278 
‘Ibe RURAL NEW-YORKER 
February 19, 1921 
HARDER SILOS 
Many Harder Silos are old enough 
to vote 
Many Harder Silos erected 20, 21 and 22 years ago, are still 
giving perfect service. We have letters from our first customers 
A Primer of Economics 
By John J. Dillon 
Part Xll 
saying so. 
mfmm 
This is because the strong Harder staves are 
interlocked by projecting two-inch galvanized spline 
dowels and by the use of dowell pins. The Harder is 
also securely anchored to the foundation. 
Buy a silo, built to withstand cyclones—built to fit 
your individual needs — built to last a lifetime—a 
Harder Silo. 
Send for interesting free booklet 
Harder Mfg. Corporation, Box 11, Cobleskill, N. Y. 
Good aoailable territory open for lioe agents 
Harder Silo on farm of Geo. E. Martin, 
Middletown, N. Y. 
Road about Pyrox.thecombinedpoisonand fun* 
gicide, in the March 12th issue of this paper. 
For Sale—Soy Beans early'virginia'and wilson 
Free from weed seed. per bush. Send for sample. 
KUSSKLL WYANT, Fallsinolon. Bucks Co.. Pa. 
STRAWBERRY PLANTS 
AH leading standard and everbearing varieties, Rrotvn 
at Selby ville, Del., the largest strawberry center in the 
world.' Plants guaranteed llrst-class and true to name, 
our FREE CATALOG gives prices, descriptions of varieties, 
and complete planting instructions. Write to-day. 
BUNTINGS’ NURSERIES. Box I. Selbyvllle, Delaware 
Dependable SEED CORN 
BUY HIGH QUALITY LUCE* FAVORITE 
SEED CORN AND NINETY DAY SEED CORN 
Grown on my farms, #3.35 and #3 per bu. Re* 
spectively. (.’ash F. <). B., Peconic. 
S. H. SMITH, Peconic, L. I., N. Y. 
The Farmer His 
Own Builder 
By H. Armstrong Roberts 
A practical anti 
handy book of all 
kinds of building 
information from 
concrete to carpen¬ 
try. Price $1.50. 
For sale by 
THE 
RURAL NEW-YORKER 
333 W. 30th St., N. Y. 
ALFALFA 
Consider Purity first m buying seed! 
Weeds kill out young Alfalfa plants. 
Yon plant Weeds if yousowlMPUKB 
SHED. We supply Alfalfa of several 
varieties almost entirely tree from alt 
weeds. Scott’s Seeds represent the 
greatest care in selection and clean¬ 
ing. Scott's Alfalfa is economical to 
sow. Goes farther. Saves loss from 
weeds. Produces large yields. Write 
for Scott's Seed Book. It Contains a. v*r» 
veluable section. How to Know (,ood Seed. 
O. M. SCOTT & SONS CO. 
74 Sixth St. Marysville, Ohio 
Hoffman’s clover 
Seed 
New crop Red—Alsike—Mammoth—Alfalfa;—Sweet. 
Flump—highest purity—hardy-—strong germination. 
Prices Are Lower 
Write today—mention this paper. Get our prices—free 
samples—new catalog. Better seeds bring bigger 
Crops. It pays to buy Farm Seeds of b! 1 kinds from • 
A. H. Hoffman, Inc., Landisville, Lancatler Co.. Pa. 
Frost Proof Cabbage Plants 
Early maturing Cabbage Plants of the best varieties. 
Make cabbage about two weeks earlier than your hot 
house plants. Early Jersey, Charleston Wakefield and 
Succession: * I. .,<> per 1,000 ; 5,000 for #» ; 10,000 for 
# lit.50; 20,000 for #25—by express. Add 11 per thousand 
to above prices if you want, them by parcel post, prepaid. 
S. M. GIBSON COMPANY. Yonges Island, S. C. 
V'4 Danish Cabbag'e Seed 
FOR SALE 
SUPERIOR 
S T R A 
Grown from carefully selected heads, free from all 
disease. This seed has yielded froni2u to 25 tons per 
acretliepastseason and has given good satisfaction 
wherever grown. Sold ata reasonable price. If inter¬ 
ested, write C.J.STAFFO R0, Rural Route No. 3, Cortland, N.Y. 
