•D* RURAL NEW-YORKER 
1413 
Committee of Fifteen Meets 
T HE problem of unification of the dairy interests 
in the New York milk shed was the principal 
subject of discussion in the meeting of the Commit¬ 
tee of Fifteen at Utica on October 25. The senti¬ 
ment was universally for it. The details are being 
worked out in a definite written formula which the 
sub-committee hopes to perfect before the nest meet¬ 
ing of the general committee on November 22. 
The ope outstanding purpose is to develop a plan 
not only for the four groups now represented on the 
committee, but one broad and comprehensive enough 
to merit and win the co-operation of all groups, 
units and individual dairymen. All agree that a 
practically united organization is necessary to sta¬ 
bilize the market and prevent price wars. It is also 
admitted by all that it is useless to expect that four 
of the existing groups will consent to abandon their 
own organizations as they now exist and go over to 
the fifth. In other words, all cannot now be induced 
to concentrate under one of the existing organiza¬ 
tions, for the reason that no one of them is willing 
to make changes to suit the requirements of the 
members of the other groups. It is evident, there¬ 
fore, that a federation to unify the existing groups 
is the practical and logical thing to bring about. 
Where so much difference of opinion and consid¬ 
erable bitterness of argument existed, it would be 
too much to expect, that this harmony proposition 
could be adopted without some interruption and de¬ 
lay, but it was proposed by some of the foremost 
dairymen of the State and their friends; and the 
committee feels that the problem must be worked 
out on these lines, at least for the present. The 
feeling is that if progress is made in the interest of 
producers, changes of plan and policy can be worked 
out as the need for them arises. 
The thought is to create an agency representing all 
groups to determine the basic price of milk and to 
negotiate the sale of it. The details would work out 
with the experience. What is needed is that indi¬ 
vidual and group interests be subordinated, to the 
dairy industry as a whole, and that each work for 
the welfare of all in a conservative, economic distri¬ 
bution. This plan preserves the autonomy of the 
present organizations, each of which will be free to 
work out its own local and group affairs in its own 
way, profiting by the unified policy, and bearing its 
just, and only its just share of the surplus and other 
burdens. 
One important feature is the preservation of local 
and regional associations to develop the local, up¬ 
state, city and village markets, by local dairymen, 
the supply for the markets to come from local pro¬ 
ducers. The encouragement and development of 
these markets will increase local consumption and 
relieve the metropolitan market. 
It is the sentiment of the committee that the best 
interest of both producers and consumers will be 
served in the encouragement of the largest possible 
volume of liquid milk, and its efforts will be directed 
to that end. 
The best results can be reached only through a 
unity of all dairy groups and individuals, and all 
have an opportunity to help frame the machinery of 
the federated unit. 
At the meeting the following resolution was 
adopted: 
Whereas, It is a source of satisfaction to note that 
some organizations are advancing their price of Class 1 
milk to $3.07 per 100 lbs., November 1; 
Resolved, That we urgently request each of our groups 
to do its utmost to meet this advance. 
The resolution was seconded by the Non-pool 
group. 
November Milk Prices 
O N October 24 the Dairymen’s League announced 
an increase of 47c per 100 lbs. for Class 1 milk, 
bringing the price up to $3.07; Class 2A, $2; Class 
2B, $2.05; Class 2C, $2.05; Class 3A, $1.60; Class 3B, 
$1.55. Sheffield Farms group made the following 
prices: Class 1, $3.07; Class 2, $2; Class 3, $1.60. 
The Non-pool Association adopted Class 1, $2.80; 
Class 2, $2; Class 3A, $1.60; Class 3B, $1.55. 
Unfortunately, the Class 1 prices do not very ac¬ 
curately reveal the actual price to the producer. For 
September the pool price was $2.60, and the net cash 
price $1,745, or $1,845 including certificates. The 
Sheffield Farms Class 1 price was also $2.60, and its 
net cash price $2,295. The Non-pool Class 1 price 
was $2.40 and its net cash price in Buffalo $2.37, and 
in New York $2.34. 
A Study of Milk Consumption 
HE Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture re¬ 
ports some investigations regarding milk con¬ 
sumption. A survey of “400 representative fami¬ 
lies” in Philadelphia shows that these people drink 
milk because they like it—not so much because it 
is a healthful food. 
The study brought out the fact that 54 per cent of 
the children were drinking milk in school. The mothers 
interviewed felt that drinking milk in school had in¬ 
duced children to drink more milk at home. 
