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 14&4 
 
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 The Cradle of the Farm 
 Bureau Idea and Marketing 
 Possibilities of the Bureau 
 
 ■e- 
 
 An Address By 
 GEORGE A. CULLEN 
 
 Vice-President of the North American Fruit Exchange 
 
 At the 
 
 ANNUAL OUTDOOR MEETING OF THE 
 
 BROOME COUNTY (N. Y.) FARM BUREAU 
 
 iO BINGHAMTON, N. Y„ AUGUST 21st., 1920. 
 
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 ADDRESS BY GECRiGE A. CULLEM''-'. 
 
 ft 
 
 Members of the Broome County Farm Bureau, Ladies and 
 
 Gentlemen : 
 
 In turning the pages of history, one of the facts that im- 
 presses us with force is the long reach of time that has seemed 
 necessary before men gain a clear perspective as to the value 
 of the services rendered by intrepid pioneers in the fields of 
 constructive thought. This applies with special force to the 
 earlier stages of our civilization.. It required the passage of 
 many centuries for the world to sense the power and spiritual 
 beauty of the Star of Bethlehem, and to invest the little Judean 
 village with hallowed associations. And so, also, the birth- 
 place of Copernicus, who" rescued astronomy from a maze of 
 speculation and gave it the dignity of an exact science ; and 
 Runnymede, where the foundations of English civil liberty 
 were laid ; the workshop of Stephenson, where the application 
 of steam to locomotion made possible our splendid systems 
 of transportation ; Independence Hall at Philadelphia, revered 
 by patriotic Americans as the cradle of liberty. 
 
 I might multiply other equally striking instances where 
 the homage of mankind has lagged behind the just deserts of 
 genius, and only after the lapse of years has the world paid 
 its debt to its benefactors by according a rich measure of 
 honor and gratitude to their memories. 
 
 In the light of history, therefore, it is doubly significant of 
 the progressive age in which we live, as well as of the remark- 
 ably sound and rapid development of the most thorough, 
 practical, helpful and far-reaching movement in the agrarian 
 life of the nation, that already, in less than ten years from the 
 inception of that movement the eyes of the American people, 
 from Coast to Coast, are turned with increasing respect and 
 admiration to Broome County as the Cradle of the Farm 
 Bureau Idea. 
 
 When the historian of the future shall write down for pos- 
 terity the story of this vital development in the farm life of 
 America, he will first pay grateful homage to that far-seeing, 
 practical man, in whose mind was conceived the fundamental 
 principle of the whole Farm Bureau Idea — Prof. W. J. Spill- 
 man — then Chief of the Bureau of Farm Management of the 
 United States Department of Agriculture. 
 
 It was Dr. Spillman who, after a number of years of patient 
 and searching intensive experiments with demonstration farms 
 all over this country — with local demonstration agents in the 
 South — and with the various other constructive measures 
 employed by the Government to assist the farmer in syste- 
 matizing his work along scientific lines, reached the definite 
 conclusion that the one effective way to achieve worth-while 
 results was to form county groups of farmers to co-operate 
 
 525823 
 
with county agents in close, compact and responsive organiza- 
 tions. By intelligent and progressive methods of study and 
 experiment it was proposed to increase the fertility of the soil 
 by profiting by the discoveries of science, eliminating wasteful 
 methods, and to jointly market their products. 
 
 It was my good fortune in the Fall of 1910 — while Traffic 
 Manager of the Lackawanna Railroad — and keenly interested, 
 both personally and officially, in furthering agricultural de- 
 velopment — to meet Dr. Spillman, with the happy result re- 
 ferred to in a letter I received from him a few days ago. 
 
 In this letter he says : 
 
 Washington, D. C, 
 August 13th, 1920. 
 
 Mr. Geo. A. Cullen, 
 North American Fruit Exchange, 
 90 West Street, New York. 
 Dear Mr. Cullen: — 
 
 Referring to our recent conversation about the 
 Farm Bureau movement, I think the magnitude this 
 movement has assumed justifies setting down some of 
 the facts concerning the first and farm bureau organ- 
 ized in this country. 
 
