‘Jfte RURAL NEW-YORKER 
639 
The Downing School Bill is Dead 
But Watch Out for Its Ghost 
FTER the great hearing at Albany on March 
19 it was generally believed that the school bill 
^as dead for this year. It did not seem possible 
that any Legislature would pass a bill in the face 
of such determined opposition. Yet on April 2 the 
daily papers stated that Mrs. Yanderlip and Mrs. 
Mitchell, wealthy women interested in the Women's 
League of Voters, had influenced Albany political 
leaders to bring the bill to life. It does not seem very 
clear just what these ladies have to do with rural 
schools, hut we know enough about politics to re¬ 
alize that it often causes strange grouping of people. 
The idea that a Legislature would listen to a group 
of society women and disregard the wishes of 
thousands of farmers seemed preposterous, yet the 
assertion was confidently made that such was to be 
the result. The actual result was that the Re¬ 
publicans of the Assembly met and voted to kill the 
Downing bill. When the actual test came the bill 
had few defenders. It is dead for this year— but 
beware its ghost. It was voted at this meeting to 
appoint a committee to confer with the Department 
of Education and the Committee of Twenty-one to 
prepare a “permissive” bill which may be crowded 
through this Legislature. This committee consists 
ol Mr. Hutchinson, who sponsored the school bill last 
year; Mr. Porter, who backed it this year, and 
Speaker Machold—all in favor of the Downing bill! 
This is the most dangerous move yet. Unless farm¬ 
ers act promptly a measure even more offensive 
than the Downing bill will he thrust upon us during 
the next few days. This move has been anticipated, 
and we doubt if it will work, but the school men 
have a strong lobby at Albany, while the farmers 
have no complete organization yet. Let every op¬ 
ponent of the bill write his Assemblyman at once 
demanding that there be no school legislation this 
gear unless the opposition have full chance to study 
it before it is passed. Act at once! 
Strong-arm School Bill Methods 
T HE following note comes from a man who is on 
the inside. We know him to be reliable, but 
for obvious reasons it would not be fair to print his 
name now: 
T Your report on the Albany meeting is full of interest. 
You are right in stating that the people in the rural 
sections are against that bill. However, you are mis¬ 
taken about the rural superintendents. But you do not 
know, I think, that several superintendents have been 
called to Albany before the Commissioner because they 
have opposed the bill! 
One superintendent in a meeting of a county Grange 
was called upon to give his opinion of the bill, and 
stated that he did not favor the bill, and then read as 
his reasons certain parts of the speech of Dr. Wheelock 
(an address given in Albany before the meeting of the 
State Association of Superintendents, October, 1922). 
That superintendent was called to Albany and told 
that as he was a member of the State Department he 
should support the bill, which was a department meas¬ 
ure, or get out of the State Department. Other super¬ 
intendents have had much of the same kind of experi¬ 
ence! This may explain to you why they were not at 
Albany, or if they were there, why they did not speak 
against the bill! 
There are men in the department at Albany who do 
not favor this bill. Some of them have been disciplined, 
or so it has been reported. I am writing this that you 
may know some of the inside forces working for the 
bill. 
We have heard much about the strong-arm meth¬ 
ods employed by the Department of Education in at¬ 
tempting to force this bill through the Legislature. 
These methods are quite well understood, and this 
understanding accounts in large part for the un¬ 
doubted lack of confidence which the country people 
have in the backers of the school bill. As we learn 
more and more about the tactics employed by the 
various organizations which have supported the bill, 
their failure to put it through seems all the more 
remarkable. They have had every advantage of or¬ 
ganization and political prestige, all the power of 
established institutions, apparently a good supply of 
money, and also the argumentative advantage of 
compelling the opposition to prove the negative. The 
opposition was absolutely unorganized; the volun¬ 
teer leaders did not even know each other to start 
with; they had absolutely no money to spend—noth¬ 
ing but volunteer service from busy men and women 
who, for the most part, could not leave home. Un¬ 
der these circumstances we feel safe in saying that 
it was the most remarkable uprising of popular rural 
sentiment ever known in New York State. And it 
has only started! 
