New-York tribune., 1922-10-26

of bushels from the United States. The
reason Is that IL would be slightly pre-
ferred to American wheat by some buy
ers for the same reason that the
American millers want some of it to
mix with local wheat.
The exportable surpfus Of wheat
from both sides of the Canadian line
exported fror, all wheat raising eoun-
tries the year before the European
war, 70 that when tho crops of Argen-
tire and other parts Of the world are
thrown into the market there is eVi-
IDENTIFY moro wheat, not than car be
consumed, perhaps, but than can he
bought Contributing TO this is the fact
that so much Of Europe cannot buy
what ii really needs
The situation with regard to pota-
tees. ii anything. is worse than that OF
whent. Minnesota this ynar produced
more potatoes than any ether state in
the Union. Tho estimated potato crop
of the state is now 3S.3a6,000 bushels,
with Wisconsin and Michigan second
and third. ard New York relegated to
fourth place. All over the country the
potato crop is big. so that it is esti-
mated by experts here that the coun-
try has raised abcus one-half bushel
for every man, woman and child in the
United States more than the country
can consume.
After taking about e,355 cars of
potatoes the railroads have virtually
lain down, refusing to take potatoes at
all for consignment to Chicago, Kansas
City and st. Louis. Even for other
destinations, while there are no em
bargoes, the farmers cannot get cars.
An Interstate Commerce Commission
investigator found that one day last
week the railroads had orders for 1000
cars for northern Minnesota alone for
potato shipments and furnished only
119 cars.
The result is that many Of the
farmers are letting their potatoes rot
in the ground, since most of them have
scant storage facilities and digging
them out would mean only waste of
the labor involved.
The same condition applies to two
other big crops of this part of the
and oats. A leading
business man of Minneapolis has
farm not far from the city, and
raised a fine crop Of oats. The price
received for them was 10 cents
hushel. The cost for thrashing was
10 cents bushel. SO that he received
actually nine cents bushel. He esti-
mated that it cost him 25 cents for
every bushel he raised.
Barley is bringing about 30 cents a
bushel. One farmer ap in North
Dakota, brother. by the way, of the
Democratic candidate for Senator, is
feeding his barley to pigs.
Il expect to make those pigs pay
told q friend
Stock Raising Is Urged
This last, in nutshell, is another
of the solutions being urged by many
of the newspaper editors and other
leaders of this country, as against the
soothing syrup cufe-all remedies Of the
radicals
They are making the same drive for
diversified farming. and particularly
for stock raising and dairy farming,
up here that the Department. Of
Agriculture concentrated on in the
South just before the European war,
in an effort to correct the same evils
in tho South due to overproduction of
cotton.
Much is being, made OF the case of
a farmer up in the nothern part of the
state who is planning to sell none Of
his potatoes-of course, he would have
a slim chance Of doing that anyhow
but who has constructed two big "feed
cookers" in which he will prepare his
potatoes to be- fed to his hogs all
winter. That farmer, If all goes we'll,
will have product next spring which
will bring good price instead Of TAX
ing heavy loss on his potatoes.
AT present there is aston; shingly
little stock raising in all this country.
The farmers up here have always re-
garded it as their one and only Job
to be the bread producers of the world.
Raising stock would, it is pointed out,
break the crushing load Of interest
they have to pay the banks, as the
result Of only getting their crop money
once a year. Those who will turn to
dairy flaming can get their money
monthly, which would mean no interest
payments at all. But more important
they would be scaling down the pres
ent overproduction Of grain and pota-
toes.
The difficulty confronting those try
ing to change the agricultural habits
of the farmers is that every year there
is bad crop prices are high, so every
farmer figures on raising big wheat
and potato crop next season.
When he gets big crop and poor