'Iht RURAL NEW-YORKER 
Meeting of the Milk Committee 
A T Utica, on July 12, the Milk Committee opened 
the door wide for the return of the members 
of the League to the committee work. The new 
chairman, Roscoe P. Sargeant, read a strong letter 
that kp had written to the three League members 
appealing to them in the interest of the dairy in¬ 
dustry to return and continue the work. The dis¬ 
position of some visitors to criticize the League was 
discouraged, and the original policy of the committee 
to refrain from all criticism of the past and to con¬ 
fine itself to constructive measures for the future 
was restored. 
Provision was made for adding three members to 
the committee. Mr. C. F. Bigler, who is acting 
president of the association and also president of 
the Holstein-Freisian Association, was appointed 
one of the members, with authority to select two 
others. The State Dairymen’s Association was at 
one time a very strong organization. Of late its 
activities have been limited to holding an annual 
meeting, but the purpose now is to renew its for¬ 
mer status. If the League members return the 
committee will consist of 18 members instead of 
the former 15 members. 
A sub-committee of five was also appointed to 
make a thorough study of the present critical milk 
situation and to report at the next meeting. This 
committee is Roscoe Sargeant, chairman, C. Fred 
Boschart, C. F. Bigler, Chas. F. Newton, and F. W. 
Lauder. The resolution to appoint the sub-commit¬ 
tee was offered by Mr. Boschart as follows: 
“Whereas, the dairy interest in this State is faced 
with such deplorable conditions that is is imperative 
some action must be taken to save our dairy farmers 
from bankruptcy, and 
“Whereas, the farmers are receiving for fluid milk a 
cash payment ruinously low, compared with cash net 
payments of cheese factories to patrons, and 
“Whereas, this critical condition of our dairy farm¬ 
ers call for speedy relief, and in order to facilitate 
united action that might procure for our dairymen their 
just dues, therefore be it 
“Resolved: That the chairman of the Committee of 
Fifteen appoint a Committee of Five, of which the 
chairman shall be an ex-officio member to thoroughly 
consider the present critical milk situation and report 
at the next meeting with such recommendations as the 
committee may deem advisable.” 
A joint statement by the president of the Massa¬ 
chusetts and Vermont Agricultural Colleges was read. 
Tt cautioned dairy farmers of New England against 
the centralized type of organization and the policy 
of controlling prices of milk through a monopoly. It 
favored the organization of local farm-owned plants, 
and, when desirable, the federation of these into 
regional groups. A resolution proposed by Mr. 
Lauder was adopted approving the joint recom¬ 
mendations by the heads of the two New England 
agricultural colleges, and commended it to the con¬ 
sideration of- New York State dairymen. 
Mr. Bigler brings an important interest to the 
committee. It includes not only the State Dairy 
Association, but also and more important the whole 
breeding interests represented by the IIolstein-Frie- 
sian Association. These breeders are men of pro¬ 
gressive ideas, and liberal business experience. Mr. 
Bigler said it was planned to have a director of the 
State Dairy Association in every county of the State, 
and he proposed to use it to help solve this milk 
problem. It is, he said, important to restore con¬ 
fidence between dairymen everywhere, and to avoid 
creating more ill-feeling between groups. Co-opera¬ 
tion is based on good will, confidence and mutual 
help. Any attempt to stir up ill-will or strife among 
dairymen is a discouragement to co-operation. 
It is earnestly hoped that the League members 
will return to the committee. The chairman and 
many members of the committee have made it clear 
that their attendance and help are desired. It does 
not seem that they can consistently remain away. 
If co-operation is good for farmers, it must also be 
good for the leaders of their groups. The little dif¬ 
ferences that ai’ose and any other apprehensions can 
easily be avoided again through a prepared program. 
Every detail of the committee work is published. 
Anyone is free to offer plans or suggestions. Dairy¬ 
men individually or collectively may form their 
own conclusions on everything said or proposed or 
omitted there, and exert their influence accordingly. 
The need is evident and immediate. New Yoi'k, with 
the best milk market in the world, is receiving about 
the lowest price for milk in the country. It is less 
than present returns for cheese. The reason for 
this is that all the gi-oups and independent units are 
cutting prices in the markets to get and hold a liquid 
milk trade. The humblest of these groups can lower 
the price. The strongest of them cannot alone raise 
it. All are suffering and all admit it. A liquid 
market is deaifly bought when the milk is sold for 
less than its cheese value. Of course advances 
must soon be made in any event, but while the com¬ 
petition goes on, the biggest dealers will continue 
to make the price, and in the nature of things, that 
price will be low. It is admitted by all that no one 
of the present groups can hope to gain enough pro¬ 
ducers to stabilize the market on a higher level. 
Obviously then the interest of all producers will be 
best served by a ixnification of all the groups and 
units, and that can be accomplished only through 
united consent of all groups. 
