RURAL NEW-YORKER 
573 
Gov. Smith and New York Agriculture 
T1IE FARMER'S NEEDS.—We cannot reconcile 
the best interests of the producers and consumers 
of New York State with'Governor Smith’s program 
to retain the present Council of Farms and Markets 
and to obscure still further the Market Department 
by tucking it away as a bureau of the Agricultural 
Department. The one great service the State can 
give farmers is a ready market for his products at 
prices based on supply and demand and a return 
based on the consumer’s price less the economic cost 
of selling. 
DOMINANT INTERESTS.—Governor Smith must 
know that the present council is dominated by food 
monopoly interests. This is revealed not only in the 
personnel of a majority of the council, but particu¬ 
larly in their appointments and other official acts. 
It is asserted that the members of the council and 
their appointees were selected by a political agent 
of the last administration and represent dealers’ 
interests. The official evidence is abundantly cor¬ 
roborated, and no one in a position to know denies 
it- The argument is that the council yielded to evil 
influences to make unworthy appointments and to 
perform official acts detrimental to the interests of 
the State, but that the same men will now readily 
respond to better influences. Faint praise! 
NECESSARY HOUSEt’LEANING.—We are will¬ 
ing to believe that a certain amount of housecleaning 
is necessary. All admit that. If this policy should 
succeed, we have no doubt that a fairly able man 
with a clean record would he made Commissioner of 
Agriculture and there would he improvement in the 
administration of the Department. That concession 
would not interfere in the least with the interests 
that control our food and supply markets. It would 
indeed just now favor those interests, because it 
would give the people confidence in a measure of 
evident reform in one particular and disarm their 
suspicions in other functions. 
FORCES IN CONTROL.—Governor Smith has 
been long enough in public life at Albany to know 
that the milk trust, the packer trust and produce 
speculators have their own men in the Legislature, 
and that they now dominate not only the Council of 
Farms and Markets, but that, they absolutely control 
the Foods and Markets Division. They have a work¬ 
ing arrangement with the Legislature, and as long 
as measures can he put through without much dis¬ 
cussion or publicity, this food monopoly system will 
have its way. 
AN UNDESIRABLE PROGRAM.— Under this pro¬ 
gram the market bureau would he given a safe 
deputy, removed from direct responsibility to the 
public, and the food barons would continue to recover 
their campaign contributions by levying undisputed 
toll on milk and other foods that pass through the 
city markets. There is no way to interpret recent 
State Department official acts today except on the 
theory that it is favoring dealers and speculative 
interests at the expense of the farms of the State, 
and while it is dominated by trust interests it will 
continue to do so. 
TIIE REAL POINT.—Responsible farmers refused 
appointment to the council because it was offered 
with strings tied to it. Everyone now admits that 
the council was created to please the food barons, 
and no one will doubt that the policy to retain the 
“council” pleases them. The members of this coun¬ 
cil were appointed by Governor Whitman. They 
will be reappointed by the Legislature each year for 
10-year terms. Under the proposed change they will 
appoint a commissioner, who will in turn appoint a 
deputy of the Markets Bureau. That puts the mar¬ 
kets deputy well out of response to farm influence. 
The trick is as old as the hills. Farmers would have 
as much chance in such a market as the proverbial 
fly in the spider’s parlor. 
STORY OF A CONFERENCE.—The published 
story is that at a give and take conference between 
Governor Smith and Legislative leaders the Governor 
got three measures lie wanted, and made other con¬ 
cessions for them. The concessions were not 
enumerated. Was agriculture one of the pawns? 
AS TO THE GOVERNOR.—Governor Smith was 
a popular Democratic candidate, but it was the farm 
protest, against Governor Whitman’s abuse of agri¬ 
cultural interests that elected Governor Smith. 
Before election he made statements to indicate that 
he had information and an understanding of the 
farm situation, and gave assurances for a real 
service to the farm if elected. We look to him now 
10 make good on those apparently forgotten assur¬ 
ances. Farmers do not want a market dominated 
by speculators and trusts. They want a fair and 
-Muare open market without speculation or profiteer¬ 
ing, under management that will respond to public 
appeal. Many of them voted for the Governor and 
elected him as a reproof to Governor Whitman, and 
because they believed he would keep his word and 
give the farm a square deal. Governor Smith has 
an opportunity now to profit by the experience of his 
distinguished predecessor. 
The Reason for Reducing Milk Prices 
Why Do They Drop in February and March? 
