336 
American Agriculturist, November 15, 1924 
Ifhe 
CharlesWilliam Stores 
New York City 
G< 
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all-priced loiv. 
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Everything Guaranteed to Please 
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The East Still Leads 
An A. A. Radio Talk Broadcast from WEAF 
I T is not generally 
known that the 
business of farming 
in the eastern quar¬ 
ter of the United States is rapidly improv¬ 
ing, and it is less generally recognized that 
this has significance to general business 
prosperity. Urban and rural prosperity 
must in the long run go hand in hand. 
The great movement westward, which 
followed the Civil War, so much asso¬ 
ciated with Horace Greeley’s advice, 
“Go West, young man, go West,” consti- 
tutues an important chapter in American 
history. The “Covered Wagon” will 
always hold a place in the hearts and 
thoughts of men. Pioneer days present 
pictures of adventure, suffering, and 
conquest well-known to all American 
men and women. For generations the 
East has given up much of its best blood 
to people the new 
country west of the . ■ 1 r *"^ 
Alleghanies. Pros¬ 
perous farming in 
the East, on the 
other hand, gave way 
to the buzz of the 
mill wheel. As time 
went on the rough 
and hill lands back 
home could not com¬ 
pete with the fertile 
prairies in the new 
country. Freight 
rates were low and 
food could be hauled 
at great distances 
from the new coun¬ 
try back to the well- 
established markets 
of the old. 
The development 
of the local idea, one 
of the greatest ideas 
in all American 
history, has given 
rise to the County 
Agricultural Exten- 
sion Service and the 
Farm Bureau, with a farm expert in each 
county. Think what that means! Each 
agricultural community throughout the 
whole region teaching itself, with the 
advice of technical experts, the latest 
application of science and method to 
their agricultural business. The great 
East, with its rugged but fertile farms, 
has begun to raise those food prod¬ 
ucts which it is best fitted to raise 
and market to best advantage, such as 
fruit and vegetables, poultry and dairy 
products. The greatest of world-markets 
lies right at the very doors of our farmers. 
Progressive agriculturists in the East 
are awake to the present economic situa¬ 
tion. If one attends the New York State 
Fair at Syracuse or the great Eastern 
States Exposition held every year at 
Springfield he will get a survey of agricul¬ 
ture in this region and he will be impressed 
with the magnitude and quality of farm¬ 
ing in this part of the country, and the 
volume and importance of its products. 
At both these big fairs one finds a great 
exposition with 'one and a half to two 
million dollars' worth of permanent equip¬ 
ment. This year 2,500 head of cattle, 
swine, sheep and horses were exhibited at 
the Eastern States Exposition. In the 
famous parade were to be seen all at once 
cattle valued at over one million dollars. 
It is a region with ideals toward which 
it is'consciouslv striving; it has a definite 
program. In New England the organized 
agricultural interests of all the various 
States are represented in the Agricultural 
Conference, appointed by the Governors 
of the six New England States. This 
body has made a thorough study of the 
agricultural situation as it exists and has 
formulated a definite ten-year program. 
One of the largest publishing houses in 
the East is about to issue from its presses 
a book on the Food Supply of New 
England. As the title indicates, it treats 
especially of that territory east of Lake 
Champlain and the Hudson River, but in 
By A. W. Gilbert 
Commissioner of Agriculture, 
State of Massachusetts 
A GREAT INDUSTRY 
A LTOGETHER too many people in 
the United States have obtained 
the idea from somewhere that the 
only farming that is done of any im¬ 
portance is done in the Central West. 
Too often when the Department of 
Agriculture at Washington, or the 
national government, does any 
thinking or acting for agriculture, 
they seem to forget entirely that New 
York State and other parts of the 
East still take the lead in the pro¬ 
duction of many crop and animal 
products. We have mentioned this 
point a good many times in Amer¬ 
ican Agriculturist and we have called 
it to the attention of leaders of na¬ 
tional farm organizations and in the 
Department of Agriculture. 
It gives us a great deal of pleasure, 
therefore, to publish on this page an 
address by Commissioner A. W. Gil¬ 
bert, of the Department of Agricul¬ 
ture of the State of Massachusetts, 
showing why Eastern agriculture is a 
great industry. — The Editors. 
its breadth of treat¬ 
ment much it dis¬ 
cusses applies equally 
to New York, New 
Jersey and Pennsylvania as well as New 
England. 
We hear much of the California Fruit 
Growers’ Exchange that is so largely 
responsible for filling our shops with 
beautiful oranges, lemons and grapefruits. 
It is always cited as the classic example of 
successful cooperative organization 
amongst farmers. We are perhaps not 
aware of the extent to which cooperative 
organization is practiced by eastern farm¬ 
ers. In New York State there were listed 
over a year ago 1,224 cooperative associa¬ 
tions. They comprised thirty-nine dif¬ 
ferent lines of activity, most of them being 
agricultural; 720 of them were local 
members of the Dairymen’s League. In 
Massachusetts there 
.— are large coopera¬ 
tive milk associa¬ 
tions and a move¬ 
ment is now on foot 
to organize the ma¬ 
jority of all milk 
producers in New 
England into one 
vast cooperative 
system. 
The volume and 
value of eastern ag¬ 
riculture is not in¬ 
considerable: in 1926 
the value of the 
main crops of the 
NcwEngland States, 
exclusive of the big 
items of fruit, mar¬ 
ket-garden and ma¬ 
ple products, was 
almost $177,000,000 
and that of the Mid¬ 
dle Atlantic States 
over one-half a billion 
dollars. The live- 
stock of New Eng¬ 
land was valued at 
$116,854,000 on January 1, 1924. 
These figures are large in themselves, 
but in their relation to the food supply 
for this region they assume the utmost 
importance. It is estimated that one- 
quarter of all the population of the 
United Skates lives in the region that 
comprises New England and the North 
Atlantic States. This region is notedly 
industrial, but in order to maintain the 
industries with raw materials and to feed 
the workers, agriculture must flourish. 
It is basic, and all other industries and 
businesses depend upon it, either directly 
or indirectly. 
If the metropolitan papers tomorrow 
were to have in big headlines, “A Great 
Industry Springs Up in the East,” the 
title would catch the eye and fire the 
imagination. But if in reading further we 
were to find that it concerned the Eastern 
farmer our interest would wane. It 
would lack romance. Or if the papers 
were to record that wealth was dis¬ 
covered thousands of feet underground, it 
would be a great deal more romantic than 
a few inches underground in the fertile 
plow furrow. Perhaps the logical conclu¬ 
sion would be that we have become deep 
thinkers. At any rate, let’s say the 
Covered Wagon has turned back East. 
To remark that if Henry Ford had done 
his work fifty years earlier there would 
have been no Civil War challenges 
thought, but to say that the Ford car is 
one of the greatest single agents in the 
great new Industry of Eastern Agricul¬ 
ture is passed by unnoticed. 
But the fact remains that agriculture in 
the East has been reorganized on a new 
basis and has emerged in a form and 
magnitude far different from the past, 
and to an extent not generally realized by 
the public at large. We may well refer to 
it as a new industry. It is one of our 
largest industries and the one of most 
basic importance to the life and welfare 
of us all. 
1 