Grades for Selling Farm Produce 
A NY adventure in farm marketing, whether in¬ 
dividually or collectively, runs up against the 
problem of grades and standards of products. The 
commission dealer always finds his excuse for a 
low price in the explanation that the goods were of 
a poor grade, and arrived in bad condition. Some¬ 
times this is true, and sometime it is not true. The 
buyer of carlots at fixed price, terminal delivery, 
usually accepts the shipment on a rising market, but 
if the car arrived after or during a slump in price 
the shipment is “rejected” on account of poor qual¬ 
ity, and the shipper is offered a lower price, or re¬ 
quested to release for what the market will bring. 
The system is not carried out to the uniform extent 
in which it was practiced some years back, but there 
is enough of it yet to make a serious problem. 
When New York State provided the first State 
Market Department in this country, provision was 
made to establish standard grades to protect the 
shipper in the markets. The idea was not to keep 
the low grades out of the market, and not to exclude 
ungraded products, but to make it possible for fann¬ 
ers and farm associations to ship high-class products 
in standard grades, and receive prices for them con¬ 
sistent with their quality. When shipped “run of 
the field,” the products usually sell as the lowest 
grade in the lot, and in some lines dealers sort them 
and get the benefit of the higher grades. Before 
the department got its grading program under way, 
the Whitman cyclone to win the war struck it, and 
the work was for a time delayed. 
Recently, however, H. Deane Philips, director of 
the Bureau of Markets, in the Department of 
Farms and Markets, who takes his position seriously, 
has taken up the work in co-operation with the U. S. 
Department of Agriculture. The Federal Depart¬ 
ment has now been at the work two years, and has 
operated in 29 States. In 1923, 72,000 carloads were 
inspected and certified. The U. S. standard grades 
are used, and the field work is generally carried on 
jointly with the State bureaus or departments. 
In New York State the inspectors engaged in the 
work are employes of the State Department of 
Farms and Markets, and are also licensed as Federal 
inspectors by the U. S. Department of Agriculture. 
The certificate which is issued when an inspection 
is completed sets forth in detail the condition of the 
car and its contents at the time of inspection, in¬ 
dicating the percentage of decay and other defects 
in the product, size, and whether the load as a whole 
meets the requirements of the standard U. S. grades. 
This certificate is admissible as prima facie evidence 
in both State and Federal courts, and hence is evi¬ 
dence of very great value to the shipper in prevent¬ 
ing unjust rejections in the terminal markets, and as 
the basis of claims against the transportation com¬ 
pany in case of loss or damage in transit. 
Use of the service by shippers is entirely volun¬ 
tary. A fee of $4 per car is charged for making the 
inspection and issuing the certificate. A portion of 
this fee goes to the Federal government, and the 
remainder is paid into the treasury of the State of 
New York. The aim is to make the service as nearly 
self-supporting as possible. In time it is hoped that 
it can thus be made completely self-sustaining. 
The work in New York State was started in Oc¬ 
tober, 1922, in the Steuben-Allegany potato district, 
and was continued during the potato shipping season 
of 1922-1923. During this first season a total of 903 
cars of potatoes were inspected and certified. Dur¬ 
ing the present season the work has been expanded 
to include inspection of cabbage as well as potatoes 
and the service has been offered at a total of 92 dif¬ 
ferent shipping points—a considerable expansion 
over last year. During the season from October to 
March 15, a total of 807 cars of potatoes and 419 
cars of cabbage have been inspected. 
The fees collected for the service under the ex¬ 
isting financial policy of the State cannot be used to 
finance the work, but must all be turned into the 
State treasury. The work can be expanded there¬ 
fore only as the Legislature makes specific appro¬ 
priations for carrying it on. Because of this it has 
been impossible to furnish the service at many points 
where it has been requested. This demand has been 
not only for the inspection of potatoes and cabbage 
but also for the expansion of the service to include 
other commodities especially peaches, lettuce, onions, 
apples, pears and hay. 
The purposes of the service are to demonstrate 
the correct use of the standard U. S. grades, and to 
provide a means of official certification at shipping- 
point as to the grade and condition of farm products 
loaded into cars for shipment, to the end that sales 
may be facilitated, marketing costs and risks less¬ 
ened through the avoidance of disputes and rejec¬ 
tions, and proper adjustments made for loss and 
damage in transit. 
