Semi-weekly herald., 1912-11-25
A NATIONAL MARKETING ASSO-
CIATION FOR FARM PRODUCTS

cnHutS, DdHkeTS ana DuSlneSS men IN
almost every class of business have
been engaged FOR the past few years
in direct and powerful concerted ef-
fort to increase the efficiency Of their
merchandising and
financing by reducing the cost of pro-
duction and the cost Of selling. 1t
was that effort, and that effort alone,
that has made the past twenty years
an era OF great combinations and
trusts. The manufacturers figured
out that they could reduce the cost
of selling and distribution very great
ly If they combined scattered plants
into one central organization and sub
stituted one selling expense for a
dozen selling expenses.
Through this great era of the elm
ination Of unnecessary expense and
consequently of the gathering of
larger profits from manufacturing,
merchandising and all other lines of
organized business and labor, the
farmers of the nation, who are the
greatest producers of all, have done
almost nothing in the direction of
eliminating unnecessary expense in
selling their products. While our
manufacturing industries today are
matters Of wonder and admiration to
all the world, the fact still remains
that in the fundamental matters Of
scientific cultivation, of economic
roads throughout the agricultural re-
gion, of close and scientific market
ing, the farmers of the United States
are generation behind the farmers
of Germany and France.
Ten years ago | came to the con-
clusion, from the way our political
affairs were shaping that the safest
way for railroad to proceed was to
go to work with the farmer and CO.
operate with him to better his posi-
ton and in every possible way to
make him stronger, and increase his
efficiency. 1t was this belief that
made me supporter of the movement
for the building of better roads in the
agricultural states-not entirely great
expensive public boulevards stretching
between our large commercial and sea-
side resorts, but good roads into our
agricultural sections to reduce cost of
hauling between the farm and the
town markets-for the establishment
of system of cooperation that will
eliminate unnecessary expense against
foodstuffs between the farmers and
the consumers of the products, for the
of a system of co-opera-
tive farm finance that will make it
possible for the American farmer to
borrow both on mortgages and on cur
rent loans at a much better rate than
he has to pay today, and for the work.
ing out of system of market bureaus
which will put the farmer as closely in
touch with his market as the steel
maker, the hat maker, the automobile
builder, or the oil producer is with his
market. These are the planks in the
platform of agricultural reform that
must have attention for the best in
terests of all classes.
Naturally, organizations must pro-
ceed at local centers. For instance,
the citrus fruit growers of southern
California, the apple growers of Ore
gon, the truck growers of southern
Texas, have organized into agencies
for selling, which have as their object
control over the output and very
definite and helpful control over the
methods of selling the output. In a
local way, these organizations typify
the aims and the methods that will be
followed in the long run by national
organizations of farmers producing
the staples of life.
There is a great deal to be said
about each of the planks in the plat
form that have outlined in the be-
ginning of this subject. Books have
been written about good roads, and a
very strong and healthy movement is
under way. The gist of this move
ment is that there is waste of some
thing life $3OO,0 100000 year by the
farmers on account of poor highways,
and here / want to emphasize again
that due consideration should be given
to seeing that the country roads serv-
ing farm communities should not be
neglected.
Again there is a very strong move
ment in progress backed by some of
the best thinkers of the country to
study agricultural credit systems
abroad and to work out for the United
States a system that will put the
American farmer on par with the
German or the French farmer when he
comes to borrow at the bank or to
raise money by mortgaging his farm.
The meat in this cocoanut is that the
farmers of the United States are now
paying something like $4,000, 900,
which is 100000, 100000 a year more
than they should pay in interest on
their loans as compared with other
countries where farm
credit is established. fN
In the latest government agricultural
report, Secretary Wilson says concern
ing what is costing the nroducar tn