TO* RURAL NEW-YORKER 
124.5 
Who is your Candidate for Governor? 
Farmers’ interest in the ballot for choice for 
Governor is one of the most encouraging demonstra¬ 
tions of farm initiative in the state affairs, when 
they get a chance to express themselves, that we have 
ever witnessed. The votes even in these busy har¬ 
vest days are coming in by every mail. The intelli¬ 
gence and enthusiasm of the voters go beyond 
our request. First and second choice are often 
given: and in almost every case the whole family 
expresses a choice, which is not always for the same 
candidate. Some families give seven votes. The 
vote in the referendum for a State meeting is almost 
unanimous in favor of it. 
We print the ballots once more for the conveni¬ 
ence of those who have not yet voted. 
THE BALLOT 
0 Liberty Hyde Bailey. Tompkins 
0 Frank.M. Bradley, Niagara 
Q Seth J. T. Bush, Monroe 
Israel T. Deyo. Broome 
0 Samuel Fraser, Livingston 
0 Elon II. Hooker. Monroe 
0 Wesley O. Howard. Rensselaer 
r - Francis M. Hugo, Jefferson 
0 Nathan L. Miller, Onondaga 
0 Ogden L. Mills, New York 
0 John Lord O'Brian, Erie 
0 William Church Osborne. Putnam 
0 Eugene H. Porter. Broome 
0 Henry M. Sage, Albany 
0 Alfred E. Smith. New York 
0 Silas L. Strivings. Wyoming 
0 Tliaddeus C. Sweet. Oswego 
0 William Boyce Thompson. Westchester 
0 George F. Thompson. Orleans 
0 Eugene M. Travis, Kings 
0 George F. Warren. Tompkins 
_ 
If your choice is not in the list write it on this line 
REFERENDUM 
Would you be in favor of calling a State meeting 
of farmers to formulate farm needs and policies and 
to suggest candidates who would be acceptable to 
farmers? 
□ YES 0 NO 
For convenience in clipping the ballot is repeated 
la the last column of page 1254 . Mark it and send 
i': your vote. Do not forget to vote the referendum. 
To Handle Trespassing Boarders 
Be are having some trouble with our neighbor. He 
a.s tilled his house and most of his buildings with 
'Joiners, the scum of New York. They go where they 
mease. Beside the road there grow wild strawberries. 
11ns year they are large, and fruit is very scarce with 
us The man who owns the farm says I have no more 
right to them than these roomers have. They do not 
s toj> with these, but go in the fields and pick them, and 
will not stop for my telling them to stay out. Yesterday 
vo- took the gun down and shot it off. We did not go 
"lit of our fields. Ho said lie could not keep them on 
las own premises when I ordered him to. because he has 
a* be in the fields to work. We also have cherry trees 
standing along the fence along the road. I would }iko 
"> know who is entitled to this fruit. Two years' ago, 
j a another side of us. we cut down a good pear tree to 
ueo|. peace. This was standing in the field a few feet 
from the fence. They stole the pears for several years. 
1 do uot want to cut down all my fruit trees. We have 
a ‘"Ug road front on one side of the road. How far can 
'' 0 go.' I would like to know who is entitled to this 
nit. How far can we go? We do not even know the 
names of these people so wo could get a warrant. 
New York. G. F. 
All trees or fruit standing or lying on land within 
fhe bounds of any highway shall he for the use of 
die owner or occupant of the land adjoining the 
ighway. subject always to the fact that the trees 
utay be required for use on the roads or bridges of 
die town. In other words, the owner of property 
adjoining a highway gives merely the use of the 
land as a roadway to the town and for all other 
purposes than as a road or to help build and uiain- 
I iiu the road. The owner still controls it, and is 
entitled to the fruits thereof. 
You may. therefore, keep all people from picking 
fruit or berries from the roadside adjoining your 
property. Your right to pick them is paramount to 
all others. In regard to trespassers, if they become 
too bothersome and will not scare when a gun is 
discharged near them, get a force together (say three 
men ) sufficient to capture them and hold them until 
you can send for a constable (or have him there) 
and have them all taken before a justice of the 
peace. It might be well to have a few "No Trespass’’ 
signs put up in prominent places, and then notify the 
owner of the boarding house that you will have the 
trespassing hoarders arrested. m. d. 
