1241 
Exposure of a Cattle Record F*aud 
DISQUIETING CONDITIONS.—The most intelli¬ 
gent breeders of Holstein-Friesians, knowing that 
this breed is a heavy milking breed, but not a heavy 
butter-fat breed, have been uneasy for a long time 
over the prevalence of fat records which gave “50-lb. 
butter cows,” “40-lb. bulls,” etc. Many flatly said 
that they did not believe either the records or the 
prices were genuine, but said it guardedly, not 
having proof to offer. 
A CONSCIENTIOUS BREEDER.—In New York 
State less than a dozen years ago a young man, 
John Arfmann, went from New York City and 
started to farm and breed Ilolsteins. He liked the 
life and the work, and paid so close attention to 
what he was doing that he prospered. One day at a 
stile of Ilolsteins the writer saw him bid the then 
unheard sum of $10,000 for a young bull. That 
was a genuine bid, and the bull was paid for in 
cash. From that day on Mr. Arfmann went right 
ahead. He bred good Ilolsteins, fed them well, and 
made some excellent records, by feeding and good 
* handling. He could get 35 lbs. of butter, but he 
could not get above that, and as he heard of the 
40 and 50-lb butter cows he began to wonder what 
was at fault—his work or the cows, and he made 
up his mind to find out. On August G. 1019. in the 
sales pavilion of the Brattleboro, Vermont. Purebred 
Live Stock Sales Co., this same John Arfmann stood 
up and told the hundreds of Holstein men assem¬ 
bled there the story of how he found out the way 
Charles Cole “made” the 40 and 50-lb. butter records. 
MAKING RECORDS.—“I found that the breeders 
were all so mad over these 40 and 50-lb. records 
that they thought a cow wasn’t a cow unless she 
could make 40 lbs., so I made up my mind that the 
day would come when I would make these records 
myself or would know how the other fellow made 
them. I had been fishing around to find out about 
how these records were made and finally took it up 
with Charlie Cole, and tried to get him to tell me 
how he made his records. He sidestepped it. and 
then I got to his partner, Hicks, and made arrange¬ 
ments to send two of my cows to them to make 
records for me. I had a cow which had a record of 
32 lbs. I tried her on test and got 31 lbs., but I could 
not better her record. This cow gave 90 lbs. a day 
in three milkings and Cole guaranteed to get 35 lbs. 
of butter or not take any pay. Hicks said if she 
gave 90 lbs. of milk they could get 40 lbs. of butter. 
So I shipped the two cows and forgot about them 
for a little while. Then I got a telegram from Cole 
saying that the cow was making 3G lbs. and going to 
40 lbs. of butter; then another saying she had made 
40 lbs. and was going fast, then 43 lbs. I began to 
get interested and ’phoned Hicks and he said she 
had made 45 lbs. and ‘by tomorrow night will give 
4G lbs.’ ” 
ASKING THE COW.—“So I went to the farm to 
see how things were coming. Cole asked if I wanted 
to see the cow, but I said, ‘No, the cow's all right, 
I want to know how she's making the butter.’ We 
went out to the barn and she was lying on a cement 
floor, which I don’t approve of, with about 10 quarts 
of shavings under her. I expected to see her panting 
from heavy feeding, as my cows did at home when 
1 fed them for test, but she was as quiet and peace¬ 
ful as anything. Then I thought maybe it was drugs, 
and vet it couldn’t be, as the cow was normal—so 
then I asked to see the test book. I had my reason 
for this, as I had a man who was doing testing make 
me n copy of the test records before, and the cow 
would go from 90 lbs. of milk one day to 100 lbs. 
the next and then 110 lbs., and her fat would jump 
from 3.5 per cent to 5 per cent. And I wanted to 
know if there was anything to it if a cow does that 
one week and the next week she doesn’t.” 
GETTING THE METHOD.—“So I said. ‘Charlie, 
what’s your price to show me how the cows do it?' 
