Editorial Page of the American 
American 
Agriculturist 
Founded 1842 
IIeney Morgenthau, Jr .. Publisher 
E. R. Eastman . Editor 
Fred W. Ohm . Associate Editor 
Mrs. G. E. Forbush .Household Editor 
Birge Kinne .Advertising Manager 
E. C. Weatherby .Circulation Manager 
CONTRIBUTING STAFF 
Jared Van Wagenen, Jr. G. T. Hughes H. E. Cook 
borrowed at six per cent at the bank in town, 
r As W. I. Myers and L. Spencer, who wrote the 
report of the investigation, point out, it is the busi¬ 
ness of the feed store to sell feed. It is enough to 
do this work and do it effectively. And for the 
same reason, it is the business of the bank to sell 
credit. They are equipped to do this, and by 
exercising great care as to the character and 
resources of their borrowers, banks practically 
eliminate the costs of bad debts and of collection. 
tt 
By Their Works—” 
OUR ADVERTISEMENTS GUARANTEED 
The American Agriculturist accepts only advertising 
which it believes to be thoroughly honest. 
We positively guarantee to our readers fair and honest treat¬ 
ment in dealing with our advertisers. 
We guarantee to refund the price of goods purchased by 
our subscribers from any advertiser who fails to make good 
when the article purchased is found not to be as advertised. 
To benefit by this guarantee subscribers must say: “I saw 
your ad in the American Agriculturist” when ordering 
from our advertisers. 
Published Weekly by 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST, INC 
Address all correspondence for editorial, advertising, or subscription di¬ 
part ments to 
_ 461 Fourth Ave., New York, N. Y. 
Entered as Second-Class Matter, December 15, 1922, at the Post Office 
at New York, N. Y., under the Act of March 3, 1879. 
Subscription price, payable in advance, $1 a year, $2 for three 
years, $3 for five years. Canadian and foreign, $2 a year. 
VOL. 114 September 6, 1924 No. 10 
Can the Cows! 
W E hope that every dairyman will give con¬ 
sideration to what we have proposed on 
page 155 for increasing the farm family’s meat 
supply at low cost and at the same time reducing 
the surplus milk by getting rid of the main factor 
which is chiefly responsible for it. There is not a 
dairyman that does not know that the chief 
trouble with the dairy market is too much milk. 
There is not one either but who will agree that it is 
the cow producing four thousand pounds or less 
who is chiefly responsible for too much milk; 
responsible because there are many more such 
cows than there are better ones. 
As we have suggested in the article, nearly every 
farmer knows of at least one cow in his dairy which 
is costing him more than she returns. We have 
been talking about cooperation to sell milk; all 
right, why not see if we cannot work together a 
little to cut down the costs of production? The 
plan we propose is simple. You elect no officers, 
pay no dues; all that is necessary is to agree 
to work together to eat the cow that is eating 
into your profits. 
What Credit Costs the Farmer 
A RATHER striking proof of what it costs 
farmers for credit when they get it at other 
places besides the bank is shown by the figures 
recently compiled by the New York State College 
of Agriculture. During the fall of 1922, visits 
were made to farmers, bankers and country 
merchants in Tioga County, a dairy-farming 
region, and in Genesee County, a prosperous crop¬ 
farming region. Over one hundred farmers were 
visited in each county. 
The study showed that 54 per cent of the farmers 
had checking accounts with banks in Tioga 
County, and 70 per cent in Genesee County; 14 
per cent of the farmers in Tioga County and 31 per 
cent of the farmers in Genesee County borrowed 
from banks during the year. In Tioga County, 
63 per cent, and in Genesee County, 66 per cent, 
paid their farm expenditures in cash without 
borrowing. 
The most nteresting part of the investigation 
showed that the credit at feed stores cost the 
farmers 13.4 per cent; at general stores, 19.6 per 
cent; at hardware stores, 14.7 per cent; at imple¬ 
ment stores, 10.6 per cent; at farm supply stores, 
13.2 per cent; and at blacksmiths, 21.8 per cent; 
making the average cost of credit to the farmer 
13.8 per cent. In most cases, he could have 
F IFTEEN years ago, T. B. Freestone of 
Seneca County, New York, determined to 
set an apple orchard and to enter the lists as a 
fruit grower. Shortly after his orchard was 
started, it was our pleasure to become acquainted 
with Mr. Freestone, and to watch during the 
years since the growth and development of one 
of the finest orchards of its size in the State. 
The other day we called on him, and althougn 
it was raining, we could not resist his invitation to 
put on rubber boots and walk down the long 
rows of beautiful trees loaded full with un¬ 
blemished fruit. 
As we walked and talked with our friend and 
looked at the loaded trees, we recalled the years 
of painstaking care and work he had given to his 
orchard, the long years when it was growing, 
requiring labor and expense and making no return. 
We remembered going through the orchard many 
times with him when it was young and seeing him 
stop to pinch off an extra shoot here or to train a 
small limb in some other place. 