The committee adjourned to meet on August 9. 
The Migrating Negroes 
HAT becomes of the negroes who come North, 
into the Central West, leaving the southern 
farms and industrial towns? It has been imported 
that more than one million of these people have mi¬ 
grated, and very large numbers of them ax*e now evi¬ 
dently settled in sxxch States as Ohio, Indiana and 
Illinois. Where do they go and what are they do¬ 
ing, and what effect will their presence have upon 
the industry of these localities? It is evident that 
the departxxre of these colox’ed people is xnaking 
quite a diffex-ence in southern farm economy. Peo¬ 
ple in some localities complain bitterly at the loss of 
this farm labor. Our l’eports show that farms are 
being abandoned and that population is rapidly de¬ 
creasing in some of the agricultural counties, as the 
x’esult of this migration. Other localities send a 
diffei-ent report, and many people tell us that they 
think the passing of the negi*o is a good thing for the 
South. It has di’iven many soxitlieni farmers into a 
different line of farming, and is breaking up the old 
system of tenantry which had come to be more of a 
cui’se than a help to the southern country. Fanners 
are working into dairying and live stock and grain 
farming. They are coming to be moi-e independent 
and taking a greater interest in improved agricul¬ 
ture. But what becomes of the negroes when they 
pass into the North? Where are they located, and 
what are they doing? We have been told that many 
of them have gone to the northern farms, where they 
are working in very well as farm laborers. Inquiry 
among our readers in that section shows that there 
are very few, if any of them, working in that capac¬ 
ity. Most of them seem to have located in the lai'ger 
industrial towns, where they are doing the crude and 
heavy work in manufacturing plants. They seem to 
be doing a class of work which was formerly per¬ 
formed by immigrants from the south of Eux-ope, 
and the new immigration laws will probably help in 
bringing more of them away from the South. It can¬ 
not be said that they are adding particularly to farm 
production. We are told that most of this migx*ation 
is fi’orn the southern towns, and not directly from 
the country districts. The negroes in the towns and 
cities leave for the North, and then others who have 
worked in the country on farms move to the city to 
take the place of those who have come North. It is 
a cux-ious and important development of industrial 
life in this country. From all the imports that we 
can get we conclude that these negroes are not likely 
to return to the South. We think the movement is a 
permanent one and that it will continue. Eventually 
the South will make a strong effort to attract white 
settlers from the North and West. 
Markets and Prices Demoralized 
T HE following statement is made regaining a 
large public market in an Eastern State where 
fai-xn produce is sold direct to consumers: 
There is an unusual amount of every kind of produce 
this year, and our markets have been chuck full so far. 
I understand that all markets all over the country are 
about in the same condition, as in this State particu¬ 
larly the milk situation has driven the farmei’s more 
into the gardening line. However, later in the season 
there may be more of a scarcity than there is now. I 
was in the South a very short time ago and found the 
orange growers in a deplorable condition. I bought 
nearly 10.000 bushels at $1 per bushel and in many 
places throughout the State you could not give them 
away. I am buying watermelons now by the car, and 
only paying for the best from 8 to 12 cents apiece 
there. New potatoes have sagged now to $.‘>.50 per 
barrel here. 
Much the same conditions are to be found in other 
markets. See how one industry crowds in upon an¬ 
other. This has been made possible by long distance 
transportation and the effort of farmers to diversify 
their crops and make changes in their methods. 
Thus the western grain growers are working over 
into daii-ying. This means more butter and cheese 
and more transported milk, which naturally inter¬ 
feres with the liquid milk trade in Eastern States. 
Other dairymen, finding milk prices falling lower, try 
to cast an anchor to windward by planting more fruit, 
potatoes or garden truck. That interferes with the 
1029 
business of gardeners and fruit growers, and so it 
goes on without organization or thought of results. 
And the other side of this case is presented in the 
following letter on merchandising watermelons: 
A large store in Cornwall, N. Y., sold large melons 
tins morning at .85 cents each. They buy from a prod¬ 
uce house and aim to make 25 per cent profit on water¬ 
melons. Another store sells watermelons at G5 to 75 
cents each. These are part of a lot of 5,000 delivered 
by trucks today out of Newburgh, N. Y. I met the 
truck driver at the watering-trough on the Storm King 
Highway. lie said the stores pay (today) 22c for those 
melons delivered. Now what do you suppose the grower 
received_for the melons? Perhaps 15 cents each? Selling 
price, bo to <5. cents, cost 22 cents, shows a large pei*- 
centageof profit. Is it fair merchandising? Two days 
later, Saturday afternoon, prices went down to 50 
cents, good profit on 22-cent cost. j. l. 8. 
Pennsylvania. 
