Arizona republican., 1918-03-23

of the Salt River valley in the matter of prices which they are being paid for their products. This was the encour- aging message brought from Wash- ington. D. c. by Fred J. Elliott. 1000 conservation chairman of the federal food administration for Arizona, who returned yesterday from several days conference of state conservation ot- ficials at the national capital
 This relief will not take the form Of government subsidy, however. Elliott tried this channel first, but found that it was blocked by a preponderance of more weighty matters which would not permit of so much as consideration of the subject.
 Nor can the food administration ar bitrarily fix the price to be paid the farmers for their milk. That would be an impossibility in the face of the limited scope of operation which con- gross has imposed on the Hoover ser vice.
 Gets Valuable Information
 These facts, however, should not necessarily prove discouraging," said Elliott. I am returning to Phoenix with a deeper insight into the dairy situation of the country. I believe l have unearthed a world of informa- l tion that will be valuable in working out a solution of the local problem. have gone 100 per cent strong for the | dairymen, I am going to continue on that basis and my department Of the conservation work in this state will i exhaust every means at our command before we say quit"
 1 The demands of the local dairymen that they be paid a living price for their milk was taken up by MT. Elliott with the heads of the milk division and every phase of the situation gone into with thoroughness. In addition to that he spent two days Chicago interviewing the representative O the condensary end of the Armour Packing company.
 My talk with this representative
 was most encouraging" said MT. El-
 liott. I told him that the dairy and
 the creamery interests were ready to place their cards face up on the table and pointed out that there was every reason why they should do the same.
 am not in a position to quote my in-
 terview, but l can say this much. l think, without violating any confl- dence. that I won over the personal
 sympathy of at least one member of
 that large corporation and have every
 reason to believe that he will assist in
 securing the cooperation asked for and
 which will eventually lead I think, to
 a substantial measure of relief.
 Dairying Unprofitable Everywhere
 Abnormal conditions which prevail
 all over the country have made the
 dairying business unprofitable and this
 state of affairs has been aggravated in
 Arizona by the abnormal demand for
 alfalfa and feeds.
 "The national dairy situation was made abnormal by the fact that sub-
 stantial portion of the 100000, 0OC
 bushel corn crop was utilized by the
 middle western farmers in feeding op-
 erations. This showed the price of
 feeder cattle out of sight. but with the
 advance in the price of corn many
 suffered severe losses. The experi-
 ment is one which will not be tried an
 other year, and some relief may be expected as a result.
 Another silver lining is to be seen
 in the release of Dutch shipping. To-
 day there is a greater world demand for evaporated milk than ever before but there were no bottoms to ship in hence the stagnation. With Dutcf SIlpS at OuI COHllllduu IL Ildy pc llit some of the surplus supply can be dis posed of and this should naturally in crease the price paid the farmer. Tn considering the local dairy situa- ton it must be borne in mind that oul dairying prosperity is based on sS hay -the business has been built up on tha foundation. Extraordinary demand; for alfalfa hay are responsible for tht high prices to some extent. Then too thousands of head of both cattle ant sheep were shipped into the state dur ing the last year and this helped tC boost the price. Much of the hay Wa! shipped to California. With plenty O rain there the last few weeks, the sit uation will be improved and the de mand lessened. l predict the return of low price hay to this valley whicl in itself should tend to help the situa tion.
 Is Up to Each Community "It is up to every community t' work out it's own problem and in thi connection, think that one of the big | gest tasks is to educate the public ol the value of milk as a food. Skimmet milk and butter milk are now bein, fed hogs. They should be used nor for human consumption and they vii be used more and more as the war zoe on and as the need of substitutes be comes more sharp. Few persons real ize that a quart of milk, even at 2 cents a quart is cheap as compared t pound of beef steak, at say 23 cent: Both contain practically the same nu U trs,,