The 400 families co-operating in the survey were di¬ 
vided into eight groups of 50 each, according to in¬ 
come, race, and nationality. Of the various groups, 
the Jewish group showed the highest consumption of 
milk. Smallest consumption was found among Negro 
and Italian groups. Nearly half the Jewish people in¬ 
terviewed said that milk was the most important food 
in their household. The Italians as a class prefer other 
beverages to milk. The Negro group was lowest in 
per capita consumption of fresh milk, but highest in 
consumption of buttermilk. Excluding these modifying 
factors which may be attributed to racial habits or 
characteristics, the figures show that the amount of 
milk consumed increases directly as the income is in¬ 
creased. 
Eight per cent of the food bill is used to purchase 
milk, according to 240 housewives. Jewish people 
spend 10 per cent of their food budget for milk, as do 
also the people with better than average income. An¬ 
swers from 141 mail questionnaires indicated that 
fresh vegetables and meat are considered the foods of 
greatest importance, with bread next and milk fourth. 
No cases were found where canned milk was used for 
drinking purposes. Canned milk is used, however, by 
29 per cent of all the families interviewed, and taking 
the poor families as a class by 62 per cent. It is con¬ 
sidered as a substitute for cream rather than as a sub¬ 
stitute for fresh milk, except when used for cooking. 
That Child Labor Amendment 
N a recent issue of the Cleveland Times, C. A. 
Dyer has the following to say about the amend¬ 
ment to give Congress power to “limit, regulate and 
prohibit the labor of persons under 18 years of age.” 
Most of the people favoring this amendment, with 
whom we have talked, do not seem to know that the 
present school laws of most of the States give quite 
enough of protection for children. Most of them 
have no conception whatever of just what this pro¬ 
posed amendment will mean: 
Much surprise is expressed by the National Child 
Labor Committee at the opposition of the Ohio State 
Grange and the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation to the 
proposed amendment. This committee says, “Ohio is 
one of the outstanding States in the protection of its 
children. It will be years before the majority of States 
reach these standards. Why, therefore, should objec¬ 
tion come from Ohio?” 
This question is easily answered. Ohio is getting an 
education as an “outstanding State.” Under the op¬ 
eration of our present school laws, such situations as 
the following occur: A father, without help, keeps his 
able-bodied son at home one day to assist in putting in 
a necessary crop; a storm is approaching, and, with¬ 
out the son’s aid, the crop could not be put in the 
ground in time ; the father is arrested and fined. The 
growers of small fruit of the State are forced to violate 
the Ohio laws to pick their fruit; if they did not, their 
crops would rot, they would be forced out of business, 
and the urban centers would be without small fruits 
or import it from States whose laws are not so “out¬ 
standing.” A mother taken by sudden illness, with 
no other help, keeps her daughter at home to care for 
her; by this act this mother becomes a criminal under 
Ohio’s “outstanding” laws. If the parents of Ohio are 
subjected to such laws by their own home Legislature, 
it is a very natural sequence that they would distrust 
the distant Congress at Washington. 
The proposed amendment is socialistic and repulsive 
to American ideals. It was drafted by Mrs. Florence 
Kelly Wischnewetsky, president of the Intercollegiate 
Socialist League of the United States and former editor 
of the Archivfur Kozialegetetzyebuny of Berlin, Ger¬ 
many. It meets the approval of Bolshevist Russia. 
Aristocratic Stock-killing Dogs 
T HE following item was printed in the New York 
Times: 
New Brunswick, N. J., Oct. 8.—Boris and Zeza, 
prize-winning Russian wolfhounds at the Madison 
Square Garden show last February, and valued by their 
owner, Mrs. Lawrence Rice, at $1,000 each, disappeared 
from the Rice home in Livingston Manor two days ago. 
Mrs. Rice advertised a large reward, and a telephone 
message told her that her dogs could be found on the 
farm of John Fox, a mile distant. Mr. Rice went to 
the farm and was told by Fox that he could not have 
the dogs until he paid for 50 fowls killed by the dogs. 
Mr. Rice promptly gave Fox $100 in cash and asked 
for the dogs, whereupon Fox took him behind the barn 
and showed him the dogs, both dead. Fox admitted he 
had shot them because they had been killing his chick¬ 
ens. 
Several readers have asked us to state whether 
Fox was within his rights in shooting these dogs. 