The work is educational in that it demonstrates 
the utility of U. S. grades, but at the s’ame time it 
is an official means to certification to glides at ship¬ 
ping points. The ultimate purpose is to facilitate 
sales, avoid disputes and rejections, and to ease the 
way to adjustment of losses or other claims in trans¬ 
it or in the market. 
Local dealers as well as farm shippers have testi¬ 
fied to the success of the service in their own cases. 
The two years’ trial indicates that this is a develop¬ 
ment that has come to stay, and that it promises a 
real service in the marketing of farm products. 
Farm Hand Dies Rich 
OUIS F. LATZER was the son of a poor im¬ 
migrant from the Tyrol. He was born in 1S48, 
and was employed as a hired man until he was 37 
years of age. He then became interested in a scheme 
to can milk, which failed. At the age of 40 he went 
to college, studied chemistry and dairy bateriology, 
and finally developed the process of evaporating 
milk in vacuum to produce our now familiar form 
of condensed milk. Last week he died on the farm 
on which he was born near Highland, Ill. At the 
time of his death he was estimated to be worth 
$ 20 , 000 , 000 . 
Mr. Latzer was president of the Helvetia Milk 
Condensing Company and the Pet Condensed Milk 
Company. The stock of the former company at one 
time sold around $10 for $100 share, but for years 
now it has paid $1,000 a share. The last sale of 
the stock reported was 176 shares by Mrs. Louise 
Wilde of St. Louis, widow of one of the founders 
for $3,520,000 or $20,000 a share. 
Everyone in this country rejoices in the progress 
of a man who raises himself from a lowly state to 
a position of increased usefulness. All are willing 
to reward the man who contributes to a public ser¬ 
vice. With all the millions reported as having been 
made in the condensed milk business, however, it 
seems that the bulk of the profits spread far beyond 
the original discoverer of the process; and that the 
vast fortunes amassed from the business have re¬ 
sulted not from any economy in production or dis¬ 
tribution, but from circumstances that have made it 
possible for the manufacturers to buy the raw ma¬ 
terial below the cost of production. 
Fewer Cows in New York State— 
More in the Corn Belt 
T HE number of milk cows in New York State is 
28,000 less than the number at this time last 
year according to the estimates prepared by the 
United States Department of Agriculture and the 
New York State Department of Farms and Markets. 
The official estimate is 1,400,000 milk cows and 
heifers two years old or older on the farms January 
1. A year ago the number was 1,428,000. Reduc¬ 
tion in the number of cows, which amounts to about 
2 per cent, has been due to several causes, but chiefly 
to the recent drop in the price of milk, the very short 
pastures-during the latter part of the Summer which 
materially increased the cost of producing milk, the 
high cost of farm labor, and the campaign against 
tuberculosis which caused nearly 50,000 cattle to be 
condemned for slaughter in this State during 1923. 
The number of yearling heifers on the farms of 
this State is also at the lowest point in years, the 
number being estimated at 228,000 compared with 
250,000 a year ago. The chief cause of the reduction 
is the very low price of milk which prevailed in the 
Spring of 1922. This so discouraged dairy farmers 
at that time that they did not raise enough calves. 
In the Spring of 1923 the price of milk was much 
more encouraging and about the usual number of 
calves were raised. 
There is an increased number of dairy cows and 
heifers in all the beef producing States north of the 
Ohio River and west of Pennsylvania. In the New 
England States and in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 
Delaware and Maryland, taken together, the number 
of cows and heifers is almost exactly the same as it 
was a year ago. 
The number of horses on the farms of this State 
has declined from 510,000 a year ago to 505,000 this 
year. 
The number of sheep in the State has increased 
from 532,000 a year ago to 543,000 this year. This 
is probably a temporary increase due to the present 
high price of wool. There has also been a slight in¬ 
crease in the number of hogs on the farms of the 
State, the number January 1 being estimated at 557,- 
000 compared with 546,000 a year ago. 
What about planting apple trees in land so wet that 
the water stands on it in Spring? Never do it if you 
want an orchard. Any variety that will stand wet feet 
better than others? We should say Northern Spy, 
