B. F. Yoakum estimated that every year fruit and vegetables worth $35,000,000 rot on the ground from the lack of shipping and storage facilities and of knowledge of receptive markets. The annual loss from corn stalks, rice, flax and other grain straw which is now burned he estimated at $250,000,000. The additional amount which the farmers could receive for their products, if by co-operation they knew when and where to sell their products, he placed at $1,500,000,000 per year, making a total loss of $1,785,000,000. In the judgment of the conference this was not an over-statement of the facts. The delegates to the conference also agreed that the average farmer has a total income disproportionate to his importance in the national economy. W. J. Spillman, chief of the Bureau of Farm Management of the federal Department of Agriculture, estimated that the average farm income in this country is about $655 a year; of this amount about $1 a day is the entire return for labor. This labor income, he asserted, holds throughout the states. After computing the interest on his investment, the farmer averages $1 for every day he works. In states such as Illinois, he said, where the investment is greater, the farm family has a larger sum to use without impairing the capital than in a state like New York. The difference, however, is in the interest on invested capital not in labor income. Even in sections where the farmers generally are satisfied with the return which they get for their labor, they are unable to get products to the consumers at a reasonable price. This works a great and unnecessary hardship upon the poor. Farmers generally, and especially small farmers, it was agreed, are at present unable to secure for sufficient time and at a reasonable rate, the capital with which to purchase land or proper equipment and materials for the most effective and economical operation of farm property. In this connection the European methods of rural credit were discussed at some length. In considering the remedies for these conditions, certain general principles, it was decided, should control whatever policies were advocated. It was urged that farm products ought to be generally standardized as commercial products are. There should also be organization among farmers for the raising of particular standardized products in different communities or in different parts of the same community to which they are especially adapted. Scientific farming and soil conservation were assumed.