The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1917-06-04
CONTROLLING NATIONS FOOD
THE TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
INFORMATION BUREAU
By Frederic j. Haskin. Director
Washington. d. G.
m.-Farm. Factorx. Road and Homo.

cheney or all -FOUR. II Is now possible
to set forth in a general way how this
will be done.
Price fixing will affect all of these
factors, and because it is a large and
little understood subject, will be dis
cussed separately in the next article.
To stimulate production is the first
necessity Besides assuring the far
mer of a good price for his products,
the government will attempt to help
him by teaching him better methods
thru the county agents of the depart
ment of agriculture, the number of
which will be greatly increased; and it
/ will assure him of an adequate supply
of seed at a reasonable price.
Labor is the great problem in pro-
ductiOn, not only in the United States,
but all over the world. Even Ger
many has more land than she can Gull
tivate. The department of agriculture
expects to solve this problem largely
by making survey of farm labor,
ana facilitating its distribution. The de-
partment is placing a man in each
state to work in cooperation with
state central board to this end. Far
mers will be encouraged to cooperate
with each other to share their labor,
and to buy labor-saving machinery CO.
operatively. Efforts will be made to
facilitate the seasonal distribution of
| labor, to see that the men who moved
the Kansas wheat crop in June will
go north in time to pick apples.
Numerous other ways of solving
the labor question have been sug-
geSted. Steps have been taken to-
wsrd organizing boy scouts. school
children, and various other elements
in the population. The chief trouble
with all of these movements is that
the farmers do not want boys or in
experienced labor of any other sort
One suggestion made before the house
committee on agriculture was that we
should import a million German priS-
oners and put them to work on the
farms.
In the manufacture of foods, the
milling of a larger percentage of flour
is a measure that will probably be
used to make our grain go farther.
Alcohol is now being successfully
made from sawdust in this country,
and this will make possible the saving
of certain amount of grain now
used for that purpose, whether or not
part of that now used for beverages
is kept for bread in the future.
The drying of fresh vegeta bles, so
that they may be kept more easily,
and will be much lighter for ship
ment, is another means that will
probably be used to increase the win
| ter supply of vegetables. In Ger
many, portable drying machines,
many of them mounted on railway
cars, go among the farmers, who
come on certain days to have their
beans, potatoes and other products
I
drying by means of fans has been
perfected which is said by experts
to be very efficient. There are, how
ever. very few drying machines in
the United States. They must be
built and plan for their cooperative
use worked out.
| The control of the distribution OF
foods, in addition to the fixing of
prices, means regulation of their snip
ment AMI storage. The food bill. as
reported from the House Committee
on Agriculture, gives the administra-
| ton adequate powers to deal with
| both. The general idea is to direct
shipments so that they will go where
they are needed. The purpose will be
not so much to break up gluts as to
| prevent them. For example, if C1eve-
| land has all the potatoes it needs,
there is nothing now to prevent farm
ers who have always used Cleveland
as their market from shipping still
more potatoes to that point, so that
some of them will rot for lack of n
market, while in Chicago, perhaps,
potato scar city is not far off A food
administration which knows what the
potato supply is in each place, and has
| power to regulate shipment, will cas-
| lily preVent these market gIuts
In Germany it has been found DOS
s1ble to regulate the distribution of
foods except insofar as the consumer
goes direct to the producer. That is
/ -.
handled by commission men, whole
salers and retailers, is easily regu-
lated thru these agencies. That does
not mean that their business is ser
lously injured; they are allowed to
exercise their legitimate economic
functions in the distribution of foods
put their opportunities for specuIa :
ton are reduced to minimum. IT
mas been found impossible, however
TO prevent the farmer from doing
/ will
duces The result is that the only
classes which have had more toan
the war ration to eat in Germany have
Deen the farmers who raised food. and
me me Flch people who bought it from
the farmers. For exampla, German
farmers, instead of selling their bar
| ley' ana SO putting it into the usual
channels of trade at the fixed nrice
nave often fed it to their geese. Geese
In Germany bring as much as riff,
dollars apiece, and are sold Nv tbe
farmers directly to those who can n =
ford to pay for them.
Regulation of the consunntio- of
tooa means the reduction of the diet
10 the physiological norm, and the
elimination of waste In most IF ~
oelhgeren- countries, rationing has
peen adopted, so that it is against the
| law LOT anyone to eat moro than he
ne|oS 70 keep him alive. This country
10 nowhere near the condition that
makes rationing necessary. hI1+ the
general purpose of the educational
campaign which will be directed to
housewives by the food administrator
Is the same as that of rationing. Thus
MI. hoover breaches the gospel of
the clean plate and the individual
service of the same" which means
that each one must be given only as
much as he will eat to the last morsaI.
and that no more must be put before
MN as a temptation. The heaped no
family platter AMI the ST amin o. 1,aea
table dish from which each one NAV
take as much as he pleases must from
now on be considered unpatriotic, for
the sight of food tempts to gluttony.
This stinting of the diet will prob
ably be a difficult thing to ACCOMPLISH
by educational methods, but the food
administration may do a great work
by its campaign to teach housewives