And as we remembered all this care that 
“Tom” had given his apple orchard, and as we 
looked about us and saw his reward in the many 
barrels of perfect fruit which will bring pleasure 
to hundreds of consumers this fall and winter, we 
thought how much humanity owes to him and to 
thousands of other good farmers like him who are 
the world’s real producers. The rest of us may' 
have our doubts sometimes as to whether our 
existence is justified or our work worthwhile, but 
the man who grows the stuff that feeds and 
clothes the world never need have any doubt. 
Truly, “ By their works ye shall know them.” 
Time for Caution 
T HE Grain Marketing Company is the name 
of the new cooperative organization which 
plans to be the largest farmer cooperative in the 
world. This company will acquire elevators of 
the five largest grain elevator companies in the 
United States, and will have elevators placed in 
Chicago and in other centers with a capacity of 
more than fifty million bushels of grain. It will 
be financed by selling its stock to farmers. It 
contemplates taking over the control as soon as 
possible of 5000 more elevators already owned or 
controlled by the various cooperative farm or¬ 
ganizations. The initial capitalization of the 
company will be $26,000,000. 
At the risk of being called reactionary by 
cooperative enthusiasts we must say that it is 
time for farmers to cease organizing these great 
companies until they have put in better working 
order those which already exist. There is great 
danger of over-organization. Among the many 
already organized there are some sure to fail, 
with the danger that their failure will make 
farmers lose confidence and cease to support the 
many good organizations that are doing very 
effective work. 
Although it has been preached to the contrary, 
farmers’ marketing companies are no cure-alls 
for economic troubles. Membership in them is 
not going to make any farmer rich over night, 
nor even save him from his own farming mistakes. 
The most that can be hoped for, and this is 
already being accomplished by some cooperatives, 
is increased efficiency in putting farm products on 
the market. It is possible that cooperatives may 
do away, in some instances, with middle-men, but 
most of the service that middle-men perform 
must always be rendered by some agency, and 
unless the cooperative can do this service cheaper 
American Agriculturist, September 6, 1934 
Agriculturist 
and better than the so-called middle-man, it, will 
cost farmers more than the old system and will 
have no justification for its existence. 
. But results cannot be measured in a short 
time, and the cooperatives should have plenty of 
time and sympathetic support before they are 
judged. Some of them have already shown 
results. Others will do so if they have the same 
sound judgment and management that other big 
successful businesses have. It takes time to 
obtain and train great managers, and the bigger 
the enterprise, the more difficult it is to get sound 
management, and the more danger there is of 
possible failure. It therefore seems to us that the 
big job now before farmers in solving this market 
problem is to give especial attention to increasing 
efficiency and perfecting the management of 
those enterprises they already have. Until the 
cooperatives in which the farmer has already 
invested much time and money have returned 
results, caution and conservatism should be used 
in starting new ones. 
A Farmer’s License? 
ks a subscriber of the American Agriculturist. I 
wish to bring to your attention my new idea in the 
nature of a “farmer’s license.” By this I mean every 
farmer would have to secure a license to farm. Every 
one desiring to farm who is not farming would have to 
take an examination before a board of farmers as to 
whether he would be qualified to farm before he could 
have a license. 
A “farmer’s license” would raise the ethics of 
farmers, promote cooperation, prevent the side line 
farmer from placing his small surplus on the market 
at any price and weed out that undesirable element. 
Let me hear what your opinion is in this matter.— 
S. L. M., Luzerne Co., Pa. 
T HE above is a letter which we received a 
short time ago, making what seemed to us a 
very interesting suggestion. On first reading, we 
thought it just another one of the thousands of 
I wild schemes that come to the office of American 
Agriculturist every year for helping farmers. 
But after reading it and rereading it, we are not 
so sure that it is entirely wild. 
' Farming of to-day is a different business than it 
used to be. It is getting more complicated, and 
takes more science and better business methods 
than it ever has before. We license our doctors 
and our lawyers. Would we be so far wrong in 
licensing our farmers? Not those that are already 
on the job, of course, but those w r ho start new in 
the business. This, as our correspondent points 
out, would have a tendency to raise farm stand¬ 
ards and crowd out those w T ho never had any 
chance of succeeding, giving those who are efficient 
a real opportunity to make good. We are not 
advocating this scheme; we are just wondering 
about it. What do you think? 
Eastman’s Chestnuts 
C E. LADD, Extension Director of the New 
. York State College of Agriculture, has told 
this story around the State so many times that I 
think it is time to fix things so he cannot tell it any 
more. Therefore, in order to do this, and for the 
benefit of the two or three who may not have 
heard Dr. Ladd tell it, I am repeating it here. 
A farmer took a calf to town in a lumber 
wagon with wide-tired wheels. He drove on to 
the scales and weighed the wagon with the calf, 
and then drove around to the yard and unloaded 
the calf. On his trip back to the scales, to re¬ 
weigh the wagon, he had to drive all the way 
through heavy clay mud. 
After he had driven on to the scales, he waited a 
long time for the weigher who seemed to be puz¬ 
zled over the result that he was getting. Finally, 
the farmer, becoming impatient, asked: 
“ Waal, what did he weigh ? ” 
“By gosh, I dunno! ’CORDIN’ TO MY 
FIGURIN’, HE WEIGHS SIXTEEN POUNDS 
LESS THAN NO CALF AT ALL!” 
The noisiest drum has nothing in it but air.— 
Proverbs of England. 
