Who Controls Dairy Prices ? 
We have a condition in this part of the State that 
needs investigation and correction. Many farmers in 
Central and Northern Now York sell their milk to lim- 
burger cheese makers on the basis of prices for Yankee 
cheese on the exchanges. Here they give us the choice 
of Utica or Watertown quotations. But it is an open 
secret that most of the markets up State are manipulat¬ 
ed by the limburger men for their own profit and to 
the detriment of the men %/ho make the milk. 
onn'/ 16 *' wc ek’s papers quoted the Watertown market at 
.50%c to 31c, and at the Gouvorneur market, a few 
miles away, the same paper stated the buyers paid 32c. 
That was a flat price, without commission or premium. 
The limburger men do not control the Gouverneur mar¬ 
ket, and they will not give us that market as a base. 
Of course, we all know that buyers pay the same price 
for the same quality of cheese in one market that they 
pay in the other, but the limburger manufacturers give 
out prices from V&c to 114c per lb. less than is actually 
paid, and they pocket the difference between what is 
quoted and what is actually paid, and the buyers of 
Yankee cheese make up the difference to their patrons 
in what they call commission or premium. 
I don’t know what you %vouhl call this, but I call it 
plain stealing. Is there no department of the State gov¬ 
ernment that has authority to correct such abuses? If 
not, we ought to have a law to do so in the next Legis¬ 
lature. Will you bring the case to the attention of the 
proper State official, and at least cause a thorough in¬ 
vestigation? tpq 
New York. 
No investigation is necessary to establish the facts. 
Everyone at all familiar with the system of member¬ 
ship exchanges knows what they are organized for 
and what their records are. It does not matter when 
they operate or where they operate. The purpose 
and system have always been the same, namely, to 
make it convenient for the members to rpiote prices 
high or low, as best suited their purpose. The ex¬ 
changes have often been before the courts, and the 
records they made have not been edifying. In a 
case against the Mercantile Exchange in New' York, 
Judge .Taycox stated in his decree that the practice 
of the exchange was: “ Untruthful, wilful, deliberate, 
intentional, and fraudulent.’’ 
The Federal Government and State government 
know' the records and the practices. They know 
that producer and consumer, but principally the pro¬ 
ducer. are systematically robbed by this system in 
the quotation of butter, cheese, eggs, milk, grain and 
other food products, but the men who manipulate 
the prices are the men wdio put officials in govern¬ 
ment positions. Under such a system how can you 
expect investigation or enforcement of laws that will 
change the system? We can refer you to published 
statements and official bulletins that assure you the 
quotations are correct and the system next to perfect. 
There is no good in a law if the enforcement of it is 
in the hands of the men you want to control, and 
such is your present situation. Do not point to the 
man in the place and blame him. He is no more 
responsible for the system than you are, and we are 
all in some measure responsible for it. If the sys¬ 
tem were different the visible official would in most 
cases be glad to do his duty; but if he attempted to 
do so under present conditions he could not stay on 
his job a month. He has been selected, not to repre¬ 
sent the State, but invisible interests, and he has no 
choice but to serve them. If he stood by the pro¬ 
ducers and fought the exchanges he would soon bo 
looking for a job. Of course he might get one that 
would permit him to live and respect himself, but 
the point of it all is that the invisible influences in 
Government control our markets and make possible 
this manipulation of prices, and as long as the condi¬ 
tions exist investigations and appeals to officials are 
useless. When we divorce our departments from 
politics we can easily stop the manipulation of prices. 
It is idle to expect others to do it for us. 
How Many Farmers and “ Ruralites ” ? 
What is the truth about the number of farmers in 
this country? One man recently said there were 
70,000.000 farmers. Another claims that only one-third 
of our people are farmers, while still another claims 
that more than 50 per cent of our population is rural. 
What are we to believe? j. g. 
In 1910, according to the U. S. Census, there were 
38,107,33(> persons over 10 years of age “engaged 
in gainful occupations.” Of these 12,059,203, or 
practically one-third, were classed as farmers or 
farm laborers. The total population was 91,972,260. 
The present population is now about 110,000,000. 
The proportion of actual farmers is now probably 
about 30 per cent. According to the same census 
the population was divided into urban and rural. 
