The Nonpartisan Leader Newspaper, December 30, 1915, Page 4

i ¥ . legislative FOUP. THE NONPART| ISAN LEADER North Dakota at the National Capital Washington, D. C., Dec. 26.—Rep. Geo. M. Young of Valley City, N. Dak., is still pegging away on his crusade to establish grades for wheat based upon chem- jcal and baking test to substitute for the present system of grading which Young insists is inherently dishonest. It will be remembered by North Dakota farmers that Young when a member of the state legis- Jature was the author of the bill which resulted in establishing the wheat testing laboratory under Dr. E. F. Ladd at the North Dakota - agricultural experiment station. The Congressman is now planning to in- troduce a bill providing for federal .inspection ‘and standardization of . grain under laboratory tests. He will .probably endeavor to have his bhill @accepted as an amendment to .any -:grain grading measure that may pass <Congress. Demands Just Grading Youxig contends that the price of wheat should be based wupon the . actual values in any grade of wheat rather than upon arbitrary rules by .-grain exchanges. - It has been shown at the North Dakota station, - he s, that the lower grades of wheat . yield more in the actual value of . flour and by-products. than No.. 1 Northern. Even rejected wheat -is” worth to the-miller more than No. 1° Bv WILLIS 1L Northern, yet the farmer is forced to suffer by the grading imposed at the terminals. For this reason, he contends, the grading in itself is dishonest regardless of what is done with the wheat after the grading. Professor’s Tests Dr. Ladd’s tests in this respect have been very interesting. They show, for instance, that for each 100 pounds of No. 1 Northern wheat there is a net profit for the sale of flour and by-products of over 33 cents; for the same quantity of No. 2 there is a profit of over 36 cents; No. 8, over 49 cents No. 4, over 52 cents; and the profits for each 100 pounds of rejected wheat amount to nearly 57 cents. It is therefore more rofitable to handle No. 3, No. 4, or rejected wheat than it is the better jgrades of hard wheat. For this reason Nr. Young believes that the payments to the growers should more mearly equal the profits there are in the marketing of the wheat ‘preducts to ‘the ultimate con- sumer. He believes that the brok- ers :and other middlmen are the ones who derive the great profits from tthe lower grades of wheat, and that the millers’ profits are about equal on all grades. Lower Tests More Profitable Without going into the subject too RUTLEDGE minutely it can be shown by tests why the lower grades are the more profitable. For instance, while a bushels of No. 1 wheat weighs 57 pounds and a bushel of rejected wheat 41 pounds, the screenings from a bushel of No. 1 amount to 2.51 per cent while for rejected wheat the cereenings are 13.96 per cent. These screenings are sold at about $18 a ton. There is less than 4 per cent more flour to be obtained from a bushel of No. 1 wheat than from a bushel of rejected wheat; whereas there is over 2 per cent mere bran in the rejected wheat and 2 per cent more shorts. A bushel of No. 1 wheat loses 1.06 per cent in milling while a bushel of rejected wheat loses only .34 per cent. Better for Baker. The lower grade wheat is more de- sirable for the baker. It absorbs more water than No. 1; the volume of the loaf of bread for each pound is considerably greater; while the texture of the loaf made from low grade wheat is superior to that made from No. 1 wheat. Only in celor is the low grade flour at a disad- vantage, but the flour made from rejected wheat is in color well above the standard set by the bakers as the minimum.: Young thinks that the present grading methods are entirely un- scientific and that they offer the opportunity for crookedness on, the part of the wheat brokers. He be- lieves that it is unnecessary to have more than two grades for hard wheat and that there should be very little difference in the price of these two grades. He is planning to deliver a speech that will enlight- en his colleagues on the subject of wheat and-flour. Rep. P. D. Norton of North Da- kota is very confident that a rural credit bill embodying the principle of government aid will be ppassed by the present Congress even. though President Wilson has stated his op- position to this sort of a plan. Norton declares that no rural credit scheme can be a suceess without government aid. He has assurances that a government aid plan will be submitted to the House from the Committe on Agriculture. The Bank- ing Committee, controlled by Rep. Carter Glass, who is one of the ad- ministration leaders of the House will undoubtedly try to smother the legislation as it successfully did last year, but Norton believes that the state of ppblic opinion in favor of government aid has grown to such an extent that Congress this year will not dare disregard it. Saving the Fruit Growers of California The United States is ahead of other nations in some respects but very far behind them in Cooperation. Before the present war Cooppra- tion had, made much greater progress in Italy, Servia and Australia than in tke United States. Yet the United States contains the greatest single Cooperative enter- prise in the world and one of the most brilliantly successful. That is the California Fruit Grow- ers Exchange, which in ‘the present reason will handle about 65 per cent of all the citrus fruits grown in Cali- fornia. Coorpration has helped and enorm- ously benefited producers wherever it has been tried, but it has done more than that in California. It has. saved the whole citrus industry from - destruction-and thousands of prcduc- ers frem ruin and, beggary. Saving the Profits The California Fruit Growers Ex- change is a huge enterprise as wonder-. fully and ably organized as the . Standard ‘Oil Company or the Steel Trust, and in its operations far more efficient than either. Yet it has nev- -er made a dollar of dividends for its stockholders and nobody connected with its management: gets from it more than, a very ordinary salary. All of its profits go straight to the producers and are divided strictly 4What the Readers Think of The Leader ©Can’t Get it Too Soon. “I like to- get the Leader just as soon as I can. It is sure some paper. Good luck to the Leader.”