 The inception of the movement was the letter you 
 wrote me proposing that the Office of Farm Manage- 
 ment, of which I was then chief, co-operate with the 
 Lackawanna Railroad in undertaking some special 
 work for the benefit of agriculture at three points 
 along that road in the state of New York. At your 
 suggestion I visited Binghamton with a view to dis- 
 cussing ways and means of starting this work. As a 
 result of this visit it was finally arranged that the 
 Lackawanna road, the Binghamton Chamber of Com- 
 merce, the Agricultural Department at Cornell, and 
 the Office of Farm Management co-operate in de- 
 veloping an organization for the purpose of support- 
 ing an agricultural expert with headquarters at Bing- 
 hamton who would devote his entire time to a study 
 of the local agriculture with a view of rendering such 
 assistance as might be possible to the farmers of 
 Broome County. If the work produced results of 
 sufficient value similar work was to be started at other 
 points along the road. 
 
 Previous to that time only one county agent had 
 been appointed in this country, though there were a 
 number of local demonstration agents in the cotton 
 growing states. In no case had there been a local or- 
 ganization that had assumed any responsibility for the 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 Microsoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cradleoffarmbureOOcullrich 
 
support and direction of work of this character. The 
 term Farm Bureau was first applied to the organiza- 
 tion at Binghamton. If I remember correctly, the 
 office of Farm Management paid one-third of the 
 salary of the first man employed by the Farm Bureau 
 of Broome County, the remainder of the expenses be- 
 ing borne by the Lackawanna Railroad and the Bing- 
 hamton Chamber of Commerce. The college at Cor- 
 nell aided materially by way of advice and counsel 
 on the parts of the various experts at the college. 
 
 The work in Broome County was so successful 
 that the two other stations were soon established 
 along the Lackawanna, and shortly thereafter appli- 
 cations began to come to the Office of Farm Manage- 
 ment for the establishment of other bureaus in many 
 different states. From that time forward the move- 
 ment developed so rapidly that it was difficult to get 
 funds to meet the demands. The present great or- 
 ganization known as the American Farm Bureau 
 Federation is the direct outgrowth of the movement 
 which thus had its inception in Broome County, N. Y. 
 
 Please remember me kindly to the good people of 
 Broome County, whose hearty co-operation made the 
 work there so successful. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 (Signed) W. J. SPILLMAN. 
 
 This was the nucleus of a movement fraught with splendid 
 possibilities and rich in accomplished facts. It has been a 
 tremendous factor in applying scientific methods to the culti- 
 vation of the soil, bearing substantial rewards in larger yields 
 and higher market returns. And if the past is a dependable 
 prophet of the future, this movement is but in its infancy as 
 to its potentialities for good. 
 
 In conversation two weeks ago with Mr. J. R. Howard, 
 President of the American Farm Bureau Federation, he told 
 me that the membership of the Federation is over a million 
 and a quarter, and that he confidently expects to see it pass 
 the two million mark before the end of the year. 
 
 You pioneers of Broome County may indeed feel proud 
 of the splendid distinction which is yours of striking out into 
 the wilderness of disorganization which existed ten years ago, 
 and establishing an institution which promises more for the 
 betterment of farm life, especially in its economic features, 
 than any other force ever enlisted in this productive depart- 
 ment of human endeavor. It is a monument to your vision 
 and your initiative — one that commemorates a movemnnt that 
 has and will contribute to the lasting welfare and happiness 
 of the American people. 
 
So much for the honored past. As forward looking men 
 and women we are not nearly so much interested in what we 
 have done as what we shall do. 
 
 I have in my hand a clipping from the front page of the 
 "New York Tribune" of August 19th (two days ago). Here 
 is what the Tribune reports : 
 
 sandwich men sprang to do his 
 bidding. 
 
