FARMERS, MIDDLEMEN, AND PARCEL POST.
Thousands of families in Germany and France have been able for years to indulge in the luxury of getting daily pats of fresh butter, as well as new-laid eggs, freshly-killed chickens, and succulent vegetables straight from the farmer's garden, thanks to the parcel postman. We, too, now have a parcel post and many look on it as a means of lowering the cost of living. It is that, no doubt; but it is more important from another point of view: it enables those who are fastidious as to what they eat to dodge the greengrocer who tries to foist on them farm produce which is not fresh and flavorsome; as well as poultrymen who refuse to heed the demand for fresh-killed fowls.
New plans for bringing the consumer into direct contact with the producer are discussed in the press every other day, and there is a great deal of talk about "eliminating the middlemen." Some of these undoubtedly ought to be ousted. There is no need of having four kinds of them—transportation agents, wholesalers, jobbers, and retailers. Some of these could be dispensed with, especially those who speculate in food products. To make war on retailers is an excusable proceeding, because of their frequent extortionate charges; yet we could not get along entirely without them. Not all of us can deal directly with the farmer, and those of us who do so are sure to find some day that he has sold his last turkey or his last head of lettuce—and then we have to fall back on the grocer or the butcher. Without the latter, where would we get some of our meats? If he is honest and knows his business, as he usually is and does, he is a specialist in the judging, handling, and cutting of meats. For this knowledge, and for the opportunity he gives us to buy any kind of meat we want at any time, he deserves to be paid, and well paid.
The chief trouble about the retail middlemen is that there are too many of them. They declare that there are more failures in their trade than in any other, and no wonder. In the fierce struggle for existence they resort to all sorts of tricks to deceive customers—an evil of which enough has been said in these pages.
If one-half of these retailers could be transferred to the country, to become growers of food instead of distributors, there would be few failures and the cost of living would be reduced. There is no doubt whatever that the ever-rising price of foodstuffs is due chiefly to the alarming increase in the number of consumers, with a corresponding decrease in the number of producers.
Particularly unfortunate is the disinclination of farmers to raise vegetables and small fruits for the market, or even for their own tables in many cases. "Western Canada," we read, "presents the peculiar anomaly of a wonderfully productive agricultural country importing most of its food products." Special efforts were made during 1911 "to awaken the farmers to the value of mixed farming," but without much success.
The same trouble exists in the United States, even in regions where the soil is less adapted for the growing of wheat by the mile than in Western Canada. Yet it has been proved again and again that much more money can be made by intensive methods on small farms than by growing grain on a large scale. It was this discovery that led to the decrease in the acreage of wheat grown in California and Oregon.
"I have made a careful study of the conditions of agriculture in the Santa Clara, San Jose and Sacramento valleys, and I am irresistibly led to the conclusion that the great ranches must be broken up into small holdings before permanent prosperity can come to the farmers of the Pacific Coast," remarks Professor Isaac Roberts, Dean of the College of Agriculture, Cornell University, in an admirable little book published by the Orang Judd Company. It is entitled "Ten Acres Enough," and is just the book for those who feel inclined to leave the overcrowded cities and lead a busy but prosperous life in the country.
Chinese Canal
To realize what could be done to increase this country's natural resources, read Professor F. H. King's article in the "National Geographic Magazine" for October, 1912, describing China's wonderful system of canals for transportation, drainage, irrigation, and fertilization, with the aid of which a population of 400,000,000, tilling a region not a third as large as the United States, has subsisted for thousands of years.
We need not go as far as China, however, for a good example. The market gardens of Paris, to which reference was made in Chapter VII, convincingly prove the commercial wisdom of intensive farming and of providing city folk with the tenderest and most flavorsome vegetables, berries, and fruits. We have too much "long-distance food" (canned or frozen); what we want is short-distance produce.
Paris is the model for us; it enjoys what Professor Ferrero, in Le Figaro, has rightly called the ideal condition, being a city fed by fresh supplies from the adjacent country. Our aim should be to make each of our large cities a "hub" connected by thousands of spokes with suburban market gardens.
In these gardens women as well as men can find employment; it has been claimed that their careful truck farming in garden and field shows better results than the work of men.
Short-distance farming increases profits by decreasing transportation charges. A vivid illustration of future possibilities is given by an expert in these words: "Long Island is about the size of Holland. Its population is about the same. The produce taken out of the soil in Holland is twenty-one times that which is taken from the soil of Long Island. If Long Island were brought under proper cultivation it alone would produce the larger part of the vegetable products required by the six millions of people in New York City and vicinity." The retail middleman and the parcel post would in that case suffice.
At present the big profits in the food business go chiefly to the gambling middlemen—the jobbers. This must be changed. Possibly the prices will not become lower; but if the method just suggested is carried out, the quality (flavor) of the food we eat will be vastly improved and the profits will go to those who deserve them—the market gardeners. Let us do all we can to make their work as alluring and profitable as possible in order to greatly increase their numbers. To the lowering of the cost of food we ourselves can largely attend by stopping our sinful waste and taking to heart the methods taught in the preceding pages of economizing in our food without lowering its nutritive value or diminishing its pleasurableness.
