County Civic Association. 
Sanitary Toilets and New York Schools 
I am always reluctant to appeal - to be in opposition 
to any proposition that may have for its object the 
public good. In this case, however, there is so much 
misunderstanding that if I can say anything that will 
help to clear up the situation I would gladly do so. 
• F° h**"> u with, the education law of the State pro¬ 
vides that every common school district in the State 
must maintain, in a sanitary condition, two toilets^ 
located at proper distances from rhe building and from 
each other, with screen between. Failure to do so 
forfeiture of public funds. Now as I see it the whole 
question hinges on whether those in use are or are not 
sanitary. The education department discovered that 
some were not kept in proper order, therefore I think 
with the idea of correcting these conditions, the depart¬ 
ment issued the mandatory order requiring all districts 
within a certain specified time to install what are known 
as chemical sanitary toilets, the same to be of a type 
recommended by them ; also all building plans must be 
submitted to the department for approval. I believe 
this order was later modified in some way. The agents 
for the apparatus immediately got busy and visited 
every district in the State, telling the trustees that it 
was the lair, and that they must make the changes, no 
matter what kind of arrangements they had. Some of 
the trustees, not understanding the difference between 
a law and an order, based on an alleged violation of a 
law, purchased and had installed the new fixtures, at 
a cost of about $310—almost as much as the school- 
house cost originally. 
I think that any schoolhouse' situated in a small 
hamlet, where there are residences nearby, should a<> a 
matter of decency and appearance make the change. 
There are many districts in the State, however, where 
the sc-hoolhouses are isolated from other buildings, 
where the toilets, although of the old type, are main¬ 
tained in a neat and sanitary condition. It. is mv 
judgment that under these circumstances it is not the 
purpose of the department to insist on a change: in 
fact. I think that they do not have that power under 
the law. It behooves every trustee to see that every¬ 
thing is in proper shape; then no one will have a case 
against them. Of course in any place where new con¬ 
struction is needed, the modern fixtures should be in¬ 
stalled.^ but in that case I see no need to pay s,,me 
agent $75 for each equipment, as they can be secured 
from dealers for about one-third of that amount. 
Yates Co., N. Y. h. s. fullagar. 