 Panoplied in the accouterments 
 of their trade, they were reviewed 
 by Dr. Robert Grimshaw, who 
 inscribed upon them, fore and aft, 
 the wholesale prices of tomatoes, 
 potatoes, green corn, cucumbers, 
 lettuce and so forth. Thus armed, 
 he sent them forth, to battle 
 silently for his cause. 
 
 Prices Begin to Tumble 
 
 All the morning the valiant 
 mercenaries trudged up one side 
 of Broadway, down the other, 
 across 177th Street, up St. Nicho- 
 las Avenue to 181st Street, down 
 the other side of the avenue to 
 177th Street and back to Broad- 
 way. Housewives out for their 
 morning marketing read that to- 
 matoes that were labeled 20 cents 
 in all the stores roundabout were 
 to be had at wholesale for 4 cents 
 or less. 
 
 They saw similar contrasts in 
 the other prices quoted by the 
 grocers and flaunted by the plod- 
 ding sandwich men and they told 
 the grocers what they thought 
 about it. By noon the grocers' 
 prices were wavering and falling 
 on all sides. By early afternoon 
 many of them had been divided 
 by four or five. Dr. Grimshaw 
 called off his sandwich men. He 
 was modestly elated. 
 
 "Others -in other districts," he 
 said, "can and should do just what 
 I have done in Washington 
 Heights." 
 
 PROFESSOR AND EIGHT 
 SANDWICH MEN LOWER 
 PRICES ON THE HEIGHTS 
 
 "There was a time when the 
 neighbors of Dr. Robert Grim- 
 shaw on Washington Heights 
 looked askance upon his schemes 
 for making that community Man- 
 hattan's hilltop Utopia, but since 
 yesterday noon they have been 
 behind him — to a woman. It was 
 three weeks ago that Dr. Grim- 
 shaw, a mechanical engineer of 
 note and a member of the faculty 
 of the College of the City of New 
 York, pronounced his ultimatum. 
 
 Prices were much higher at the 
 stores near his home than the 
 altitude of Washington Heights 
 warranted. He served notice on 
 dealers, particularly on dealers in 
 fruits and vegetables, that prices 
 must come down. If they failed 
 to come down, said Dr. Grim- 
 shaw, he would bring them down. 
 
 Grocers Snicker at Warning 
 Washington Heights laughed 
 up its sleeve and the snicker was 
 echoed more or less politely by 
 every grocer along Broadway and 
 St. Nicholas Avenue from 177th 
 Street to 181st Street. 
 
 Dr. Robert Grimshaw said 
 nothing whatever. When three 
 weeks had expired yesterday and 
 he noted the same wide margin 
 between wholesale prices and 
 those which his grocer-neighbors 
 pasted above their tomatoes, po- 
 tatoes, green corn, cucumbers, let- 
 tuce and so forth, Dr. Grimshaw 
 crooked his little finger and eight 
 
 I do not know how accurate this report is nor am I one to 
 believe everything that is said against the so-called middle- 
 man. The distributor, in some form, is just as necessary to 
 our national life * as the circulatory system is to our bodies. 
 I do know, however, and you know, that there is to-day, 
 as there has always been, too large a spread between what 
 the producer receives and what the consumer pays for farm 
 products, especially perishables — fruits and vegetables. 
 
No one except a Lenine or a Trotsky would pretend to 
 be able to reform immediately our whole marketing system, 
 but reform must come and come without unreasonable delay 
 if the grower is to get his due and the consumer cease to be 
 obliged to pay prices that in turn call for a wage scale that 
 creates the vicious circle of high living cost that is causing 
 so much unrest among our people to-day. 
 
 I am unalterably opposed to any further development of 
 class-consciousness in this country and I am only advocating 
 team work when I say that the consumer must deal with his 
 end of the problem — buying his food more cheaply — while the 
 Farmer copes with his end, which of course is getting better 
 prices for his products. Between the two I imagine a good 
 many parasites are going to get pinched, but, I suspect they 
 will be happier in the end and after they have learned to lead 
 useful lives. 
 