So Charlie said he had great offers and so on. but 
I finally made a contract with Cole, with witnesses, 
to show me how the cows could make such records. 
I was to pay him $10,000 cash. $5,000 in a year and 
give him a half interest in all bull calves born for 
five years to come to cows who made 35 lbs. of 
butter. I would have paid $25.000—Charlie could 
just as well have had more—and he was to give 
me in writing just how lie did it. Well,.when I got 
it I said, ‘Still you have not told me what I paid 
you for; what I bought was the information how 
the cows did it, not how you did it. So you can 
either give me back my money or go to jail—and 
I'd advise you to make a clean breast of it and 
clean house.’ ” 
THE WHOLE STORY—That is Mr. Arfmann’s 
story, and then he told just how the records were 
made through adding say five pounds of milk at a 
‘Ihe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
milking (which would mean 20 lbs. a day or 140 lbs. 
a week), or enough cream to make the fat percentage 
he wanted to get, by means of a rubber hotwater 
bottle strapped around his body under hi* loose 
jumper and let down the leg of his overalls, through 
a slit in the leg of which nether garment a short 
tube with a stopper and cork was slipped into the 
pail. The stalls were so built that when Cole was 
milking a cow. there was no room at her head or 
tail or at one side for the supervisor to stand—he 
had to stand behind the milker at the same side, 
who, leaning over to milk, obstructed the view 
enough to slip the tube into the pail when he chose, 
and so completely befool the man who was there 
to check him up. The guilty man took Mr. Arf¬ 
mann’s advice and confessed the whole thing to a 
committee of the Holstein-Friesian Association the 
week of August 4. 
INFLATED PRICES.—Another thing this cour¬ 
ageous farmer-breeder took exception to was the 
by-bidding at public sales, with its consequent in¬ 
flation of prices, this inflation not warranted by the 
facts. He spoke of the fact that many animals, after 
a sale for which tremendous prices were quoted, 
went back to their owner’s barns because they had 
not been sold: several men, friends of the seller, 
having boosted the price by fake bids until they were 
left with the animal on their hands. In other cases, 
genuine bids, to compete with this by-bidding, had 
to be far above the animal’s value, and its final sale 
price was used as an argument to buyers, later, at 
private sale, to get proportionately fictitious values 
for other animals. This method places the smaller 
breeder at a most unfair advantage, because he has 
no such lever with which to pry high selling prices 
out of buyers for stock which in many instances is 
just as good in quality. Although he did not. he 
might have mentioned the stories that have gone 
the rounds of the breeders, of sales companies buy¬ 
ing a herd for a flat rate and then boosting it on 
the buying public at many times that price because 
of sympathy for the original owner or his family. 
For some years the most thoughtful of the breeders 
have admitted that the record by which to judge 
of the capability of a cow was not the seven-day 
record, but the yearly record. This great upheaval 
may be the entering wedge that will topple over 
the short-time test and restore the breeders to sanity 
in their expectations of what a cow can do. 
r,. G. 
High Cost of Living Investigation 
A GENERAL OUTCRY.—Just now when planting 
is over and harvest is well under way, the country has 
become hysterical over the high cost of living. The 
governments of nations. States and cities are calling 
for new millions of appropriations to investigate the 
cause of high food prices, to fix arbitrary prices, and 
to prosecute profiteers. The popular thing is to side 
in with the general propaganda and shout just a little 
harder than the other fellow. It is always safe._ and 
for the time being popular, to be on the side of the men 
in positions of influence and power. The naked truth 
should be told by someone, and we volunteer for the 
task. Food is dearer than it need be. but it is no dearer 
in proportion than other things, such as shoes, clothing 
and manufactured necessities. It is dearer than it need 
be and dearer than it would be if these same govern¬ 
ments which are now protesting against high prices had 
not conspired to discourage the production of it. They 
have produced and now maintain the conditions that 
make food dear in the city, and they now protest against 
the consequences of their own acts. 