Straight Talk About Public Matters 
An old friend, now in the West, writes us a breezy 
letter about public matters and public needs. Speak¬ 
ing of Commissioner Charles S. Wilson in the early 
days, he says: 
When Charles took that job at Albany five years ago 
the people at Geneva said : ‘‘Charley is a nice fellow, 
hut he has never had to fight. He has had a fine 
home., been sent to school, all rough edges smoothed off 
for him ; he has been teaching; wherever he has gone it 
has been ‘Prof. Wilson of Cornell will now give a talk.’ 
Everyone has agreed with him ; at Albany he jvill find 
scores of people who will try to beat him at everv turn 
of the road. Unless he learns to fight and tell them 
where they get off he will have a hard road to travel.” 
No man ever went into public office with finer 
character or higher ideals than Charles S. Wilsou. 
He comes out of office with clean hands and the 
same desire to be of true service; but the politicians 
have beaten him. We only wish he had gone down 
fighting, covered with scars and hands which show 
blood where he punched the common enemy. 
A man may have high ideals and carry them safely 
at home without great exertion. When he gets into 
politics or into office he must defend his ideals as 
a wildcat would defend her young. If he will not 
fight for them they will be taken out and drowned. 
The pacifist without any punch has no business go¬ 
ing up against the wild beasts that prowl around 
Capitol Hill. It is the shotgun for them or else a 
nice breakfast, and they will eat it. 
I said last Summer, when 1 was in Ontario County, 
that Charley ought to quit 'then, while the going was 
good. He might go into the Assembly or Senate and 
learn some politics, and possibly qualify for Congress¬ 
man if Millionaire Norman ,T. Gould would give up 
Screno Payne’s shoes. If Charley would learn to scrap, 
keep his honesty and make a study of the job. he might 
be a genuine farmer Congressman. 
Right! We need men in Congress who are land- 
owners and know what farmers need: but they will 
be useless until they learn how to fight and “go to 
the mat” with the "undesirable citizens” who roost, 
like vultures, around every place where laws are 
made and the rights of the people are bought and 
sold. Most men say: ‘•You can’t do anything! Wlmt 
can one honest man do for reform?” Did you ever 
see a little kingbird drive a hawk or a crow to shel¬ 
ter? The kingbird is only one-tenth of the hawk’s 
size, but he is a fighter, and the hawk knows it. 
Unless a Congressman knows how to fight and will 
fight, he is no better than an errand boy to farmers. 
I am not in favor of food being massed in cities and 
held there by a few people. I am in favor of country 
elevators and country cold storages being owned by the 
1 roducers. who will send it in to the city when notified 
by their city salesman. I think every bit could be 
cheeked up and the amount of visible supply known to 
farm organizations from season to season. 
Something of that sort must follow iu the future 
or America will go on half rations. We should know 
under such a system just how much food there is 
in the country. Under present conditions no one 
can tell. The country producer through these store¬ 
houses would have to be fair with prices and would 
be. since it would be to bis interest to be so. The 
present profiteers are not even human beings in their 
efforts to rob the public. 
I think all the canneries might be owned by the 
growers, and I see no reason why their product could 
net be sold just as well as it is now, if the growers will 
learn how to do so. I don’t see why young fellows 
cannot stay in a village and become managers of such 
business as well as going to New York and doing the 
same thing. If a young man will go to college, study 
economic business, spend his Summers working for the 
present companies, and then qualify for the manager 
for a growers’ company, he is going to get just as much 
money for it. 
Who can or will deny it? There is no economy 
in our present system. It is based on the idea of 
sending all wealth ami most of the population into 
the big cities—the very place where it does least 
good to the nation and works out most harm. One 
of the biggest tilings we have before us now is to 
show our bright young men that in the future the 
town and small-sized city are to offer better oppor¬ 
tunities than the big. overgrown city. We have got 
to make that opportunity, if we are to make America 
“safe for Americans.” 
