The RURAL NEW-YORKER 
O 
o 
A Dozen 
to the 
'jlN the average when a city woman pays 
one dollar for food the farmer back in the 
country who produced it, receives 35 cents. 
In some cases it is even less than that, and 
most people have wondered where the 65 
l!===== cents goes to. It will be quite evident to 
anyone who looks into the matter that most of the 
retailers in a city like New York are not getting 
rich. Many of them have a struggle for existence. 
They do business largely on borrowed capital, and 
work on a very small margin. There are too many 
of them. The other day we made a personal can¬ 
vass of both sides of Seventh Avenue, New York, 
from Twenty-first to Thirty-first Streets. This 
would mean 20 city blocks. We found 256 stores, 
divided as follows: 
Candy, 8; jewelry, 4; cigar, 16; lunch and restau¬ 
rant, 32; saloons, 6; printer, 1; boat supplies, 1; sur¬ 
gical instruments, 1; drug stores, 9; art stores, 1; 
furniture, 6; delicatessen, 10; barber, 5; newsstand, 
6; theater, 3; bakery, 4; stationery, 2; electric de¬ 
vices, 3; storage, 1; markets, 17; tailor, 3; hardware, 
4; grocer, 6; hotel, 4; wallpaper, 2; glassware, 2; 
billiards, 2; cleaning and dyeing, 3; upholstery, 1; 
retailers, all struggling for trade—each forced to 
buy as cheaply as possible and to get all he can for 
the goods. The wholesalers squeeze them in price 
and the landlord squeezes them on rent, and the 
city squeezes the landlord for taxes. The result is 
that all these rents, fees, taxes, losses from unsold 
goods, blackmail and all the rest of it are added to 
the price. This means that all these items are paid 
by the consumer and the farmer—mostly by the 
latter. The consumer, unable to live and pay rent 
at any ordinary income demands higher and higher 
wages and as wages are pushed up the employer 
charges more and more for his goods so that it all 
comes back finally on the farmer and the consumer. 
As the city grows larger there is more and more 
demand for graft, expensive buildings, high salaries, 
and “welfare work” to provide free care for the 
great tribes of poor and improvident workmen who 
are slowly coming to represent something of the 
“rabble” which in the old days of Rome dominated 
the city and compelled even the powerful emperors 
to grant their demands. New York is actually 
be a stupendous task. We have little belief that 
the government or the politicians will ever give 
really serious help. We must do it. ourselves, and 
it is a job which calls for all the capital, the pa¬ 
tience and the faith of country people. 
Transplanting Cotton Plants 
R EFERRING to recent article in regard to ex¬ 
periments in growing cotton in Northern and 
Eastern States, possibly an experiment which proved 
successful in Imperial Valley, California, may in¬ 
terest your readers. The account was given me 
several years ago, when I visited California, by 
the man who tried the experiment. You are aware 
that the Imperial \ alley is located in the southern 
pait of California and is a desert, except the part 
that has been reclaimed by irrigation. While the 
days are hot, the nights are quite cool. My friend 
said it occuned to him that if cotton plants were 
started in cold frames, or a greenhouse, and trans¬ 
planted as tomato plants are in other parts of the 
country, the plants would get an earlier start, and 
A Pair of Pigs Brought up by Hand. Fig. 2 
pawnbroker o; agency, 2; florist, 2; sewing maehin 
i; shoes, 10; undertaker, 2; real estate, 1; clothin 
r!u; 10 store, 5; hats, 3; millinery, 6; music, 5 
chiropodist, 1; photo, 3- dry goods, 6; optician, S 
soft drinks, 3 ; cobbler, 2 ; fruit stands, 2 ; furni.shir 
goods, 16; bank, 1; fish market, 1; furs, 2; laundry, 4 
dentist, 3; sign painter, 1; wire, 1. 
A few years ago there were more than 30 saloon 
As these have disappeared eating-houses have take 
their place. All over lower New York much tt 
same thing will be found. In the territory serve 
by these 256 stores there are about 10,000 peopL 
So closely packed are these people that 30 store 
could easily serve them all. It is safe to say tha 
more than 200 of them are superfluous. Many cit 
people are inclined to sneer at farmers because the 
do not co-operate, yet here is a glaring instance c 
just how not to do it. All these separate store 
must pay tremendous rent. In one case a lift! 
narrow cubby-hole on a street corner rents for $1,- 
500 a year! Something like 1,500 people are em¬ 
ployed in all these stores. Less than 500 could 
easily serve all customers if storekeepers would co¬ 
operate, cut down the number of stores and serve 
customers direct. The extravagant rents and high 
labor charges are largely responsible for the high 
prices charged for goods. The high rents are kept 
op through competition — storekeepers blindly 
competing with each other by keeping too 
many stores open. The land-owner is faxed 
to the limit, and must demand high rents in order 
to live. It becomes one big game of grab. Too many 
coming more and more to the condition where great 
throngs of people, mostly of foreign blood, domi¬ 
nate the political situation. There is nothing 
healthy about it. It is about the most un-American 
problem we have in the nation, and we may see 
from this brief description of one small crowded 
spot how it affects prices of food and thus the 
farmer. 
Any remedy? If it comes at all it will be of very 
slow growth from the farm. We cannot think of 
any legislation that would reduce the number of 
those competing stores on Seventh Avenye or make 
some of these lazy consumers combine to do their 
own marketing and carrying. The work of chang¬ 
ing the system will finally be done by farmers. They 
will have to find a way to combine their money and 
their goods, and learn to operate chain stores to 
meet the city demand. With the opening of the new 
tunnels under the Hudson vast quantities of prod¬ 
uce can be sent by trucks direct from the farm to 
the city. Farmers will learn to combine their money 
in banks under their own control, as the labor 
unions have done. With this capital a business in 
selling farm produce direct can be established and 
developed until a larger number of the present com¬ 
peting stores fade away—greatly to the advantage 
of everyone except the grafters and politicians who 
will lose some of their plunder whenever the busi¬ 
ness is run on straight economic principles. That 
is the ultimate solution of the matter, and it will 
have a longer growing season than if the seed were 
planted where the plants were to grow—the com¬ 
mon practice. I do not remember what he told me 
in regard to area planted, but only that the experi¬ 
ment was a complete success. lie stated that the 
field was the most thrifty and the yield larger than 
any of his neighbors had. Of course croakers tried 
to discourage him when he proposed making the ex¬ 
periment, but he had the courage to go ahead, and 
Proved to his own satisfaction that his theory was 
correct. I did not visit that part of the State my¬ 
self, so do not know whether others profited by his 
experience, but he stated that the quality and quan¬ 
tity of fiber produced more than compensated for 
the extra expense incurred by his methods. 
vv, Lliv n IOC A** 
xxujyt: Burnt; UJL 
your readers will be willing to try this experiment. 
W. M. BAILEY. 
Virginia. 
,K. A.-\. We think some of our readers have tried 
this plan of transplanting, but without great success. 
Our impression is that the cotton plant, for some 
reason, does not succeed when transplanted like to¬ 
mato, pepper or eggplant. It is very doubtful if 
the plan would pay—still it is worth trying by those 
who like to experiment. Of course the Southern 
growers will smile at the idea, but in many parts 
of the North plants of tomato, eggplant and pepper 
aie transplanted by the million and, in some cases 
acres of potatoes are handled in the same way. 