 Now, what is the Farmer to do? Here is where the great 
 usefulness of the Farm Bureau is manifesting itself and is going 
 to do so in greatly increasing force in the future. The Farm 
 Bureaus of the country are, I believe, to-day giving more 
 attention to their marketing facilities than to any other of 
 their problems. And naturally so. 
 
 They realize that while fertilizer makes more bushels per 
 acre co-operative marketing makes more dollars per man. 
 
 Co-operative marketing is coming to be recognized as the 
 one means by which the farmer can get away from the condi- 
 tion under which the buyer fixes the price of the product — a 
 condition economically unsound — and reach a point where he 
 can ask and get a price which will yield him a just reward for 
 his toil. Co-operative marketing means, if not the elimination, 
 the control of the speculator and the stabilizing of the whole 
 industry. 
 
 Yes, asks the skeptic — made a skeptic perhaps by co- 
 operative marketing experiments of a visionary or Utopian 
 character, many of which have been tried but to fail — what 
 essentials are involved in a successful co-operative marketing 
 plan? 
 
 I will try to outline them to you in a few words : 
 
 First: The impossible must not be attempted nor must 
 effort be made to reach the ideal at one bound 
 
 Second : It must be recognized that we live in an age of 
 specialization and success in any business lies in the employ- 
 ment of specialists to do work requiring special training and 
 familiarity with marketing conditions. 
 
 Third: There are several distinct and separate general 
 divisions of marketing, such as grain (including hay) live- 
 stock, dairying produce, fruits and vegetables and possibly 
 one or two others, each of which requires knowledge of trade 
 
conditions, the consumers' requirements, credits and trans- 
 portation different from any of the others. 
 
 Fourth: Any system of distribution that is dependent on 
 local markets is subject to violent variations ranging from 
 extreme scarcity to ruinous gluts and therefore any sound 
 system must ensure outlet at all times to the widest possible 
 range of markets ; a system that will at all times place the 
 product where it is needed when it is needed — and that really 
 is the crux of the whole marketing problem. 
 
 Fifth: As an absolutely essential part of placing the prod- 
 uct where it is needed when it is needed is a system of ascer- 
 taining accurately from day to day the consumers' needs in 
 all available markets and disseminating that knowledge to all 
 growers co-operating in a given marketing organization. I 
 may say right here that there is only one sure way this infor- 
 mation can be made reliable. It does the grower little good 
 to know what the demand was in Cleveland or Pittsburg or 
 Philadelphia or New York last week or even what it was 
 yesterday. He must know what it is now and the only way 
 he can know that is on the basis of a confirmed order for his 
 product. 
 
 Sixth: The Grower must have a nation-wide system of 
 distribution that not only secures for him the confirmed orders 
 just referred to, but a system that provides him with repre- 
 sentatives in the various markets who serve his interests and 
 his alone, and are not interested in the buying but only in the 
 selling of his product so as to do away with the pernicious 
 practices of rejections and deductions that now always accom- 
 pany a declining market and sometimes even a rising one. 
 
 Seventh: The Grower must recognize the primary busi- 
 ness aspects of the national marketing problem and examine 
 very carefully into the ability of any marketing agency or 
 system to give him continuous and dependable service. He 
 must, and he naturally will, view with great caution any or- 
 ganization officered and conducted by those dependent for 
 their positions on what may be called political considerations, 
 by which is meant, of course, the wire-pulling, intrigue, per- 
 sonal jealousies and ambitions, which are so much in evidence 
 when one set of officers can be turned out of office on short 
 notice, and the swapping of horses while crossing streams go 
 on year after year, with the resultant impairment of morale 
 and efficiency in operations with the business world. 
 
 In conclusion I may say that in organization within County 
 Farm Bureaus and in co-operation between groups of Bureaus 
 lies to-day the farmer's surest reliance for dealing through 
 disinterested selling organizations and securing the protection 
 and prosperity which is so justly his due. 
 
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