We find the following statute passed by the New 
Jersey Legislature in 1901, in Section 3: 
“If any dog shall be found killing, worrying or 
wounding any sheep, lamb, domestic animals or poul¬ 
try, and the owner or person harboring such dog, 
being informed thereof, shall neglect or refuse to 
kill such dog within 24 hours from the time of receiv¬ 
ing such information, such owner or person shall 
forfeit and pay to any person who shall sue for the 
same, the sum of $10, to be recovered with costs by 
action of debt before any justice of peace of the 
county, and moreover, shall pay triple damages for 
any injury done by said dog as aforesaid; and it 
shall be lawful for any person to kill any dog which 
may be found chasing, worrying or wounding any 
sheep, lamb or domestic animal 
The part of the above clause in italics appears to 
give a person the right to kill a dog which has in¬ 
jured or killed his animals. The only question is 
whether the person whose animals had been injured 
or killed must give 24 hours notice before he can 
shoot the dog. This statute appears to be ambiguous 
in that point. 
It is rather hard for some of us to understand why 
one should keep a wolfhound. What is the object of 
such a dog, anyway? If a dog prove to be a sheep 
or chicken killer his pedigree should not be consid¬ 
ered. Rich human rogues may escape full punish¬ 
ment, but a stock-killing dog should get the law— 
whether he be an aristocrat or a common cur. 
A Case of Motor Driving Inspectors 
W E have many cases where readers write us of 
real or fancied injustice, and ask us to help 
straighten matters out. Here is one typical case: 
I wish to call your attention to the new motor ve¬ 
hicle law and what it is doing for us. I am a man 
60 years old, had the misfortune to lose one of my 
legs, but have an artificial one that I can use almost 
like my own. I have driven a car for four years and 
have never had an accident. My car is the only way 
I have of getting to the village or any other place. I 
have sold my farm and am living now three miles from 
railroad or village. I made application for operator’s 
license, paying a dollar as required by new law, and 
was rejected. A second time I applied and paid a 
dollar again, and when I took the road test the in¬ 
structor OK’d me but some of the other inspectors 
said I could not stop as quickly as I should, and they 
have refused me a license. Now what am I going to 
do? No one to drive for me and no way to go. I am 
a sober, steady man and could get recommends by the 
hundreds. c. F. 
In this case we wrote the Commissioner of Motor 
Vehicles at Albany. He thanks us for calling at¬ 
tention to the matter, and says he wants to be fair 
to all, but that it is absolutely necessary to keep un¬ 
safe drivers off the road. Then he says: 
I have sent for the record of the road test of C. F., 
and I find that he was rejected by the inspector for 
the following faults : 
Poor control over speeds. 
Poor control over steering gear. 
Left gear in mesh. 
Cut left hand corners. 
Poor judgment in traffic. 
Repeated stallings. 
It appears from this record that the inspector had 
some ground for rejection. It may be that C. F. would 
succeed better upon another examination. He is en¬ 
titled to apply again if he desires. There is nothing 
else that I can suggest at present. 
We print this without further comment, to show 
that the Motor Vehicles Department will, at least 
take up such complaints. We hope C. F. will try 
again and convince the inspectors that he has good 
control. This case deserves reasonable concession. 
Conditions in Central New York 
I have just been reading G. E. Winter’s interesting 
letter on Florida. I notice that he speaks of peas and 
other truck just up in his kitchen garden. These are, 
of course, for his next season’s crop. We just had to¬ 
day (October 20) our last mess of peas from the gar¬ 
den, unless we have a few days of favorable weather. 
We have had some very hard frosts, but the peas are 
not knocked out yet. We have had them as late as 
November 1. Plant as late as August 10, and I find 
that we can have them continuously, by proper selection 
of varieties. 
You have heard the expression, “He does not amount 
to a hill of beans.” We had one hill of King of the 
Garden Lima beans that yielded two pounds of .shelled 
beans at one picking, and other pickings brought the 
amount up to three pounds. There were but three vines 
in the hill, and the seed had been selected for several 
years from pods that yielded five beans. 
Potato digging is under way, and though the yield 
is very good, there are many rotten ones, especially on 
heavy soil. The price is low—only 35 cents at the cars. 
Cabbage crop good—up to 20 tons per acre—but price 
only about $3.50 per ton for domestic, except what was 
raised on contract for the kraut factory at $7 per ton. 
Apple crop was small and of poor quality in most 
orchards, even in those that were thoroughly sprayed. 
Probably not over 60 per cent of the corn crop is hard, 
and much of the fodder injured by the frost. But in 
spite of the discouraging reports the wheat is looking 
fine, and we are all prepared to turn out on November 
4 and help “save the country!” j. r. w. 
Ontario Co., N. Y. 
Willard C. Thompson of the New Jersey Agricul¬ 
tural College will start for England on Nov. 1 to serve 
as first director of the National Poultry Institute of 
England. We are very glad that this typical Ameri¬ 
can can go abroad to start a work which has proved so 
useful in this country. Prof. Thompson will be absent 
for three years. 
