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American Agriculturist, June 21, 1924 
Editorial Page of the American Agriculturist 
American 
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VOL. 113 
June 21, 1924 
No. 25 
Dairy Committee Trying To Get 
Together 
D AIRYMEN will be interested in the news 
account on Page 577 of the last meeting of 
the Dairy Conference Committee of Fifteen. 
This Committee met in Utica Saturday, June 7th. 
It passed a resolution declaring for a substantial 
increase in the price of milk on and after June 
16th, but this resolution was not passed unani¬ 
mously. Unless there is unanimous agreement, 
there can be no hope of better prices. Even then, 
better prices cannot prevail unless resolutions 
calling for them are founded on practical, economic 
conditions. 
The great danger, as we see it, of the Committee 
of Fifteen, is to respond to a perfectly natural 
desire to do too much in a too short time. Evils 
in the milk business have been collecting for many 
years, and it must not be expected that they can 
all be corrected in a short time. The whole milk 
situation is very complicated, the most so of any 
market problem which farmers have, and almost 
every farmer and every organization has conflict¬ 
ing ideas as to how the problem can be solved. 
Therefore, it is not to be expected that the men 
on the Committee of Fifteen, no matter how sin¬ 
cere they are in Avanting to accomplish results, 
will unanimously agree, especially at first. But 
the mere fact that they are trying to get together 
and that the last meeting did not result in an 
open break gives us hope that they may yet work 
together unanimously for the good of every dairy¬ 
man in the territory. As long as we can feel that 
the individuals on the Committee are sincerely 
striving to solve the problem, we will be for them, 
even though progress seems discouragingly slow. 
drastic and restrictive emmigration law was 
passed excluding Japanese entirely and restricting 
emmigration from other countries to two per cent, 
of the nationals which were here according to the 
census of 1890. Under the present restrictive 
emmigration law the quota is three per cent and 
the basis was the census of 1910. 
A large amount of pressure was brought on 
Congress and the President for some form of 
legislation that would help the farmers, particu¬ 
larly the wheat growers, out of their present hard 
times. “The most important of their farm bills was 
the McNary-Haugen bill. This and similar legis¬ 
lation failed to pass. It is perhaps just as well. 
If there is too much wheat, passing a law raising 
the price may help for a short time, but in the long 
run it is simply darning up a stream which in time 
will overflow and continue its course in spite of 
the dam. Legislation interfering with natural 
laws are as foolish as trying to make water run 
up hill. _ 
T B Workers Study Their Job 
O N JUNE tenth, eleventh, and twelfth an 
Eastern States Conference on the Eradication 
of Tuberculosis in Live Stock was held in Albany 
in conjunction with the 34th annual meeting of 
the New York State Veterinary Society. 
While looking into the earnest faces of the more 
than two hundred men who were gathered at this 
meeting to exchange information, we were im¬ 
pressed with the fact that bovine tuberculosis 
has got to go. These men are carrying the 
responsibility of the leadership in our Eastern 
States to conquer TB. They were there for 
business, and the exchange of information and 
reports of progress from different States, com¬ 
munities and from different viewpoints could not 
help but be of great value to everyone who heard 
them. We were particularly pleased with the 
showing made in the reports of Commissioner 
Pyrke and his workers in the New York State 
Department of Farms and Markets showing the 
remarkable amount of work that has been done 
recently in fighting tuberculosis in New York. 
It begins to look not only in New York but in 
other States as if the directors of the work have 
the problem in hand. In fact, such great progress 
was reported in all the States that a word of 
caution is perhaps needed. It will do no good to 
clean up a large number of herds and wide areas 
unless they are likely to stay clean afterwards. 
This means that the work must not be done so 
rapidly that there is a failure to secure the full 
cooperation of breeders who will work with the 
State authorities to take the necessary steps to 
keep their herds clean after the tests. 
things which are sure to lead to trouble in the 
end for those who do it. 
But on the other hand, a desire to strive for 
more and better things is a natural and whole¬ 
some desire. Those of our fathers who used 
the oil lamp would be foolish indeed to go back 
to the candle, and he who now would say that 
the coming of the mowing machine and the 
reaper in the place of the scythe and the cradle 
is not a good thing would be called, and rightly, 
a fool. Many of those who talk sorrowfully of 
the good old times would have an unpleasant 
time indeed were they to have their wish and 
be returned to those times. We can imagine 
how they would howl if they had to get up some 
cold winter morning and go five miles to the 
nearest neighbor to borrow live coals with which 
to start a new fire. 
