American Agriculturist 
THE FARM PAPER THAT PRINTS THE FARM NEWS 
“Agriculture is the Most Healthful, Most Useful and Most Noble Employment of Man.”— Washington 
Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. Established 1842 
Volume 114 For the Week Ending November 15, 1924 Number 20 
A Public Market in a Dairy Section 
How Producers and Consumers of Binghamton 
By MABEL A. FEINT 
U NTIL quite recently the section sur¬ 
rounding the city of Binghamton had 
been primarily a dairy section. Recent 
stringent times in the dairy business, 
coupled with frequent suggestions from public 
market-master J. L. Cosletto, of the curb market, 
who in various capacities had opportunity to 
meet the farmers, led to the custom of growing 
vegetables and other foods for this rapidly growing 
market. 
“Why not get some ready money to handle in 
return for your work, instead of waiting fifty-five 
days for your milk checks all the time?” he said 
to them. And the results are pretty satisfactory 
to a goodly number of farmers over a radius of 
thirty miles. Yes, some come at 
times nearly sixty miles with 
loads of produce. One man even 
drives to the market from Mora¬ 
via, a distance of seventy miles. 
Due to the demand on the 
part of the consumers for better 
prices on foodstuffs, and to the 
need of farmers for better returns 
for their labor, and due to the 
generosity of George F. Johnson 
of Johnson City, who built the 
markets, there are now three of 
the finest markets in the country 
to be found in Binghamton, 
Johnson City, and Endicott. 
These three sister municipalities 
lie so closely together that the 
casual observer would call them 
one. 
Last month the two smaller 
markets, Johnson City and En¬ 
dicott, did a business of $82,000 
and 325 teams were on the 
market. In August the volume 
of business was $95,000. The 
Binghamton market is a larger market, and in 
September there were 933 farmers on the market, 
with a like increase in business over that of the 
others. 
These figures are stupendous. They can be 
realized only by a visit to the markets to see the 
throngs of people eagerly buying the vast quanti¬ 
ties of all sorts of things that can be grown on an 
eastern farm, or made in a farm kitchen. 
Such a visit was made last week, when repre¬ 
sentatives of eleven Home Bureaus, constituting 
the central district of the New York State Federa¬ 
tion of Home Bureaus, met for an afternoon of 
discussion of common problems along marketing 
lines, rounding off the trip with a thorough in¬ 
spection of these markets on Saturday morning, 
with the market-masters as guides and instructors. 
The experience was one to be remembered, and 
the delegates were most enthusiastic over the 
possibilities, to consumers, to producers, and to 
the business interests of the entire section for¬ 
tunate enough to have such a service. 
These markets seem to be starting out on right 
lines—a square deal to consumers, to farmers, 
and to the grocers of the city. The Board of 
Health and Public Safety of the City of Bingham¬ 
ton has assumed supervision of its own market, 
while Mr. Johnson employs John Paterson, a very 
competent and popular man for the place, to 
supervise the other two. John L. Cosletto, meat 
and sanitary inspector, is market-master of the 
Binghamton market, and to him is due a great 
deal in the way of clean foods of high quality. 
He had been in close touch with the dairy farmers 
for fifteen years, and knows their problems. He 
has interested dairymen in enlarging their activi¬ 
ties and, by diversifying, to greatly increase their 
incomes. Two other inspectors and a regular care- 
taker are employed in the Binghamton market. 
No charge of any sort is made to any farmer 
who sells on this market. The motto is “first 
come first served” in the choice of booths in the 
building, which is 300 feet long, and has three 
rows of booths, the full length. The building is of 
steel, and is closed, with doors the whole length 
on both sides to admit a truck to each booth. 
Each booth has a frontage on the aisles for buyers, 
of eight feet, and there is oue row of booths down 
the center. Skylights and ventilators, with six 
or eight big heaters usigg coke for fuel, take care of 
light, ventilation, and heat. There is a restaurant 
in each building where good food at very moderate 
prices can be had by the farmers, and there is an, 
office and also rest-rooms for men and women, 
and a meat inspection room. 
The floor is cement, and is flushed with a hose 
after each day’s business is closed. The market 
days are Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, 
from 9 A. M. to noon. The maximum prices to be 
charged each day are announced in the dailies of 
the preceding day. No farmer can sell for more 
than these prices, though he can, and does, sell 
as much under as he likes, or as circumstances 
warrant. These prices in general will range 
about half way between the \yholesale and retail 
prices prevailing in the city, thus satisfying all 
concerned, either directly or indirectly. There 
is no monopoly of any kind or any favoritism. 
Dealers are not permitted to bring produce of 
any kind that the farmers can raise, though 
after ten o’clock each day the dealers may come 
in and buy of the farmers if they wish to. 
Saturday’s inspection of these markets brought 
Are Cutting the Spread 
out many facts of interest to farmers, as did 
Friday’s discussion of farm problems. A Tomp¬ 
kins County woman called attention to the great 
need of some measure of relief to producers, when 
she said, “I have paid $80 a week to two men for 
the last two weeks to build me a silo. I can get but 
fifty-five cents a bushel for my potatoes, and have 
sold my dairy and have stopped producing milk 
temporarily because conditions are so bad.” 
This same woman paid the equivalent of a 
bushel of potatoes on this trip for a seat in the 
movies, two bushels each for her meals while in 
the city, six bushels for the use of a bed one night, 
and four bushels each way to travel the short 
distance from her home to the meeting. At that, 
on her return home, local ship¬ 
ping stations in her county were 
reported to be paying but thirty 
cents a bushel for potatoes. She 
saw on her trip through the 
markets, a man from her county 
who had hauled his load fifty- 
seven miles, getting $1.00 a bushel 
for his potatoes—marketing 
under difficulties, it is conceded— 
but at any rate he is getting 
hold of a little money. 
Commissioner of Agriculture 
B. A. Pyrke, in addressing the 
group, said, “Farming would be 
a profitable business if there 
were a market at the door of 
every farm.” This trip of inves¬ 
tigation convinced many that 
public city markets would be a 
big help to both consuihers and 
producers. Many old estab¬ 
lished markets are under a cloud 
because they are being operated 
on wrong principles. One nearby 
market was reported as of doubt¬ 
ful value to the farming circle, also to the con¬ 
sumers it serves, as it has been turned over to a 
vegetable growers association, and membership 
in this association is required before a farmer 
can sell a load of meat or chickens or other prod¬ 
uce. Prices likewise have suffered, it was said, 
from making it a close corporation of this sort. 
Another nearby city had lost its really fine new 
open market, because it was a dairy section and 
no one had ever convinced the farmers that it 
would pay them to “bother” with vegetables 
and such things. The truckers of the locality 
had absorbed the entire production and had set 
such high prices that the housewives would not 
pay as much as the grocers asked and carry 
home their purchases, even though the goods 
might be nice and fresh. A fair deal all around 
seems to be an essential if a public market is to 
be a success. 
Dr. Ruby Green Smith, of Cornell, one of the 
speakers at the discussions, who helped to or¬ 
ganize a market in her home city, and in forty- 
two other cities of the country, said that the 
first thing to do in looking over the possibilities 
for a public market was to take two very careful 
surveys, one of the needs of the housewives, and 
another of those who will agree to grow produce 
for the market. “Be sure you have someone to 
buy, as well as someone to sell,” she said. “When 
(Continued on page 350 ) 
The interior of one of the Binghamton market houses. In September there were 933 
farmers on the market 