I look for the produce and meat companies to attempt 
to control the canning and packing machinery in order 
to shut off growers’ associations from getting it. I 
would advise any organization like the Grange Associa¬ 
tion at Syracuse to look up the matter of getting stock 
in some of these very vital canning machine companies 
to shut off this freezing-out process which can occur. 
1 he California people seem to have devised their own 
machinery and own it. also the citrus and nut people. 
I- rom what I can deduct it may happen that the or¬ 
ganized people of this country will make up three rings 
merchants and manufacturers, organized labor, and the 
farmers; the first, of course, being the best organized 
and -the farmers held back by the individualitv of farm 
conditions. 
Our friend certainly gives us things to think 
about—and we have all got to consider them before 
long. The next great social and business develop¬ 
ment in this country is to be along the lines of co¬ 
operative buying and selling. For several years 
now farmers have been studying and working slowly 
along the road. As is always the case with such 
movements, the moment they get past the experi¬ 
mental stage and find solid ground to stand on. they 
take up speed and go ahead faster and faster. The 
thing is now coming, and it will be impossible to 
head it off. That is one great reason why we must 
have at Albany during the next two years a man 
who understands farm problems, who will be respon¬ 
sive to farm demands, and who will not stop to play 
politics when he ought to be working for the people. 
* 
Saving $35,000,000 for Farmers 
The greatest co-operative movement in America is 
now under way in the Middle West, where Farm Bureau 
organizations are organizing a combination for market¬ 
ing the bulk of the grain. A saving will be made for 
producer and consumer, though some of the profiteering 
speculators will be left outside the arrangement. 
The farmers discovered that it costs them $35,000,000 
a year in commissions to market their grain through the 
various boards of trade, and these figures do not include 
the $ 100 , 000,000 which the grain speculators rake in 
each year because they have the advantage over the 
farmer. 
The plan involves the establishment of co-operative 
grain elevators in each community, financed strongly 
enough to handle the business of the community. It is 
planned to put the elevator in a position to carry its 
proportion of grain from the period of marketing to the 
period of consumption, thus eliminating the need of 
speculative capital. 
Grain would be shipped by the shortest and least ex¬ 
pensive route from the point of production, excluding 
all except essential handling. Equipment for drying 
grain would be installed in each of the new elevators, 
thus doing away with the loss of grain by spoiling. This 
would also eliminate the hauling of moisture iu grain 
shipments. The plants would be large enough to carry 
their proportion of grain from the favorable year, when 
excess production occurs, to the less favorable seasons, 
when the supply must be obtained from the carry over. 
A central clearing house is to be established to 
function as a brokerage to insure the most direct con- 
nectiou possible between producer and consumer, u hen 
enough of these farmers’ elevators have been established 
to warrant it. They intend also to own terminals, coal 
mines, sawmills and other business essential to promote 
the maximum efficiency. 
Thus an army of middlemen supplying the farmers at 
present and demanding a rake-off in the form of profits 
would be eliminated, and one manager in each com¬ 
munity would transact the same business for the farmers 
as a dozen men at present, with a dozen profits. The 
clearing-house would replace the board of trade as a 
grain marketing agency, all Middle Western grain being 
sold through one co-operative marketing agency. 
This entire plan is after that employed by the 
world’s greatest farmers’ co-operative agency, the Union 
Grain Growers, Ltd., of Canada, and a committee of 
Middle Western grain farmers have visited Canada 
recently and learned how Canadian farmers successfully 
deliver the grain from their field to the consumer, saving 
themselves millions of dollars annually. 
As the present marketing conditions exist iu our grain 
States, the farmer is forced to sell into the hands of 
speculative capital which, when it once gets possession 
of the bulk of the crop, advances the price beyond all 
reason to the consumer. The American Farm Bureau 
Federation feels that when a reasonable price, con¬ 
sistent with the cost of production, hazard, frequency 
of turnover and a reasonable profit, is obtained, then 
a farther advance is harmful because of ihe injustice to 
the city consumer and the excessive cost to the farmer 
consumer. 
The money spent for commissions in marketing on 
board of trade would in a few years build all the ter¬ 
minals ami other equipment needed by the new asso¬ 
ciation. E. w. G. 