Will you tell us the reason for the monthly reduction 
in the price of milk for February and March, without 
doubt to he followed by further reductions in April and 
May? Tons of paper have been consumed the past 
month reporting meetings, speeches, letters, cost sheets, 
commissions, etc., all agreeing that the dairyman is 
entitled to fair profit. The January price was conceded 
to yield no more. Every farmer knows it costs as much 
to produce milk in the four months succeeding January 
as it does in January itself. How then can the authori¬ 
ties reconcile themselves to accepting these reductions? 
It is all very confusing to us people back in the hills 
who are doing the work and paying the bills. It is the 
one question farmers are always asking, and to which 
they never receive a reply that would be offered or 
accepted by a man conducting any other business. 
New York. clarence joiinson. 
BACK IN THE SHADOW.—We cannot give you 
a satisfactory reason for these reductions because 
they cannot he justified; but we can explain the 
influences that impose them on us. 
A FAMILIAR SYSTEM.—The distribution of food 
is In a speculative profiteering system. The milk 
trust, the packing trust, the produce speculators, the 
storage warehouses, transportation companies and 
their hanks are all in the system. The big em¬ 
ployers of labor are in sympathy with it and in 
many eases city consumers are induced to contribute 
their influence to it. For the most part the city 
press supports the system. In New York State these 
interests control the government in its relation to 
the food problems. This is freely admitted in official 
circles in Albany. The men of this food distributing 
system pay the campaign expenses of susceptible men 
and send them to the Legislature. They make con¬ 
tributions to political bosses, and they usually get 
what they want in Albany, no matter which party 
is in power. 
FREEZING OFT THE FARMER.—The members 
of this system deny that farming should be a paying 
business like a factory or a store. They tell you the 
farm is not expected to pay. Your business is, 
according to them, to produce lots of food and let 
them set the price on it. Vested interests, they tell 
you, must he protected. The man with a desk in a 
rented commercial warehouse must not have his 
profits disturbed: hut they recognize no vested in¬ 
terest in a farm or a herd of cows. 
FUTILE SPENDING.—Of course it is unreason¬ 
able to complain. Don’t they investigate milk every 
time a producer gets too little, or a consumer pays 
too much? Doesn’t the State spend several millions 
every year, without protest from the system, to 
teach you and induce you to increase your produc¬ 
tion? Of course the more you produce the greater 
the surplus and the less your price per quart, hut 
in war time we do it for patriotism, and in peace 
time we do it from habit. Don’t they consult the 
officials who spend the money and get their approval 
in the name of agriculture before they endow us 
with enlightenment and benefits? And whenever we 
choose a man to preside at a farm meeting, don't 
they promptly offer him a job or other recognition 
to make sure that “he'll he good?” This is the share 
apportioned to agriculture, and it is expected to 
satisfy you. 
MUTUAL BARGAIN.—'the members of the system 
put up freely and liberally for the politicians. The 
bargain is that they are to he permitted to get it all 
back with interest in tolls on your eggs, and potatoes 
and apples, and hay and milk, and they make their 
own collections. 
THE SAME OLD STORY.—Therefore when the 
reductions are made in the March price of milk the 
dealer is simply cashing in on the deal he paid for. 
He is taking his profits out of his partnership with 
your government, out of your milk. They tell you 
the reduction is due to surplus, hut you know there 
is seldom a surplus, and then it is due to adulter¬ 
ation and excessive cost, to the consumer. Today 
the dealer gets 10 to 22 cents per quart for milk that 
costs him seven and one-third cents, and he puts the 
surplus into condensed milk at a greater profit. The 
real reason for the reductions therefore is in the 
mutual interests of the selfish agencies between 
producer and consumer. The policy once adopted 
for your protection has been temporarily defeated 
by these interests. This, of course, will not he ad¬ 
mitted. but the excuses given are not sincere and 
therefore do not satisfy your intelligence. 
“Cut-over” Land for Soldiers 
Could you find time to say something about the 
scheme to purchase a lot of wild and “unreclaimed 
laud” for the returning soldiers and sailors? I)o you 
not consider this an opportunity for a huge “graft” 
scheme? No one has ever shown that these soldiers 
have any burning desire to farm. And granting they do. 
is it wise to overstimulate agriculture? But the most 
serious objection lies in the fact that in the South and 
VN est a horde of land speculators and real estate sharks 
are planning, to unload upon the Government millions 
of acres of impassable marshes, impenetrable swamps, 
and sterile stump “cut-over” pine barrens, and there is 
apparently no one to say nay I am not opposed to the 
Government giving farms to the soldiers. Nothing is 
too good for them. But they should not be handed anv 
such gold brick as these greedy grafters will present. 