INCREASED PRODUCTION.—For the past 50 
years our governments have spent money to increase 
production until the large crop fixed a low price to the 
producer. Waste and manipulation combined to in¬ 
crease the cost to the consumer. They have lectured 
us to reduce cost of production and at the same time 
to produce two blades of grass where one grew before. 
Every farmer as well as every student of economics 
knows that you cannot produce two bushels where one 
grew before without increasing the cost of producing 
the first as well as the second bushel. The law of 
diminishing returns is as fundamental as the law of 
gravitation. Other things equal, doubling the labor on 
a given piece of land will not double the product. The 
policy of alluring the farmers to large production and 
then permitting the distributing trust and speculator 
to swindle them in the market has worked successfully 
for many years with no benefit to the consumer. The 
dealers have financed the politicians who control the 
governments, and then exercised their purchased rights 
to rob the producer and swindle the consumer. Just 
now they have pursued their advantage too far. and the 
governing politicians must make a show to stop the 
progress of higher prices in the city. These measures 
are intended to lower the prices to producer. They are 
ignorant of or indifferent to the fact that they will 
again discourage production and make the future still 
worse. Their loud promises to curb the profiteers do 
not have the ring of sincerity, because all the curbing 
and prosecuting is to be conducted by the very men or 
the friends of the men who do the profiteering. They 
take no chance of letting the process got beyond their 
own control. 
AN ECONOMIC CRISIS.—When this country went 
into the World V ar. and large quantities of food were 
had an opportunity to encourage production 
te means. If the politicians and food specu¬ 
lators would ever voluntarily do anything to increase 
the volume of food without profit to themselves that 
was the time to do so. All they needed to do would 
have been to assure the stockmen, the dairymen, the 
poultrymeu. the fruit growers aud the produce growers 
that they could have an open free world market; that 
they would take his product and sell it in this open 
market without profiteering or manipulation, and after 
paying the legitimate cost of the selling, make him 
a correct return and a prompt remittance. With such 
assurance there would be no lack of food for the people 
at home or abroad. Everybody admitted it at the time. 
No legislative committee or executive denied the effic¬ 
iency of such a plan, but instead of adopting it, they 
appealed to the farmer's patriotism to produce food. 
They established food administrations and put food 
profiteers or their agents at the head of every depart¬ 
ment. 
A GENERAL POLICY.—States duplicated the ser¬ 
vice of the Federal Government. Millions were spent 
in administration. No matter whether the administra¬ 
tion was Republican or Democratic, the policy was the 
same, because both were controlled by the same interests. 
Speculators secured a dominating position in the food 
markets that they never attained before. Prices *of 
some products, like wheat, were openly and arbitrarily 
fixed below market value to producers, and others were 
equally reduced by other influences and control. The 
producer was denied the benefit of a competitive market, 
but he was abandoned to the tender mercies of the 
profiteer in prices for things he had to buy. When the 
war ended, the trust speculators were in complete con¬ 
trol of the channels of distribution. For nearly a year 
they held vast quantities of Government, as well as 
speculative food in storage, for speculation, and it was 
not until organized labor threatened revolt that the real 
food situation became known, and the trust-controlled 
governments have been obliged to reveal their secret 
hoardings. The official hysteria would now be more 
convincing of sincerity if the agents and committees of 
reform were not dominated by the same influences that 
are responsible for the conditions. 
NO RELIEF IN SIGHT.—Investigation, prosecu¬ 
tions. fines and imprisonments never encouraged the 
production of food and never will. They never per¬ 
manently reduced the cost of food to consumers and 
never will. They are not intended for any such pur¬ 
pose. Their purpose is to allure people to the hope 
that something effective will be done for their benefit; 
to still protest, to allay excitement and to quell riots 
a temporary concession is made. Some small_ fry is 
sacrificed, but the organized forces are kept in safe 
hands, and when quiet is restored, the records of. in¬ 
vestigations are pigeonholed, fines are abated, prison 
sentences are commuted, and the system returns to 
profit-taking. 
