Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

Down on the Farm in 1923 213 ment of Agriculture maintains a market reporting service unparalleled anywhere else in the world. Several hundred market reporters located at the various consuming centres and in large producing sections report daily crop and market conditions to branch offices, and by using a leased telegraph wire system, complete information of local and national agricultural marketing conditions is made available the day it is gathered. Radio is the only agency that can get this market information to farmers everywhere immediately after the markets close. For farmers cannot daily pay tolls on telegraph messages, the press does not publish the market news until the next morning, and mail delivery of newspapers or mimeographed market reports is slow. By radio, the reports on fruits and vegetables, livestock, meats, grain, dairy products, hay, feed, seed, and cotton are flashed instantly, on regular schedule, to unlimited numbers of people. More than sixty Federal State and private broadcasting stations, covering practically the entire country, regularly send out the messages of the markets. Recently the Great Lakes and Arlington stations of the Navy Department were added to the list. When the Department of Agriculture first suggested that radio be used to dispatch market reports about the country, the idea was received with good-natured tolerance. All right to send out the messages, it was agreed, but did the Department expect farmers to become wireless experts? At that time the radio telephone had not been perfected for popular use, and it was seen that to receive the reports direct, farmers would need to study the Continental code. But the Department replied that the country was filled with radio amateurs, and that farmers would simply need to get in touch with them to receive the messages. America's radio amateurs rose to the opportunity, toying with radio was discontinued, and they soon became an important agency in getting to farmers the market information so vitally needed in the intelligent conduct of the farm business. The experiment started with the broadcasting of a daily market report from the Washington wireless station of the Bureau of Standards. The station covered a radius of 200 miles. Correspondence from amateurs in the territory soon began to pour in on the Department. One of the first of these was from a railroad telegrapher who stated that farmers in his com munity were "going wild" overt he service, and kept him continually on the telephone calling off the news. The station was a junction point, and copies of the report posted on the bulletin board were eagerly read by local travelers. Similar letters were received from other operators. The practicability of broadcasting market reports by radio having been demonstrated, agricultural interests throughout the country began to urge the Department to expand its radio service. Funds were lacking to do this, but the Post Office Department, through its Air Mail Service, jumped into the breach and offered to place some of its stations, at designated hours each day, at the disposal of the Department of Agriculture. Within three months of the beginning of the original experiments, market news was being dispatched from Post Office radio stations at Washington, Cincinnati, Omaha, North Platte, Neb., Rock Springs, Wyo., Elko and Reno, Nev. When the science of radio telephony had reached a point of general utility, the possibil WAY DOWN YONDER IN THE CORNFIELD Where radio has "entered the field of agriculture." This station, built by the Connecticut Agricultural College, Storrs, Connecticut will be used for broadcasting information of an agricultural nature