Norwich bulletin., 1913-08-02

i never direct from farmers because 1 the farmers will not grade them nor sack them properly, Some farmers will mix red and white stock when | the demand is wholly for one color They will not use uniform sacks;
 sugar bags, bran-b bags, fertilizer bags, l-anything is thought good enough
 for potatoes. They will not sack in | uniform weights; one bag will have 150 pounds and others in the same lot | vary from a hundred pounds up, l They won't even sew up the sacks l but tie them with anything from 1 yarn to apron strings, which are constantly breaking in transit or correspondent, T never buy of the farmer" Instead he goes to the i country merchant who takes the mixed stuff as it is brought him, fixes i il up for market. upholds his stand l ing as a responsible shipper and makes a big rake-off for his service"
 For another instance, hay. This produce buyer never takes any d1-
 rect from farmers because he has , found from long experience that he can place dependence on the average farmer regarding grades of hay" He calls everything No. 1, though 1t may | be mixed beyond recognition. and eV en his weights are not to be relied upon" This man prefers to buy from
 
 charge of 75 cents ton, because then he gets No. 1 when he orders it, and No when he orders that. And he buys by the trainload,-thousands and 1 thousands of tons.
 All of us farmers can tell stories of commission men and buyers and re- tailers who have 'welched" on us when the market has gone down. have repudiated their bargains and 11f% rxrHX 1Targ d. frNz. anything we can get Here's a pin with the point on the other end, and which bricks us not the other fellow. This buyer bought barrel of turkeys direct from a farmer, one Thanks giving season They did not arrive
 day before Thanksgiving and asked about them. Oh, was the answer, T got better offer and sold them to
 Blank and Co.,"
 As a result of many trials extend ing over many years and involving all most every thing in the way of coun- try produce, this particular buyer has reached the point where he now in Variably turns down the farmer who wants to see to him direct and deals with jobbers and Speculators, though he knows that thereby he is putting
 another profit upon the ultimate cost
 of the goods.
 Our buyer from whom l have been
 quoting isn't inclined to be censorious or "stuffy'' about it. He is moved to grief rather than abuse by the situa- tton. He declares expressly that he believes farmers to be inherently as honest at other men. But the farmer 1 has somehow, he thinks got the idea to be a business man. he must dc his full share of finn famming. He has come to think that 'business is
 made up of a good deal of sharp prac- tice, and he wants to be as foxy as the rest of them.
 Eh? We'll. What do you think about it, brother farmer?
 I own up that my first thought, when l read this eXcusatory para graph about the way the farmer had come to regard business as simply sharp practice was to retort with | Well, who taught him to think so?' l But that would merely be to repeat the tactics of the boy who gets behind fence and yells " You're another!" l Which is not argument. Neither does | it get anybody anywhere.
 1 We'll never climb to heaven on other mems sins. It doesn't sweeten | a bad egg one little bit to say that it's
 no worse than the other rotten eleven. I The fact that my right-hand neigh | Dor on the trolley is q thief and picks
 my pocket is no reason why I should l also turn thief and pick my left-hand neighbours pocket to even up. Two 1 crimes don't make a virtue.-not even the infinitesimal fraction of one.
 Two years ago l was short of hay, along in the spring. A neighbor who had been baling hay for the city mar | ket had perhaps half a dozen bales | left over which wouldn't go into the
 car. So I bought them. The centers
 of three of those bales were simply 1 trash,-weeds, chaff barn. floor sweepings including sticks, dirt weed seeds, and even gravel. 1 told him about it, later. "Sho," he answered,