Louisiana. c. .T. Edwards. 
Mr. Edwards sends us clippings from local papers 
printed in Louisiana. From one of them we take the 
following pertinent comment: 
This thing is a job from start to finish and the fel¬ 
lows who are behind it care about as much for the 
soldier boys as does the King of Dahomey. Who has 
ever shown that the returning soldiers want to farm? 
Would the possession of a tract of wild land make 
them farmers? Not on your life. It would be about as 
near a farm as a raw potato is a square meal. 
Secretary Lane insists that, his plan of opening up 
these waste lands is very popular with the soldiers. 
We have not been able to discover any such demand, 
though many soldiers have written us. We find that 
soldiers would prefer to settle on farms in the oc¬ 
cupied parts of the country. We can discover no 
popular demand for Secretary Lane’s scheme, though 
we have printed more about it than any other weekly 
paper. 
Figuring the Farmer’s Income Tax 
The form prepared for farmers’ income tax returns 
called Schedule of Farm Income and Expenses (Form 
1040 F) is a decided help to farmers in making then- 
returns, but in one respect it is ill-conceived. We refer 
to the plan to base the return on inventories taken at 
the beginning of the year. 
In the first place, very many farmers who have in¬ 
comes to report do not take inventories with sufficient 
accuracy to serve at all for the purpose. Not only is it 
extremely difficult to make a just estimate of quantities 
of produce on hand, of hay in mow and stack, of grain 
in bins, for instance, but nearly every inventory will 
have some things in it that do not belong there for in¬ 
come tax purposes. Most, inventories on the farm will 
surely embrace machinery, others include as items of 
real value in larger measure than usual, Fall plowing 
got ready for the next year’s crop and rye and Winter 
wheat then in the ground; that is, partly-made next 
year's crop. Y'et the fanner may have a considerably 
larger debt at the bank or elsewhere to offset that in¬ 
creased inventory. We may say in passing that'if any 
farmer has included plowing or wheat and rye in the 
ground (entirely proper parts of a farmer’s inventory) 
and has suffered loss through such returns—it all de¬ 
pends on how similar items stood in the inventory of 
the year before—he should make claim for correction of 
the error. 
But our chief objection to the inventory plan for 
farmers in making income tax returns is that it is not 
within the mind of man to determine fairly the value 
of most of the produce ou hand at the end of the year. 
I.\eu with that part of it that is later to go to market, 
the market may fluctuate violently before the sale is 
made, having none of the sure percentage basis that 
usually attaches to manufacturing and merchandizing. 
Look at the course of rye and wool. 
Yet there is a far more serious thiug. The bulk of 
the farmer’s produce on hand December 31 in anv year 
is not to be sold at all. It is simply to be used in the 
pinduction of next years crop, where wind and weather 
control its ultimate value. Take seed oats, barley, po- 
tatoes. \\ ho can fell in December what values they 
will have buried in the ground in May? 
Iu our judgment the one fair plan for the farmer’s 
income tax return is that used for 1917. That .is, take 
all the farmer’s proper receipts, less his expenses.’ each 
year- This is a sure and just method of finding even 
dollar of his actual income from year to year. 
FARMER. 
Destroying Stumps with Chemicals and 
Kerosene 
Some time ago the question was asked if the vagrant 
item about doctoring stumps with various chemicals had 
any truth in it. This thiug has been floating around for 
at least 25 or 30 years, and it seemed about time to call 
the bluff. As tjie writer's method of producing a stump 
is that which is unkindly but accurately described by 
experts as “beavering it off.” two sawed stumps, oak. 
about two feet across and a few months old, were bored 
with one-inch holes about the middle of the stump and 
about six inches deep. One was tilled with nitre, potas¬ 
sium nitrate, iu dry powder, well packed iu and then 
slightly moistened, and the other with kerosene. Both 
were tightly plugged with maple plugs driven iu flush 
and left alone for nearly two years. They were in¬ 
spected from time to time, and they appeared to be in 
excellent condition. Finally the plugs were bored out 
and an attempt to light up the stump was made. Al¬ 
though there were traces by taste of the uitre and by 
smell of the kerosene, neither stump would light, and 
the method, so far as these stumps were concerned, was 
a complete failure. Perhaps if the plug had heen pul'ed 
from time to time, and more kerosene put. in, the plan 
might have given better results. Perhaps, also, if more 
soft and porous stumps had been chosen other results 
would have followed, but until someone can tell us a 
tory of good results, the above record of failure may as 
well stand. f. d. c. 