The rural population covered not only those who 
lived on farms, but also all towns up to 2,500 in¬ 
habitants. Under this classification there were 
42,623,383 persons classed as urban and 49,348,803 
classed as rural. There were 14 States with a 
majority of the people living in towns of more than 
2,500 and 34 with a majority in these smaller towns 
or on farms. During the past 10 years there has 
been a heavier drain to the large cities and the 
The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
“urban” proportion is now larger. In some sections 
the rural population is actually gaining, while in 
others it is rapidly losing. Some of our people have 
the mistaken idea that the actual farmers comprise 
a large majority of the people. That is true of the 
so-called agricultural States, but not true of the 
country as a whole. Even if the farmers were fully 
organized as a political unit, they could hardly hope 
to exercise the political power now held by the labor 
unions unless they could combine with “consumers” 
■—that is, city workers who have not yet been 
“unionized.” This class of citizens has much in 
common with our farmers. They should not be 
antagonized, but educated so as to see the farmer’s 
point of view. 
Federation of Farm Bureau Organization 
On Friday, May 29tli, the Board of Directors of 
the New Y’ork State Federation of Farm Bureau 
Organizations met at Syracuse. There was a thor¬ 
ough discussion regarding many points of interest. 
One of the most important was a suggestion that 
the secretary get in touch with real farmei-s, and 
find out what they needed along legislative lines. 
The directors feel that the time has come when the 
farmers ought to come forward themselves and ask 
for legislation which they need. That is much better 
than the old plan of lining up for or against the 
legislation which is suggested by other interests. 
For years our New York farmers have followed the 
latter plan, and as a result they have mostly lost 
the initiative in farm legislation. The result is that 
-when a law comes up before the Legislature it is 
rarely more than 40 per cent, farm legislation, since 
the other interests have tied it up with other com¬ 
binations, which either take the heart out of it or 
make it a trading stamp for other things which the 
farmers do not want. This year the proposition is 
to start early and find out just exactly what farmers 
need and what they want, and then get busy with 
direct legislation in our own interest. There is 
everything in this. This is a plan which all farmers 
may well endorse, and every farmer in New York 
State who has a clear opinion on the matter may 
well come up with suggestions about what he needs. 
These suggestions may be given to the Farm Bureau, 
or they may be sent direct to us, and we will see 
that they are condensed and properly presented. 
The directors of the Federation authorize a hot 
campaign against the daylight saving law. They 
will send a committee to Washington, and work mail 
and wire and telephone to the limit. They also 
approve the work done in regard to rural free de¬ 
livery routes, and they are ready to take a hand 
in any fair movement to improve the conditions of 
New York farmers. 
New State Lecturer at Work 
The New York State Grange has a new State 
Lecturer, S. L. Strivings. We think Mr. Strivings 
is the first lecturer in recent years who seems to see 
something of the possibilities of his position. We 
have long felt that if a lecturer could take hold of 
his work with enthusiasm, it would be possible for 
him to do a great service in the Grange. Mr. Striv¬ 
ings is holding a series of lecturers’ conferences. 
The idea is to use the Grange if possible for com¬ 
munity betterment The program of these confer¬ 
ences is arranged in three parts. The State Lecturer 
talks on the possibility of the lecturer's hour, giving 
practical suggestions about holding a meeting. Then 
some outsider, who has a reputation for knowledge 
on some particular point, will talk on the value of 
organization in rural communities. Then the plan 
is to have some bi'ight local man or woman apply 
in a practical way the suggestions which the other 
two speakers have made. The plan is an excellent 
one, and we hope it will be thoroughly worked out. 
The Grange is at its best as a social organization. 
It expresses perhaps better than any other organi¬ 
zation the agricultural thought of the community. 
It is very necessary that this thought should be 
organized and %vell developed, and the lecturer’s 
hour ought to be made very useful along that line. 
We can easily see how this program would work 
out. In a dairy community, for example, some 
speaker who knows the subject can tell about the 
milk marketing question, and then some local 
authority can state plainly whether that suggestion 
would work in their community or not. The same 
thing could be developed in a fruit community, or 
in one given to general farming. The chief object, 
of course, is to encourage the local men and women 
to think clearly and then present their thought in 
a practical way. We hope that Mr. Strivings will 
'969 
succeed in organizing these meetings fully and mak¬ 
ing the lecturer’s hour a full 60 minutes of value. 
