News and citizen. [volume] (Morrisville, Vt. ;) 1881-current, 1922-11-08

what long hours, low farm prices and
small incomes were like. In those
days a farm cost less than half its
present value, and it's produce was
| also low priced-butter 20 cents, eggs
IL cents, etc.
Owing to advances all along the
line buildings on the farm cost today
more than double the old figure.
| While some farms have been sold at
fancy figures in late years, no farm
is priced too high until it reaches
approximately what it would cost to
build the needed buildings for it's
operation today-and three-fourths of
our Vermont farms for sale today are
being offered completely equipped
for less than it would cost to replace
the buildings, not to mention all the
other improvements. What then is
wrong?
The farmer has always been at the
mercy of the middleman, and is today.
Formerly he could only sell dairy
products at the local stores, and they
paid for them in trade at large profits,
reselling what butter they did not
have to buy through commission
men and often thus making another
large profit. And again, today there
are thousands of acres Of hay not
cut because owners could not sell it
for enough to pay the very high wage
cost of the harvesting. Here is the
nub of the difficulty. Farms in gen.
eral are not too high, but prices real
lied by the farmer are too low to
meet his high costs of operation, and |
the remedy seems to be either in |
higher prices of farm produce or
lower operating costs.
The man that has given this no I
thought wants to buy foods as low as |
possible-and to spend the cash thus +
saved in his automobile, the movies !
or the photograph. But until the
high-paid and short-houred city !
worker is willing to pay the farmer
a price fairly proportionate, the farm
will never really pay as it should,
though any Industrious and intelli-
gent man can today secure a good
and fairly Independent home for his
family on our fine Vermont farms.
The remedy? We are first of ALI
a dairy state, and our milk is sold
wholly through middlemen in the
various big centers. These dealers,
like most others that are not in a
position to render valuable and neces-
sary service, are in it, not for their
health, but for profit, and the con-
sumner or the producer, or both, must
pay this. In this city we have today
25 milkmen, each of whom covers |
the city, when five could do it as
well and much cheaper. In Boston
three old milk distributors CONSOLE
dated last spring, and in their an
nouncement of same they badly stated
that their future policy would be as
it had always been, to give the best
possible service consistent with a
fair profit for ourselves" But who
pays this profit?
Vermont milk producers are the
men vitality interested in this prob
lem, for the profits that go to the
middlemen do not reach their farms
to help in production costs. We
60 into the big cities and distribute
should organize extensively and then
our own milk products, and thus
wholly eliminate all middlemen and
dealers, and we should establish sur
plus stations near the farms where |
the milk is produced. No use in pay
ing high freights on the SO percent
water in our milk surplus for the
sake of having it made up into by
products in extensively operated city
plants, for it can be done right here
much more efficiently.
Cooperative marketing, especially
in milk, maple sugar, etc., is our best
answer to high operating costs and
too low incomes. The hardware mid
dleman is necessary, for he carries a
large stock for us to select small
purchases from at odd times. But
the milk middleman merely takes our
daily product from our hands and
passes it right along to the consumer
who uses a steady stream of it. This
we could do ourselves as well and
much cheaper, and eventually this
must come.
W. L. ARCHER,
Rutland, VT, Oct. &c, 1922.