cities such milk as is actually needed for consumptive purposes, manufacture the surplus back in the country, where the by-products can be more intelligently used, and perhaps work out more economical methods of distribution, and together with everybody try to have the heads chopped off of these inefficient producing cows, I think it will be more profit for the farmer and more business for the banker, and in general better circumstances all around. And we believe right to-day the study of economical production and consumption is as big a problem as production. [Applause.]

Chairman MINER. That is good gospel.

Mr. GALLOWAY (of Connecticut). Listening to these various gentlemen brings up two or three thoughts to me. I am a farmer myself. of Connecticut.

First in regard to the chairman's statements about more machinery. I know in my own case I have tried to put in some machinery and while I found the tractor has saved me a good deal of labor, I found I couldn't sell the horses that stood in the barn. During the winter season in hauling hay and grain from the railway station I have had to use those horses. And when it comes to spreading manure, and so on, I can afford to let the horses stand in the barn.

I suppose on large farms probably different conditions prevail, but for some things machinery is excellent. For others it is no good at all. And on the smaller farms here in the East I don't think we can make as good use of your machinery as you can in the West on your larger areas. In the East farms are rather hilly. The roads are hardly in a condition to put on a motor-drawn machine in good service. There are rocky roads, sandy roads, and places where you would stall the tractor. You would have to have the horses to get

to and from the road.

There is another thing I was very glad to have heard, but I think that the average farmer feels about trying to get money from the bank as the average man would feel in going to the back door of his broker to see if he couldn't realize something on his bonds. They would hesitate somewhat about taking loans from the banker except when they really have to do it. And I think it is a most unfortunate feeling to the farmers to feel that way.

But I think a great many of the small country bankers act in just that way regarding the farmer. They don't seem to do any constructive work. I am very glad to have heard these gentlemen this afternoon-some of the bankers in the country are waking up, and I believe if more of them will wake up it will make a big difference in agriculture in the Eastern States where the farms are small and the farmers as a rule deal with small capital. I think it differs somewhat with the larger areas in the West, where there is more capital invested, and I believe that the man with a larger capital invested has had better opportunities for education and development. It is not the case with the back-country farmer in the East. Chairman MINER. Any further discussion?

Mr. C. H. WILLOUGHBY. I would like to report for the Southeastern States that practically all of the bankers' associations can very quickly adopt the methods outlined by our friend from Grove City

in financing not only the older farmers but the young farmers in securing the right sort of cattle. As you know, we have a scarcity of the better sort of cows in the South, and in some locations they have sent a competent expert to the northern States to select cows by the carloads and bring them to their home States and distribute them there.

I recall one case on the east coast of Florida where a carload was distributed to the club boys there. Very little of that money was paid in cash. The banks carried the notes, and for the benefit of the bankers who may discuss this plan I believe that in every case those loans have been repaid. I am certain such is the case in the State of Florida. I think they have never lost a dollar on such loans. And thereby they encourage the boys to become customers of the banks and the boys are well satisfied. So in this way we hope to continue that work even more from year to year.

The Bankers' Association of Florida has even offered scholarships to deserving boys who can pass examinations to the State university for a year's course of study there after demonstrating their fitness. There are many ways, then, by which the bankers through their individual work or State associations may help this promotion of better livestock in the industry.

While I am on my feet, if you will permit me to hark back to the paper about dairy and factory management, I will give a thought there that might be of use to some members.

It was suggested by Director Peter, of Switzerland, that there is great need for training of young men for factory management, and there is a considerable lack of the right sort of training for these young men who wish to go into that sort of work. Many of the dairy schools are not properly equipped to train young men to be successful as soon as they should after completing their courses of study.

In Florida we have secured the cooperation of some of the large commercial dairy concerns. The large ice-cream factories and large milk companies in the cities have agreed to take our students either during the vacation period in the summer or at times in the year when they could be spared from their school work, and train them in their factories for the actual work of managing or watching the management of this work in large volume, much larger than they could get at college.