High Prices and High Labor 
Farmers in this locality have a unique market. This 
is a coal district, thickly populated by foreigners, mostly 
Hungarians and Slavs. These laborers are the best paid 
in the country, and the farmers sell most of their pro¬ 
duce direct to the consumers. The following are prices 
that farmers are receiving for their produce: Milk, 14c 
per qt., loose; potatoes, $2 per bu.; hay, .$42 per ton; 
corn, $2.25 per bu.; apples, 65c per peck; live poultry! 
40c per lb.; eggs, 55c per doz. There is fruit on almost 
every farm here, and all the fruit is usually peddled by 
the farmers right in their neighborhood. Ours is a large 
fruit farm, 1,000 apple trees, 600 plum and 2,500 pear 
trees. We sold nearly $3,000 worth of fruit right at 
home, picking and selling every day. We sold over 
1,000 gals, of eider at $25 per bbl. of 52 gals. 
This seems encouraging to farmers. But the labor 
problem here is very acute. We have to pay unheard 
of prices for farm labor. We paid $2 per day for 
child labor to pick fruit; boys and girls from 10 to 15 
years. The minimum wage is $5 per day labor for 
nine hours a day, and that is not so very easy to obtain. 
A neighbor of ours sold out his fine herd of dairy cattle 
last Winter on account of the labor problem. His two 
boys, who were helping him on the farm, could get $6 
to $7 per day in the coal mine, and they didn’t feel that 
they cared to work on the farm. We had to cut most of 
our labor expense down and are now keeping but one 
married man and are paying him $100 per month, house, 
garden and fuel, for nine hours per day, and he thinks 
he is not getting enough. Farmers who need help have 
to pay 25e per post to set fence posts, and 10c to cut 
fence posts. I ha%'e worked on farms in Nebraska, 
Iowa, Illinois, New Hampshire, Massachusetts and 
New York, for the past 15 years, and it was very diffi¬ 
cult to adjust myself to the.'e labor conditions. 
As to the outlook for this year, the wheat and oats 
look fine. There is a promise for a good hay crop; most 
farmers have Winter wheat. We have 15 acres and it 
looks better than we expected it, as we had an open 
Winter. Our pear crop was light, last year, and the 
early part of last month we thought we would have the 
greatest pear crop in the history of our orchard, but 
the late frost killed all the pears and plums. The 
apples so far look promising, but I am afraid we shall 
lose a great part of them in June, as I tried to examine 
f°™e them> antl there are a great many stems that 
fall off as soon as one touches them. e. X. 
Washington Co., Pa. 
City and Country 
“John Burroughs sags that rude and barbarous 
people live in the city, but when they beeome 
civilized God promotes them to the country.” 
Is it not a strange thing how;, all through history, 
the man-made city has assumed itself superior 
to the God-made country ? Mankind has clung to 
this assumption in spite of the evident truth that the 
great reform movements which have shaken up the 
world into better things have all started in the coun¬ 
try. The city has commercialized or sterilized them 
so that they never have worked out their full possi¬ 
bilities. The city man seems to think that his arti¬ 
ficial and machine-made life must of necessity be 
more cultured or refined than the more natural and 
simpler life of the farmer. Probably some of us 
have helped bring this condition about by teaching 
our children that opportunities for a useful and 
beautiful life are all to be found in the city. It is 
high time we turned around and taught the very 
reverse of that idea. Let us hold up our heads and 
be thankful we have been promoted —above “the rude 
and barbarous.” 
Soldiers on Farms 
We understand Secretary F. K. Lane to say 
that 37.000 soldiers have endorsed his plan for 
spending the public funds in watering the deserts, 
draining the swamps and clearing the cut-over land. 
There were something like 3,000,000 soldiers in the 
army, and it is surprising that not over 40,000 of 
them fell into this land scheme. How many of these 
are farmers? How many live near the proposed 
reclamations? Most of the young men who know 
farm life have heard father or grandfather tell of 
what it means to be a pioneer. Those of us who 
went through some of the experience do not want 
our children to spend their young lives that way. 
Certainly not—when all over the older part of this 
country good farms are being abandoned and given 
up to the forest. We need good roads in the settled 
parts of the country more than we need drainage 
or irrigation some thousands of miles away. We 
are of course accused of being “narrow” when we 
take this view. We think it is the broadest sort of 
policy to improve what we have now before reaching 
out for new and untried schemes. 