SALE 400 Bu.0.A.C. 72 OATS 
Re-leaned. Especially stiff straw. #1 per hit. in 
five bn. lots or over. F. O. B. #2.50 bu. Heavy¬ 
weight potatoes. Gibb’s certified seed last spring. 
#3 per 2 bu. sack F. O. B. H. K. COX, Kusli, N. Y. 
POTATO GROWERS! ATTENTION! 
Members of the New York State Potato Association have been spec¬ 
ializing in growing improved strains of the Irish Cobbler, Green Mountain, 
American Giant, Smooth Rural and Russet Rural types of Seed Potatoes. 
You owe it to yourself and to your profession to purchase at 
least enough of this seed this spring for a small plat. Prices are com¬ 
mensurate with the study, labor, expense and experience involved. 
I have a limited amount of Russet Rural seed left for distribution in 
lots not to exceed 5 sacks of 120 lbs. each. Ten years hill selection one 
strain. (See page 137, January issue Rural New-Yorker.) 
FAIRACRES POTATO FARM 
E. Re Smith, Specialist 
KASOAG - - OSWEGO CO., N. Y. 
The greatest problem confronting the 
people of the world today is tb economic 
distribution of food. In this problem co¬ 
operation will find its best opportunities 
for service. The cost of taking food pro¬ 
ducts from the farmer’# hands and leaving 
them at the consumer’s door is altogether 
out of proportion to the price paid the 
producer for them, and bears no equitable 
relation to the necessary cost of the ser¬ 
vice. On the average this cost absorbs 
more than 05 cents of the consumer’s dol¬ 
lar. Farmers produce 87 .per cent of the 
annual wealth of the world in raw ma¬ 
terials, and the middleman system takes 
more than 05 per cent of it for carrying 
it in one shape or another to the con¬ 
sumer. The middleman system is allied 
with tin* railroads, the banks, the storage 
warehouses, manufacturing and process¬ 
ing interests. It is largely a speculating 
business. It is a factor in the great and 
dominating capitalistic system. Tt is all 
dovetailed and interlocked with the polit¬ 
ical system, and it could not exist without 
political favors. The middleman system 
is a virtual monopoly, and no monopoly 
can long exist without government pro¬ 
tection and privileges. A monopoly in 
products always tends to reduce the pro¬ 
duction of food and prices to the producer, 
and at the same time increases cost to the 
consumer and reduces consumption. This 
decreases consumption and cuts off the 
demand. It causes waste, and discourages 
production. Country producers and city 
consumers are common sufferers from the 
effects of this middleman system. 
We are already beginning to feel the 
effect of this policy. Country population 
is virtually at a standstill and in some 
sections is actually decreasing, while city 
population increases with ieajis and 
bounds. To some extent the worst effects 
to be expected from this decrease of’food 
producers has been offset by improved 
farm machinery; hut even with this ad¬ 
vantage the annual volume of food per 
capita is steadily on the decline, and mi 
less someone is to go hungry in the future 
a way must be found to induce people let 
stay on the farms and produce food. 
In the past we have tried to keep the 
hoys and girls on the farm by persuasion, 
and it has failed. Then we tried to ac¬ 
complish the same thing through agricul¬ 
tural education ; and while that has been 
a good tiling in itself, it, too, failed to 
keep the children on the ancestral acres. 
It has taken long years to convince them, 
but men of affairs now face the facts and 
admit that people leave the farms be¬ 
cause they find better opportunities f"i - 
life and fortune in the city. People do 
not desert a paying business. They will 
stay on the farm when it pays a profit. 
Men in the city trades and shops work 
eight hours a day, and tlyir wages are 
two to three time the daily pay for a 
skilled man on his own farm, working 12 
to 14 hours a day, and sometimes longe-. 
The fair basis f<>r the value of things in 
exchange is the amount of labor, skill and 
energy considered necessary to produce 
them. No task in the world requires 
more skill in hand or energy than the 
work on the. farm. Yet the things that 
the farmers sell for money represent from 
two to three hours of his skilled labor, 
while the things he buys with the same 
money represents hut one hour of labor 
in the city shops. This is the fundamen¬ 
tal crime in the whole economic arrange¬ 
ment. When the farm is forced to ex¬ 
change the product of three hours’ work 
for the product of one hour’s time in a 
shop, then the only conclusion is that our 
.system of exchange is a- cheat and a 
swindle. 