At the University of Cincinnati, as many of you already know, there is a plan for part-time work of students, especially in engineering, where the students two or three days of the week work in a machine shop and the remaining days of the week pursue their study or work in the university. In cities where a large dairy factory is located it seems to me possible that such a plan would be entirely feasible to train our young men better for dairy and factory management work. I would like to hear that discussed by Professor Irving, if he would. So in that way we hope to make our agricultural college students more useful to the business organiza

tions.

Chairman MINER. I am sure it is a matter of satisfaction to all of those interested in industry in the North to see the interest that is exhibited in the Southeastern States, and for the benefit of the last

speaker I will call his attention to the report of the president of the Southern Railway, where after a long excursion into finance and construction and the like, he refers with a great deal of satisfaction to the fact that 11 dairies have been established on the lines of the Southern Railway system in the last year.

Any further discussion, gentlemen?

Mr. WILKINS (of England). It might interest you to know that the British Government has recently suggested a plan under which shorter-term facilities are made available. We find that the banks can not be expected, or haven't been able, to fill the needs of the farmer in buying his seeds and machinery, and the State has stepped in and filled that gap, and if any person is interested to know of this scheme, I should be very happy to get them that information.

Under the act, also, they can get long-term credit, as during the war because of the high prices of everything the farmers made heavy loans, and they are not now in a position to pay off those heavy loans.

Mr. HARSHAW. I would like to know if the branch bank system makes it any more difficult for the local farmer to go into one of the branch banks and get a loan than it would be if that bank was owned locally?

Mr. LANGFORD. I think it has to go to headquarters. I didn't think Mr. Wilkins wished to indicate the banks were not generous in giving those, but the State loan is for a different class of person. The banks ir our country are generous enough if you have any kind of security to offer. But there has been such a depression among some smaller farmers in particular, and there is a system by which they have been assisted and for the longer terms in order to help the farmers who bought their farms at war prices. And that is pretty much in the same light that you indicated that they pay interest and repayment over a number of years, over 40 years. But so far as the banks are concerned, if they know the man and if his security is what they regard as gilt-edge, there is no difficulty in making any loans.

Chairman MINER. I think I can answer your question as far as one bank is concerned, and that is the Bank of Martins in Liverpool. Two hundred pounds have to go to headquarters.

Mr. LANGFORD. I just want to offer one little criticism. I agree with Mr. Harshaw entirely that the farmers must run their farms as economically as possible, and it has become a very serious question as to whether they ought not to discharge some of their men and try to do the same amount of work with less. That has taken place, obviously; from what the chairman said, you are now using machinery. But I would like to remind the chairman that I think in the Northwestern States 887 people have gone bankrupt within a given period. All but 27 of those eight hundred and eighty and odd were in other industries. The others were all farmers.

My point is even with this reduced man power and by using more mechanical power, the difficulty to-day is to produce at a sufficiently low cost to be able to sell the article in the market. I understand that wheat in the Northwest costs about $1.40 to produce and it has been sold to-day for $1.

MEMBER FROM PENNSYLVANIA. I have been much interested in the paper from Grove City. I recall the statement of one of our farmers when plans were made by the Government to finance the farmer.

This man was talking to an intelligent man in the community and he said: "It isn't easy money that we want. It is too easy to get money now from our banks." What he meant to say was that rather than more easy money they wanted intelligent help from the banks about financing.

We found during the year that the farmers who were in trouble following the depression after the war were the men who had been financed by banks and who were young men and made heavy loans at the time of the high prices of all commodities. Those were the farmers who were in trouble. The old-time farmer who ran along on a conservative basis came along all right. He got through.

I can't understand the wheat situation. We heard at Washington the other day-Hoover said that there was more wheat now than the people could possibly consume. The chairman says that wheat can be produced for a very small price.

Chairman MINER. I said it took 10 minutes now to produce a bushel of wheat.