—S. D. Shiplett. Likes it Very Well. ‘Please change my address so T won't miss the 'TLeader; 1 like it very well.”—Hans Tvedt. Wants Leader - Oftener. “I am sorry that the Leader does not come “more than once a week, because :there is MORE REAL NEWS in ‘the -one issue ‘of the Leader than there : 38 in a whole week’s accumulation of -any daily paper that l know -of.”— P. C. Kimball. Its Simply Great. “The Nonparti- By CHARLES EDWARD RUSSELL on the basis of what each has sent to market. Before the citrus industry of Cali- fornia was organized on a purely Co- operative system it was in the worst rossible condition. Prcducers of fruit, like producers of wheat row, were compelled to take whatever the buying interests were pleased to offer. Prcducers had not a word to say about prices. They must sell at the price made for them by the buyers or let their fruit rot. The buyers were in a coxbination and held prices down so low that for whole. seasons together producers got less than, the actual cost of growing the fruit. Suicidal Methods The work of packing, handling, chipping and marketing the fruit was so badly done by the cormor- ants that bought it that California fruit was being driven out of the market and in a few more years there would have been but little de- mand for it. Whether they liked the idea of Co- operation or didn’t like it, producers were absolutely forced to combine _ for their lives. It was either Cooper- ation or foreclosure and they took Cooperation, The Exchange was organized in August, 1893. Nominally, to comply with the law as it foolishly stood, at that time, it had a stock company formation, but the capital is very small and can never have any divi- dends. In a general way the plan is this: There are 130 local atsociations having 8,000 members. Each associ- ation has its own warehouses for receiving, rreparing and packing the fruit. The citrus region is divided into seventeen districts and each dis- trict is in charge of what is called a sub-exchange. The sub-exchanges in turn are in charge of the great cen- tral exckange at Los Angeles. Through the boards of directors the local associations control the sub- exchanges and, the sub-exchanges con- trol the central exchange. Marketing Systems. The job of the central exchange is to market the fruit and get the money. For marketing it has the most marvelous and complete system in the world, covering all the United States and Canada with minutest care, so that 300,000 retail fruit dealers are incessantly in touch - (though they may not know it) with the Exchange and the Exchange knows the actual state of the fruit market in Benning- ton, Vermont, or Fargo, North Dako- ta, as well as it knows the condition of the market in Los Angeles itself. All the money received. from the sale of fruit, except only the bare cost of packing, shipping and selling, is returned to the grower. The total of these expenses, charges and deductions of all kinds last year was only 7 and .016 cents a box. The grower got all the rest. The Results In the old days the manipulators .used to give the growers from 10 to 25 cents a box and grab all the rest for themselves. ence. Last year the coornerative exchange handled 29,809 car loads of oranges and lemons, amounting to nearly 10,- 000,000 boxes of oranges and 2,600,- 000 boxes of lemons, worth all told in the retail market $30,000,000. The consumer also has been bene- fited by Cooperation. The quality of the fruit has been greatly improv- ed, but the price has not been in- creased. You can see why California is keen for Cooperation .and wonders that producers elsewhere continue to sub- mit to robbery when it is just as easy to be free. san Leader is simply great; keep it tell the truth I ever saw. "C. R. wondered at, as we have mobody --going, brothers.”—Hans Johnson. Leader and League 0. K. “I don’t want to miss an issue of the Leader; the Leader is O. X. and so is the Non- partisan League.” —Wm. F. Green. Wouldn’t Be Without 1t for $12. “Your man came to my,place in his Ford before I was out of bed one morning this summer, and I was five minutes giving him my check: for $6. Glad I did it, too, for I would not be. without the Leader for $12 a year. It sure is the paper | for the northwest . farmer.”—C. C.: Cox. Leader Tells the Truth. “I want to pay my check and it isn't here; | send it on, for I wouldn’t lose out . for the world. I think the Nonpar- : tisan Leader is the Xest paper to Bullock. Every Word is True. “The Non- partisan Leader is the only paper worth reading for the farmers. Ev- ery word in it is the truth. The only thing the farmers get for their hard work is a worn out body and a crushed hope, and it is not to " FARMERS MUST _ READ Box 144, St. To know how to draft laws-- To drive from North Dakota the LAND SPECULATORS Write to-day for FreeCatalogue “AA” 'RICHARDSON & RIMBACH, Publishers else but grafters that looks after the farmer’s interests. When the time comes for voting I should like-, ‘to know whom to vote for. T see in your paper that the -interests think they can sidetrack this farm- er movement, but they will find out different. Albert Anderson. SINGLE TAX _Paul, Minn. : That is the differ- - 29