4—Lancaster Farming, Saturday. July 9. 1960 FROM WHERE WE STAND - Is The Salesman A certain sales company has a slog an which says, “The only possible way to pay a salesman what he is worth is to put him on direct commission.” We tend to agree that the only fair measure of the worth of a salesman is the amount ot his sales, if good will is discounted. Now when you can get a salesman who can do a good job of selling for the highest price and- build good will for the business at the same time, it seems to us that you should use that salesman as much as possible. By the same reasoning, the most ac curate method of arriving at the true worth of an item is to assemble all the people who would like to have that item and sell to' the person who wants it most, that is, the one-who is willing to pay the highest price. Farmers could do this by them selves if they had sufficient volume, and if the farmer could inform all the buyers when he would have the pro duct available, but this is seldom pos sible. Several good agencies in the county overcome both the volume and. adver tising obstacles to selling by bid. Why do so few farmers take advantage of these agencies. A prime example of this type of ag ency is the Lancaster Poultry Ex change Officials at the Poultry Center have listed at least seven advantages the Exchange has which the individ ual farmer cannot attain by himself; Many of the livestock auctions as well as the Poultry exchange ’ sells to bonded buyers. This_ guarantees pay ment to the producer. Some unfortun ate situations in the past, when buyers went broke or moved away, could have been avoided if the product had been marketed through the Poultry Exchange. The grower is guaranteed a price for his poultry. If the market fluctuat es between the time of sale and the Davidson If you are good at mathe matics, know something ab out farming, and like an ar gument, there is a free-for all just starting that you might like to get into. For the past 10 years it has been rather generally assumed that we have a “farm problem” in this co untry, although not every one has agreed on just what the problem is. Congress debated it endlessly with out agreeing on a solution. Now mathematicians and statisticians have begun a hot argument over whether there really is any “farm problem.” They are using figures, charts, equations and mathematical formulas to support their arguments. Personally, this is one ar gument we intend to steer clear of and" report impar tially, figuie by figure, strict Lancaster Farming Lancaster County’s Own Farm Weekly P O Box 3524 Lancaster, Pcnna Offices: 63 North Duke St. Lancaster, Ptnna. Phone - Lancaster EXpross 4-3047 Jack Owen Editor Robei t G Campbell, Advertising I>irector A Busimss Manager Established Noumber 4, 1955 Published e\erv - Saturday by Lancaster Farming L Oleaster, Pa. Entered as 2nd class matter at Lancaster, Fa under Act of Mar *. 1379 additional entry at Mount Joy. Pa. Subscription Rates $2 per vear; tfhree ><ars J 3, Single copy Pnce C cents ifembirs Pi Ncvsptpcr Publish ers’ Association: National Editor ial Association THIS WEEK —ln Washington With Clinton Davidson The Farm Problem ly as a spectator. To bring you up-to-date, here is what happened so far in the bat tle of the mathematicians. A Matter of Money The question is: Are the farmers getting a fair share of the national income’ “No,” say U. S. Depart ment of Agriculture statis ticians, economists and ma thematicians. “Yes,” say statistical ex perts who have supplied the Farm Journal with figures showing farmers- have 50% more income than the aver age American family. The Farm Journal is an old and highly respected farm magazine and so it sur prised a lot of folks when it bought a full page adver tisement in the equally rep utable Wall Street Journal to tell businessmen what its mathematicians had learned about farmers. Farmers last year, the Journal reported, had a gross income of more than $46 billion. That, if equally di- Dural DkwfVime vided, would give each farm. iVUlcil rviiyillllla family an income of $9,978, WEATHER compared with the U.S. aver By Carol Dean Huber age of only $6,470. Per This dry weather will ruin capita farm income, it said, my crops, « in 1959 was the highest on And soon unless the temper record. ature drops. The average farm family, Gee, I wish it would rain the statisticians figured, ow- today! ns equipment, buildings, and Remember the rain we had savings worth $43,724. How in May many town families, asks We said in May, the Journal, are worth that too wet.” much? And now we say, “It hasn’t USDA Rebuttal rained yet ” It is grossly misleading, We look at the sky and the USDA says, to compare wonder whether— farmers’ gross income with But we can do nothing non-farmers take-home pay. about the weather. Worth His Hire? time of delivery of the product, the settlement is at the contract price. Movement of poultry bought on the Exchange must be within the specified time and at the price quoted. If for some reason the poultry can not be moved within the alloted time, a pen alty for each day of delay can be en forced, unless the seller agrees to al low the poultry to stand. In using the Exchange, the seller need not contact a host of buyers, ask their price and play one against the other trying to get the 'highest price and possibly miss the market he want ed while trying to make a satisfactory sale. Market price is established at the time of the sale by competitive bid ding, and the seller is free to refuse the bid if he feels it is not fair With one call to the Poultry Cen ter, a poultryman can notify 28 buyers that he has poultry to sell. Prompt payment for poultry is as sured through the use of the Exchange In the past we have heard many stor ies of how some buyers would pur chase a truckloadof poultry and sell it before settling with the farmer. In many instances, especially if the deal er was caught with a slipping market, the farmer had to wait quite a while. The Poultry Center contract calls for payment to "the seller within seven days after movement of the birds. Listing as a clincher, The Estab- Ishment Of a Market Price, the Poult ry Center officials get back to the orig inal idea of-this piece. Many of the in dependent sales of poultry in the coun ty are based on the sale average at the Poultry Center and on the sale aver age at the DelMarVa auction. “When auction sales are no longer* in exist ence, who and what will establish “the price paid?” the officials ask. ' The motto will again be as in the past, “Let the Seller beware.” At least that’s how it looks from where we stand. A fair comparison, it