MEMBER FROM PENNSYLVANIA. I was invited a short while ago to go to Washington, and in going from Washington to Chicago I got into conversation on the train with a land man from Manitoba. I told him that I had four sons, and he told me the thing for me to do was to come to Canada and buy land and put those sons on the land. He said they raised wheat up there in great quantities on these farms, used modern methods such as the chairman has touched on. They went out in the spring and put in their crop, harvested it and went back to the cities to live in fine homes during the winter. I couldn't help but contrast that kind of farming with the dairy farmer or the distributor of the milk, if you will, who works 365 days a year.

I don't think if the world is going to produce wheat in quantities beyond what we can consume that any plan of financing can be managed by the Government that will pay a price for that wheat that has probably been arrived at on the attitude that we have grown into by the excessive demands of the war period.

If we produce more milk than we consume, I don't know any method by which we can make the people pay for it that will return the cost of production at a profit. How would we get the money to return it? Fortunately, we are not in that situation with dairy products. The world is short of dairy products and will take them. But I have been listening to our farmers in the Central West telling us for years, or some several years, that the dairy business was going to pieces on account of prices. They told me last year they could not get help enough to raise their corn to make milk. As the summer went on it was proven there was plenty of help there to carry on these farms and make more milk, and the price of milk did go up. The farmers were buying more cows and getting more milk than they ever did.

I think that the question is teaching the farmer to intelligently carry on his farm, as the manufacturer does. He doesn't produce a line that is not going to sell at a cost plus a profit. He knows he can't do that. If he is going on that line he must get his cost out of it.

I think the commission of the banker will be—just as Grove City has gone on to do-to help the farmers to an intelligent understand

ing of their problem and not lend them easy money to go out and do foolish things with. I have seen committees of farmers come in from our districts in the Central West and try to force upon the cities higher prices for milk without the bankers trying to get them to use their cows intelligently or trying to educate the farmers to use milking machines or reduce their cost or reduce the cost of production of 100 pounds of milk. The only thought of the banker was to get a higher price rather than to reduce the cost of 100 weight of milk.

The banker has a great work in the community to do, but largely in the Central West. We haven't got the Grove City idea there. I hope it will spread our way. [Applause.]

Chairman MINER. It gives me a great deal of pleasure to introduce Dr. L. D. H. Weld, of Chicago, whose paper is entitled: "The meat packer as a distributor of dairy products." [Applause.]

THE MEAT PACKER AS A DISTRIBUTOR OF DAIRY PRODUCTS. LOUIS DWIGHT HARVELL WELD, Ph. D., manager, commercial research department, Swift & Co., Chicago, Ill.

In the distribution of perishable foodstuffs the meat packer has come to play an exceedingly important part, both within the United States and in international trade. Having built up the physical equipment and the sales organization necessary for the handling of meats on a large scale and over great distances, the meat packer long ago began to handle butter, eggs, cheese, and poultry. In the distribution of butter and cheese, in which the delegates to this convention are particularly interested, the meat packer has become one of the most important distributors in the country.

Why has the meat packer become so important in this respect, and what advantages, if any, does packer distribution have over other forms of distribution? To treat this subject adequately, and giving our attention primarily to butter, it is worth while to review, first, the conditions under which butter is produced; second, the various methods of marketing butter that have developed; and, third, the part played by the meat packer in marketing butter.

CHANGES IN BUTTER PRODUCTION.

The changes through which butter production has gone during the past half century have had an important influence on the methods of marketing. At first, butter was made on the farm, and it still is to a certain extent to-day. But so far as the commercial product is concerned, farm-made butter has practically given way to that manufactured in creameries.

When the factory or creamery system of butter manufacture began, it was necessary that the whole milk be hauled to the creamery while it was sweet, to be separated at the creamery. This meant that creameries had to be located in sections where milk production was very heavy and that one creamery could take care of only a small territory. This also meant considerable hardship to the farmers who had to haul their milk every day and who lost much time, not only during the hauling but in waiting their turns to unload at the creamery. It was only natural that the factory system should have