Apple Prospects in the Hudson Valley 
The outlook for the fruit crop in this section of the 
“Valley” presents a very different aspect from what it 
did at blossom time. At that time, with the exception 
of Baldwins, Suttons and Newtowns, which in most or¬ 
chards failed entirely to produce blossoms, there was 
an unprecedented amount of bloom—175 per cent, I 
estimated it. But during that time there was a continu¬ 
ation of the cold wet weather we hav'e had all Spring, 
and as a consequence pollination was so imperfect that 
there was.a “set’ of but about 70 per cent generally 
with considerably less of pears and Hweet cherries. 
Dutchess and Wealthy, however, set a full crop. And 
now when it comes to the matter of quality, it is im¬ 
possible to estimate yet to what extent the crop will be 
further reduced. Certainly there has never been such an 
infestation of destructive pests of all sorts. 
My Rome Beauties, which at blossom time I estimat¬ 
ed at 185 per cent, will do well if they produce 20 per 
cent of a crop of A grade, so badly have they been in¬ 
jured by red-bug and aphis. I would have attributed 
the trouble to faulty or too early spraying had I not 
found that all the other growers, no matter at what time 
thij spiajed, have the same trouble. And one of our 
growers gave me a hint as to the cause of the trouble 
when he said he did not believe the “Black Leaf 40” 
was strong enough. So I determined to make some tests, 
using a well-known standard preparation of which 
three-fourths to one pint is recommended to 100 gallons 
I began with a strength of three quarts to 100 gallons, 
and had to work it up to nearly two gallons before I 
killed the aphis. A neighbor, using one-pint strength, 
spent $300 for his nicotine alone. Had he used the 
requisite strength to kill them now, he would have some 
bill to pay ! 
Of course this gives us no line on the necessary 
strength to destroy them in the beginning of the season, 
but 1 do know that the amount that was recommended 
was grossly inadequate, and the labor and money that 
" ere wasted this Spring would total an enormous 
amount, to say nothing of the destruction to the fruit 
crop. It. would almost seem that spraying had accom¬ 
plished little or nothing this year, until I saw two or¬ 
chards that had not been sprayed at all, and saw that 
they were stripped completely of every leaf by the tent- 
caterpillar. Apple buyers are already In evidence, and 
while they are not offering to buy as yet, still they are 
talking of the enormous crop, in order to prepare the 
grower for a low figure when they do make one 
Dutchess Co., N. Y. ‘ H . lo&ee. 
The Fruit Exhibit at Rochester 
[The following statement is being sent to the mem¬ 
bers of the New York Horticultural Society. They may 
well act on its suggestions] : 
The New York State Horticultural Society has for 
many years tried to improve the exhibits of fruits, flow¬ 
ers and vegetables at the State Fair. The society has 
never been met half way by the fair authorities in its 
endeavors. Efforts have been made for 20 years to 
have the horticultural exhibits properly housed, but with¬ 
out avail. Recently the fair authorities have given the 
society a rebuff that makes it hardly possible for the 
organization to continue its interest in the horticul¬ 
tural exhibits at the fair. 
Members of the society will remember that last year 
the fair authorities placed the fruit exhibit in charge of 
a man not connected with the fruit interests in the 
State, wholly inexperienced in putting up fruit ex¬ 
hibits, unknown to most of the fruit growers, and with¬ 
out a single qualification for the position not possessed 
by any other intelligent man in the State. This man 
brought with him helpers who were as little experienced 
a« he in matters having to do with exhibiting fruits. 
At both the Rochester and Poughkeepsie meetings reso¬ 
lutions were passed asking the State Fair Commission 
to appoint as superintendent of the fruit department 
some man connected with the fruit interests who has 
recognized qualifications for the position. This the fair 
authorities have refused to do, and have appointed the 
superintendent who held the place last year. 
Under these conditions may it not prove advantageous 
to this society to transfer its attempts to build up a 
fruit exhibit to the Rochester Exposition? Rochester is 
in the very center of the fruit, nursery, vegetable and 
flower interests of the State. This society meets there 
every Winter. The city, hotels and the commercial in¬ 
stitutions have given us every consideration possible. 
May it not turn out that the exposition would furnish 
better facilities for exhibiting fruit than the State Fair, 
and co-operate more intelligently, congenially and heln- 
fully with us? 
This is a matter that your president and directors 
want the members of this organization to think over 
and discuss at the coming Summer meeting. As a great 
fruit growing State, New York should have somewhere 
each Autumn a creditable exhibition of fruit. We have 
never had such an exhibit at Syracuse. May it not be 
worth while to try to make annually a great exhibit of 
fruit at the Rochester Exposition? Those in charge of 
the Rochester Exposition will meet us, it is believed, 
more than half way. 
If this society recommends its members to exhibit at 
Rochester, vegetable growers, florists and nurserymen, 
none of whom are well satisfied with their treatment at 
Syracuse, should be asked to join in making annually a 
great horticultural display at the Rochester Exposition. 
CHARLES S. Wlr>SON. 