argues would be between farmers’ net income, after payment of opeiating expenses, with city workers’ pay envelope. The average farm worker, according to USDA figures, last year had a net income of $1,672 including allow ances for housing and food grown and consumed on the farm, about one-third less than the national average. Approximately 5,000,000 farm families last year rea lized a net income, including the sale of their products plus government payments, of only about $8 billion, USDA figures show, with which to pay family living expenses. The money farm ers have to spend will buy less at, the store than at any time since prior to World War 11, the Department re ports, while non-form fami lies can buy 50% more than in 1940 Ten years ago farmers spent 50 cents out of each dollar received for product ion expenses. Last year they paid 70 cents and kept 30 cents. While consumers pay 10% more for most food items than in 1950. prices p*aid farmers have gonedown an average of 20% . There are the figures, so if you want to get into the argument you can choose your own weapons. Bible Material: Amos 2 6: 5; 8 4-B. Devotional Heading: Homans 15 1-6. Social Justice Lesson for July 10, 1960 THE CHRISTIAN religion is said to be a religion of love, and so it is. It is love that makes it beautiful and gives it meaning. But just as the beauty and meaning of literature is built pn the humble foundation of the the beauty and the security of a liouse,go down to the unseen foun dations, so love itself is a stam mering weak thing if it is not built on the foun dation of justice. Love without justice is sloppy Dr * Foreman sentimentality, it is double-talk, it is drivel Social Justice God’s prophets, whose writings are part of the Christian Bible, were interested in social justice. They were interested because God was interested. People who think that social justice is no affair of religion at all, either haven’t read the prophets, or really don’t believe them. Let us get straight what “social justice’’ is. It has nothing to do with socialism, or with social affairs as written up for the soci ety , pages. It is different from political or legal justice. (These two, of course, should also be a concern of Christians.) An ex ample of political justice would be giving major parties equal time on the radio and TV. An example of legal justice would be getting paid a fair price for land the gov ernment has taken for a highway. Social justice is broader and more basic than that. In a word, it means fair treatment all around.-It does not mean treating everybody exactly alike, because people’s needs are not always the same. But it does mean giving everybody a “fair shake,” an honest deal; it means not handicapping people for "reasons” that make no difference. It means giving every one a chance to develop all he’s got. Now Is The Time .. . ■Y MAX SMITH TO MOW LAWNS HIGHER—One of very important practices in having a j lawn is to mow the grass from 1 : 2 ( inches long each time, we believe some property owners do not accept recommendation and continue to n their lawns shorter thinking that it lo nicer and they will not have to mow often. In these cases we feel they sacrificing a thick turf in favor of tl own conveniences. During the hot s mer months of July and August it is«j MAX SMIT iaijy important to cut the lawn high« order to protect the grass roots from dry, hot weather! TO MULCH SHRUBBERY Property owners who lj not mulched their shrubbery about the home are reiiuaj that hot hummer months could dry out the ground] many inches in depth and cause injury to all shrubbj especially new planted shrubs. A two to three inch # of peat moss, cocoa hulls, rotted sawdust, or other org< material will go far toward holding moisture and re# soil temperatures. In case of new plantings weekly aPP 1 lions of water, being sure to soak down 6 to 8 m#* very important for the first growing season TO CONTROL HOUSE FLY—Everyone should make effort to reduce the house fly population The first ste. to eliminate the, breeding places by keeping garbal e P covered, a general clean-up program, and on the far® pose of farm manure readily. The use of screens ° dows and doors of all inhabited buildings and the J milk house is essential. The spraying of ceilings ' of porches, dairy barns, and other buildings with 1 cides will kill many of the flies. Those sprays con pyrethrins or organic thiocyanates are very g°°°’ such as Diazinon or Ronnel are recommended. j, TO TAKE TIME COMBINING—Wheat harvest is and the objective is to get the maximum amount 0 in the bin or bag, the combine is the modern u iaC do this job provided it is adjusted and operated P r From past experience the great amount of voluntce in the fall on small gram ground is evidence that it was missed. Combine operators are urged to ' v the moisture conditions are proper and then drive ough to give the combine a chance to do a good 1° “It’s just In the tijxie of tiu „ the people who nil? 10 ' tice and wcie not d ' d the poor. He if «. of the israehtev them, over and „ m,tr * because they couldf offer the richer people g av ‘ cheated in the „ * cause the merchant honest weights aii a/ had no one to speak?® one but the God i for his prophets. h °« Social lustioo „„ needed b^thep^ -a fancy void for u * practiced also a *.„ groups Negroes, J Chinese and othen, p of all races, ahvavsj example, housim a way of w -asfe g tR money They aie a v , l people live m humam, 2 roundings There n a * is the capital of one of ! of the Union l n lt th J. that can be seen by ” town. The city ha s L clearance authonzed no, years; but they are 1 about it Why’ tt ~ law to move a fanniy! most rotten tenement *! better house. But people who live m that slum can't dffoid toniou they sit. Backlash of Injustici Amos told his peoole t] they paid more attest# welfare of the bottom society, the whole count not only suffer-it v, o m stroyed Social injustice i self-destructive Consider modem example Herein we need educated lest scientists, thinkers, meno minds and skills One of sons we do not get enoujl is that (as studies hau strated) many capabl people do not ha\e then an education Some who capacity never show it, simple reason that th'irh In high schools has to b crowded, leaky, ms “homes” where you coul raise a prize pig, let alon boy. Every time we In Am reasons of poverty, or ra other reason, deny a goi tion to young people iv take it, we are vveake country by just that ran (Based on outlines oopji the Division of Christian National Council of tho Cl Christ in. the T T . A Ei Community Press Sen ice)
Significant historical Pennsylvania newspapers