The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1913-06-03
President Waters of X. s. A. G.
Gives HOOsiers Advice.
Governments Crop Reports
Are Very Inadequate.
SHOULD ALSO AID CONSUMER
Only Experts Able to Under.
stand Government Reports.
Are Little Aid as Market Guides
Except to Spectators.

Indianapolis, June S.-A plea for
improved methods of crop and mar
ket reporting was made by Henry ].
Waters, president of the Kansas State
Agricultural college, in an address be-
fore the state conference on agricul-
ture and country life in Indiana here
today. The conference is under the
auspices of the Indiana Bankers as
sociation.
Crop Reports Not Adequate.
Crop reports, President Waters said,
are not adequate guides to the farmer
in selling his products and to the con-
sumner in buying his supplies. The
crop reporting system, he said, has
not progressed in the last quarter of
a century except, broadly speaking, in
respect to the method of getting esti-
mates. These methods, however, have
been greatly refined and improved. In
other directions the countrys crop re-
ports, President Waters said, are in
adequate, the results are not suffi-
GENTLY detailed and complete to form
a trustworthy basis for buying or SELL
ing crops.
Reports Should Cover Demand.
Our crop reporting SYSTEM" Pros
ident Waters continued, should be
extended to include a careful consid
Grafton of the demand as well as of
the supply. The consumer has as
much right to information showing
where to buy to the best advantage as
has the producer in his selling opera
tions. Both of these are entitled to
such knowledge of the crop situation,
of the food supply and of its distrib
ution as would be safeguard in selling
or in buying. This knowledge our pres
ent crop reporting system does not
provide. That is to say it does not in
clude sufficient detail to help the far
mer much in deciding whether to sell
his wheat from the thresher or hold 1t
for an advance in the market. 1t does
not tell the peach grower, for example,
where the market is glutted, where
disaster would follow his consignment
of perishable products. 1t fails to
point out where his products are need
ed and where a good price may he
Obtained
Should Help Consumer.
Speaking more specifically, Presi-
dent Waters said the crop reports do
not involve a sufficiently accurate and
detailed consideration of distribution
of supply and demand and tell the
consumer accurately whether to buy
in anticipation of an advance. They
do not give information upon which
the Consumers league, as an instance,
can touch quickly the point of largest
supply and thereby serve two good
purposes; giving the farmer a good
market and cheapening food for the
consumer.
Spectators Take Advantage.
But the large dealer and the specu-
lator supplement the public crop re-
ports and this, with their expert
knowledge of the field of marketing. and
the facilities for storage, and ample
capital and credit, enables them to
take advantage of a surplus in one part
of the country and of a shortage in
another They can store food stuffs
when those food stuffs are cheap and
thereby reap a benefit from large sup
plies which the consumer should enjoy,
and a benefit from a shortage which
should go to the farmer.
Public Not Sufficiently Interested.
These observations are not in criti-
cism of federal or state departments of
statistics" President Waters said en-
phatically '"They mean, merely, that
the public has not been interested suf-
fciently in these matters of marketing
and distributing to provide means
necessary to do this work as we now
know should be done.''
Government Appropriation Small.
1t was pointed out that the S50, 900
by congress in it's recent
session to provide aids to marketing
nevertheless, very small when compar-
ed with the 20 mollion dollars devoted
to the details of food production. No
one President Waters said, would con-
tend that SO much money would be
needed for the side of production, but
the advance made in this instance was,
he declared, only beginning.
Move Stuff Too Much.
Coming to the remedy for the condi-
CONTINUED on Page Six.)