EASTERN STATES 
Gapemyr 
OW 
KENNETH HINSHAW 
Editor 
WALTER ELLIS 
ERNEST W.KESTNER 
Associate Editors 

Tus MAGAZINE is published monthly 
by the Eastern States Farmers’ Ex- 
change, headquarters: West Spring- 
field, Mass. It is distributed free to 
members of this cooperative purchas- 
ing association. The purpose of the 
Eastern States Cooperator is to keep 
members informed about the progress 
of their organization — to help make 
better farming easier to accomplish 
by having up-to-date information 
available regularly. For anyone liv- 
ing outside Eastern States territory 
and those within the territory but 
not able to participate in the asso- 

ciation’s purchasing program, there | 
is a subscription price of $1.00 year. 
There are 100,000 members and 
patrons in the Eastern States Farm- | 
ers’ Exchange located in New Eng- 
land, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and | 
Maryland. The members are the 
owners of the Exchange, which 
serves as the purchasing department 
of their farms. They control its op- 
eration through their annual meet- | 
ing which every member has the | 
right to attend. Each member has 
one vote. 
Members select the Exchange's 
board of directors at the annual 
meeting. Through its executive com- 
mittee, the board of directors carries 
out its responsibilities to the mem- 
bership. The management, respon- | 
sible to the executive committee, 
selects and purchases the commodi- 
ties handled by the association. 
Eastern States commodities are 
processed in the Exchange’s own 
plants — shipped in carloads — usu- 
ally delivered to members from the 
car door — and paid for on a cash 
basis; factors that enable the Ex- 
change’s local representative to serve 
1000 communities economically. 

Vol. 22 NOL 

-Reconversion 
Tue tremenvous 
task of reconversion is not being ac- 
complished as rapidly as had been 
hoped. Farmers must exercise much 
self-control and good judgment to be 
squeezed as little as possible by this 
delay. 
While waiting for industrial produc- 
tion and distribution to get into full 
swing, farmers should refrain from 
buying any goods and services they can 
get along without which are high in 
price due to short supply. Such items, 
which all farmers need to a greater or 
less extent include: machinery and 
automobiles, fencing, building materi- 
als of most sorts and many household 
supplies. Careful shopping, of course, 
will disclose exceptions in these list- 
ings — some things being available 
here and there in quantity even now 
and at attractive prices. Other things 
critically needed but high in price can 
be bought by going without other 
things not so necessary. All this is in 
harmony with our private enterprise 
tradition. 
Farmers must also refrain from ex- 
pecting more supplies which, though 
attractive in price, are still in short 
supply due to inability to expand pro- 
duction facilities during wartime. The 
fertilizer industry is a conspicuous ex- 
ample of this situation. 
While imports of foreign potash 
were cut off by the war, and imports 
are now impossible due to the ravages 
of war, demand for potash has in- 
creased and is now at an all-time high. 
Although fertilizer usage has reached a 
volume never required prewar, the 
fertilizer industry, private and coopera- 
tive, has been unable to expand facili- 
ties sufficiently since the war started. 
Such expansion is, however, now in 
progress. 
Even commodities which farmers 
produce for each other are in some in- 
stances short due to the demands made 
on farmers during the war years. Grass 
seed is short as are other sorts of seed. 
Feed supplies for the period ending 
next fall are not sufficient to carry pres- 
ent animal and poultry numbers at 
current levels of feeding. Ceiling prices 
on feed materials are low enough in 
comparison to prices farmers are re- 
ceiving for animal and poultry prod- 
ucts to cause a greater-than-normal 
proportion of such materials to be fed 
in areas of their production. Farmers 
in ‘‘feed importing’’ areas are also con- 
tinuing to feed heavier than prewar. 
How can farmers best meet this situa- 
tion? By being discriminating buyers, 
picking up the things they need most 
and holding back on the things they 
can spare until they are available and 
by keeping their operations consistent 
with supplies. To these conditions 
farmers themselves must adjust their 
Operations. 
Soil Mining 
W = wave been main- 
taining our nation’s living standards in 
part by mining our basic soil fertility. 
The process started on the eastern sea- 
board generations ago and then moved 
west. Slow in the early stages, it has 
been speeded up with the advent of 
new farm machinery so that fewer and 
fewer farmers have been able to sup- 
port more and larger cities by being 
able to mine faster. 
Continuing to mine this most basic 
material resource can only lead to dis- 
aster — for the farmer as well as for 
those who depend upon him for food 
and clothing. History shows that it 
has happened before in other parts of 
the world. It can happen here! 
To reverse this trend requires em- 
ployment of legume and grass seeds, 
lime and fertilizer to re-vitalized soils 
and restore nutrients. Fertilizer alone 
will not do the job. It requires putting 
fields into perennial sod crop produc- 
tion more often and for longer periods, 
being liberal with fertilizer applica- 
tions on those sods. 
Between-season seedings of green 
manure and cover crops are going only 
part of the way to maintain basic fer- 
tility; seldom, if ever, are they ade- 
quate to fully offset the drains culti- 
vated crops make on basic fertility and 
productivity. There is too little time 
for rest and refitting, little opportunity 
to return the nutrients cash cropping 
and soil drainage have removed. 