Home attempt to justify this unfair ex 
change on the theory that it ct«ts more 
to live in the city. That is true enough, 
but it is true only because the city family 
has more to spend. If the country fam¬ 
ily could have the means of comfort, and 
refinements that the city family enjoys, 
the cost of living in the country would l>e 
higher, too. The city wife awakes in the 
morning in a warm room. Hho touches a 
match to a gas jet and instantly she has 
a hot kitchen fire. She. turns a faucet 
for an abundant supply of cold water. 
She turns another for an equal flow of 
hot water. She presses a button, and 
the dark room is as light as day. Iler 
milk and her food are brought to the door. 
When she wants recreation or enterta’ii- 
men they are within easy reach. The 
children walk around the corner on a 
clean sidewalk to school, or ride a block 
or more in a trolley car. 
The average farm wife dresses in the 
morning in a cold chamber, and kindles 
a slow fire in a cold room. She goes to 
the shed for wood, to the well for water 
and to the barn for milk. She frequently 
helps in the milking, and washes and 
scalds the. dairy utensils that the city 
babies may have sweet, milk. The chil¬ 
dren walk a mile or so to school in the 
snow or mud, in heat, or cold, in sunshine 
or rain. 
The theory once was that the want of 
modern conveniences and comforts in the 
country home was due to some fault in 
the cultural development of country peo¬ 
ple, and that the deficit could be supplied 
or overcome by social workers and uplift 
commissions. The scales have fallen from 
such eyes, too. We yet have scoffers, but 
sensible men begin to see that modern 
comforts multiply in the country just as 
fast as the means of the people permit. 
When men and women on the farms go 
without the comforts that city people en¬ 
joy it is because the product of an hon¬ 
est day's work on the farm does not ex¬ 
change in tlie market for the product of 
equal time and equal skill in the factory 
or city shop. The reason is that the man 
who manages the factory or 'shop esti¬ 
mates the cost and sets his own price on 
the products. The farmer pays that price 
for his Supplies. The farmer, however, 
does not set the price for his own pro¬ 
ducts. The price on them is made by the 
dealer or speculator—by the middleman 
system of monopoly—and the price is not 
a fair or a just one. 
The essential tiling is that the farmer 
put himself in a position to make the price 
of his own product. The marketing of 
the crop is the business of the farmer. 
The production processes are not com¬ 
plete until the goods are in the hands of 
the consumer. The farmer cannot per¬ 
sonally follow his goods through to the 
consumer, and that is why, he needs a 
well-organized co-operative agency to sell 
the goods for him collectively, under his 
own direction and control. The properly 
organized co-ojx*rative system is the oeo 
nomical machinery f<>r the marketing job. 
Where it has been operated with greatest 
success the producers of a community in a 
particular line organize a co-operative 
corporation for the assembling, process¬ 
ing. packing, grading and shipping of the 
goods. The local farmers are the mem- 
hers of the local association. The asso¬ 
ciation owns the factory, cold storage 
house, creamery, packing shed or what¬ 
ever plant and equipment is needed. It 
ie financed by the local members, and 
while located elsewhere it is just as much 
a part of the equipment of the farm as 
the barn or the well or the fences on the 
farm. The raw goods are delivered to the 
plant by the grower, except when a sys¬ 
tem of gathering is organized by the as¬ 
sociation to take the goods at the farms. 
The association operates the plant, and 
sells all it can dispose of to the local 
trade.' The remainder is finished, treated, 
graded, packed and shipped as a finished 
product to distant markets. To maintain 
uniformity of quality the central agency 
is sometimes authorized to employ ex¬ 
perts and instructors to visit the local 
plants, and to advise and if necessary 
enforce sanitary regulation and good man¬ 
ufacturing practice. The general plan, 
however, is to make the local plant re¬ 
sponsible for the grade and quality of pro¬ 
ducts. The work, whether local or cen¬ 
tral, is directed by a board of trustees, 
hut where most successful it is conducted 
by an experienced manager selected by 
the board. 