What is needed is not any step backward to 
the things of yesterday, but perhaps a little 
more moderation in reaching forward too quickly 
to new luxuries before we as individuals are able 
to afford them. 
Poor Crops—Better Prices 
A CCORDING to the Department of Agricul- 
L ture, the month of May was the coldest, 
with two exceptions, in thirty years, and the 
rainfall east of the Rocky Mountains was very 
excessive. Just the reverse was true of the 
Pacific Coast. The result of this is that pastures 
are exceptionally good and hay promises to be a 
good crop. The good pastures have had their 
natural effect on the milk supply which has 
greatly increased. On the other hand, the un¬ 
favorable weather has made it difficult to get the 
crops in and when they were in they have not 
grown well. 
The Department of Agriculture reports that, 
the general condition of crops is the poorest it 
has been at this season in the last twelve years. 
We believe this situation will affect the general 
farm condition favorably. We have constantly 
maintained that one of the chief causes of our 
hard times is over-production. We have had 
considerable personal experience in raising pota¬ 
toes and we never forget that the years of an 
average or rather poor yield brought us the best 
returns in dollars and cents. 
Therefore, instead of being discouraged because 
the crops do not look quite as good as usual, or 
because we have not got quite so many of them 
in the ground, let us take most excellent care of 
those we have and look forward with hope that 
they may bring us more money than we would 
have when they looked better. 
Congress Accomplished Little 
O NE of the most unprofitable and costly ses¬ 
sions of Congress in the history of the nation 
ended on June 7. From almost beginning to end 
the session was marked by disheartening investiga¬ 
tions and partisan controversies which have not 
added to the confidence of the average citizen. 
Aside from the various investigations, Congress 
passed three bills of great importance. The bill 
granting a bonus, chiefly in the form of paid-up 
life insurance to soldiers of the World War was 
passed, vetoed by President Coolidge, and re¬ 
passed over his veto. On this page last week we 
gave an account of the bill which became a law 
reducing the income and some other taxes. A 
The Things of Yesterday or of 
Tomorrow ? 
A BE MARTIN, in the “Saturday Evening 
L Post,” says that we used to run three blocks 
to see a dude, but now we are all dudes. This is 
an amusing and striking way of expressing the 
change in the standard of life between us of to¬ 
day and those of even our father’s day. This 
change in standard and demand for more and 
better things not only exists in the city but in 
every country community. In fact, it is difficult 
to tell nowadays any difference between a well- 
dressed country crowd on a holiday or at a 
meeting, and a city crowd. 
Hundreds of things that we use in our daily 
life and think of as absolutely necessary were not 
so many years ago very rare luxuries, if they 
existed at all. That this demand for what we 
call a higher standard of life is a good thing will 
be disputed by some people. There are those, 
and they have many good arguments, who say 
that modern life is too complicated, that it is a 
good thing for the soul and body of man not to be 
too much pampered and that simplicity of life 
and living is necessary in developing the highest 
type of manhood and womanhood. Without 
question this running after the things “to keep 
up with the Jones’,” and the extravagant pur¬ 
chasing of luxuries that we can ill-afford—among 
which is too often the automobile—are bad 
Eastman’s Chestnuts 
AT THIS time, when the big party conventions 
are giving every citizen some mild interest in 
politics, there is a good laugh in the following 
story, which is told by our friend W. P. Hall, of 
Walton, Delaware County: 
“ Going back some forty years to when I was a 
kiddie in New York City. It was in early October 
and election was near at hand. The boys were 
beginning to realize that the time was nearing for 
free cigars. They were assembled at the club 
house on an evening enjoying each other’s com¬ 
pany when the door suddenly opened and the 
district leader entered. He was a big man stand¬ 
ing six feet with a girth the measurement I would 
not dare to guess. On his chest he wore a tie that 
was then in vogue. It was the style of that day 
and covered the whole of the chest. In the center 
of that tie was a very small pin representing a bug. 
“Sitting among the boys was a little Irishman. 
He seemed to be amazed. He looked at that pin 
and then at the man. He could not keep his eyes 
off that bug. The politician, noticing him 
scrutinizing him so closely, stepped up to him and 
says, ‘Paddy, what is wrong with me? ’ 
“‘Bedad,’ says the Irishman. ‘In my time I 
have traveled Ireland all over. I have been in 
Australia and New Zealand, and I have been in 
the far West in Ameriky. I have seen many 
curiesities, but it’s the first time in all me life I 
ever saw such a small bug on such a big pertaty.’ 
