The Cordova daily times., 1917-02-06
PROPERTY LOSS GREAT RESULT
 OF WAR
(By Associated Press)

aNoAhiI, rSb- V. He TeHlpQV TOT the high cost of food in the United States is the adoption by the national government of scientific plan for disposing of farm products" according the David Lubin, the American repre- sentative to the International Insti- ute of Agriculture here and himself the originator of the plan of found ing that institution.
 'The remedy was worked out by Germany many years ago, and all we eAY4 to do is to adopt this remedy" he said The trouble with our pre- sent farming conditions is that the middleman and the speculator rather than the farmer get the biggest profit from the sale of farm products This is shown by the fact that soon nearly fifty per cent of the farms of our coun. try will be mortgaged or merely oc cupied on lease by the soils cultivat. ors.
 Right here in Rome a long while ago we had a striking example of what poverty means to the farmer In the time of Emperor Tiberius Gracchus, Rome began to buy her food from Al rica instead of encouraging her farm- CTS. The land rapidly passed then from the hands of the cultivator of the soil to others ownership, and the small farmers ruin entailed that of the nation
 America won't solve the high cost of food problem by putting the specu- lators in jail. We must make 1t i'm possible for the speculator to operate by strengthening the farmer. The Germans saw this many years ago, and they worked out a welfare plan for the farmer, and thereby for the nation. which resulted in placing s6 per cent of the farms in the hands of the cultivator.
 "The key to the plan of the Ger mans, known as the Landwirthschaft rat, is that of keeping the farmer in- formed regarding the needs of the cit ies, of the market, so that his distri- button system is good, so that he knows what his products g,s worth, so that he knows how to sell and so that he knows how to plant his crops
 All of Germany is divided by pro- vinces, and each province is kept in- formed of the others doings through a central office. Suppose there were too many potatoes in the province of A, with the result that prices were low, the farmers in this province | would make inquiries of the farmers l organization in a neighboring pro- vince, say of B, how its supply stood. | and so on through several provinces until the whole potato proposition was gone over, and the potatoes shipped to the point where the supply was the least. In the United States at pres- eat, given the condition of the pro- vince of A, the growers there merely continue to sell their potatoes to the big city buyers at whatever prices they choose to offer, the farmers in Kentucky, say, being unaware of con ditions in Ohio, or at least inexactly informed
 "The German plan is valuable be- cause it is a farmers affair. All the business of information is carried on through their own agents, and not by outsiders. The organization is recog- nized by the government. All legis- lation affecting agriculture must by law first be submitted to a standing central committee of the farmers. The organization is entirely independent of the department of agriculture, as 1t should be, since no such department can ever cooperate directly on mat ters affecting prices and business.
 Congress has already passed the rural credits act, and this winter con gross will also be called upon to con- slider the German remedy for the high cost of food. The rural credits act by itself will not vastly benefit the farmer unless he is further aided to get equitable prices for his products by the adoption of the other and com plimentary act. By this creation of an official farmers organization the farmer will be turned into an eff cient merchant, and the people in California will, say, should they be lacking in a food plentiful in New York state, be able to buy that food at prices helpful to the New York farmer and not prohibitive to them"