A CHANGE NEEDED.—Under any fair system of 
distribution to encourage production the farms of this 
country would feed the world and. have to spare. We 
are short of food only because we have allowed a pre¬ 
datory class of non-producers and unproductive con¬ 
sumers to build up a control of food distribution that 
makes it unsafe if not impossible for producers to work 
their farms to the full limit of production. The tra¬ 
ditions of feudalism and serfdom still cling to our 
modern concepts of agricultural progress. While this 
partnership continues to exist between the men who 
run our governments and the men who speculate in 
our food products, we have the essence of the feudal 
days with us. It is a difference of degree only. The 
barons did not voluntarily give up the feudal system, 
neither will our modern food barons voluntarily with¬ 
draw from their partnership with high government of¬ 
ficials. If the partnership is ever dissolved, dissolution 
will come through a change in the character of men 
we put at the head of our organized governments. 
$1,000 Invested in a Meeting 
Wages are high in Erie County, N. Y.. and labor i- 
scarce at any price. Day men get from $3 to $6 a day. 
according to their ability. There is of course no going 
rate for farm operators, but all agree that a farm 
operator, particularly one who ranks as successful in 
his own community, is at least worth the maximum 
wage paid day hands. On this basis. 150 Erie County 
Farm Bureau Association committeemen invested $900 
of their own time and about $100 in incidental expenses 
to hold a meeting in Buffalo. Tuesday. August 5. They 
met in the forenoon at the Y. M. C. A., and enjoyed 
moving pictures until all were assembled. All then 
adjourned to the dining-room, where a hearty dinner 
was served. Each man wore a strip of paper with his 
name plainly written on it. and formal introductions 
were not in order. After dinner. President Seymour 
Odell of the Farm Bureau Association called the meet¬ 
ing to order. 
Mr. Odell is a young man. slight in build, but of the 
type that impresses you with the idea that if we were 
back in the old days of pitching hay by hand that he 
would have the window-hole dark. He had little to say. 
but it was to the point. “Erie County has a Farm 
Bureau Association. It never amounted to much until 
this Spring, when you committeemen got busy and 
raised $600 membership to $2,000. You have only 
started. Farmers have got to work out their own sal¬ 
vation : 2.000 farmers can’t do it for the S.000 in Erie 
County. We need more members, a more perfect or¬ 
ganization. It is up to you men !” 
Mr. Odell was followed by other speakers. All hit 
the same point. At least the situation resolved itself 
into a question of how many members should the asso¬ 
ciation go after for 1920. There seemed to be no ques¬ 
tion of getting them. A vote was taken, and the quota 
set at ,4000. Through it all the County Agent had not 
said a word. The representative of the Central Office 
of Farm Bureaus did speak, but merely to say that 
the co-operation extended by State institutions to a 
Farm Bureau Association in maintaining a bureau was 
the same for any county, so that what really made the 
difference in the bureaus was what the local associations 
did. He indicated that he was interested to know what 
there really was to the Erie County Association. 
It was a farmers’ meeting through and through. They 
had invested $1,000 in it. They were good business 
men. They intended to get a return. They got it in 
better acquaintanceship, in a better understanding of 
the possibilities of their farm bureau and how to use it, 
and most of all in increased confidence in each other. 
H. A. 
The vegetable growers of New York State will be 
made welcome at the annual field day of the Williamson 
Vegetable Growers’ Association, which will be held at 
Williamson. Wayne County, on Saturday, Sept. G. 
Among the speakers for the afternoon are Howard 
M. Selby, president of the national association, and 
Prof. II. C. Thompson, head of vegetable gardening at 
Cornell. It is pointed out that growers who plan to 
attend the national meeting at Detroit. Sept. 9-12, will 
be able to take iu the Wayne County meeting and have 
plenty of time to get to Detroit. 
