The patron of husbandry. (Columbus, Miss.) 1875-1883, 1880-01-10
REMARKS.

According to promise / now offer few prac-
teal suggestions to aid in conducting Retail Co
operative Associations. The book of Rules,
which we can furnish, gives full instructions how
to form such Associations.
The main thought is, to select clerk who is in
full sympathy with the cooperative system, and
not to allow him to perform the duties of Presi-
dent, Directors, purchasing committees, auditors,
etc If this is allowed failure may be predicted in
nine cases in ten. The clerk must simply do the
bidding of the directory. His duties may be de-
fined about as follows: To receive all goods de-
livered to him by the purchasing committee, and
give receipts therefore, to sell for cash, and pay to
the Treasurer all moneys received on the sale of
goods, taking the Treasurer's receipts This may
be done by keeping in abstract book an account
of all goods received each kind or class of goods
to be kept in separate columns. In another book
he must keep an abstract of all goods sold, having
different columns for the different classes of goods
sols At the end of the quarter, he must be pre-
pared to render his statement to the Auditors
which statement will show the amount of goods
sold and the amount of stock on hand. For ex-
ample: if he receives ia hundred pounds of tobac
CO, and during the quarter sells fifty, the latter
being deducted from the former, will show in his
books that he has fifty pounds on hand. The clerk
must be furnished with checks by the President
to give to the customers they purchase goods !;
these checks are vouchers to the buyers The alb
stract books may be in the form of those kept by
army commissaries.
The Purchasing Committee may consist of two
or appointed by the Directors from their
own body; they should buy the goods, fix the
profits, deliver them to the Clerk, taking his re-
ceipts for the same, and retain the invoices to
hand to the Auditors at the close of the quarter.
In making up their orders, they be materially
assisted by the Clerk. -
AT the close of the quarter, the Auditors take
an account of the stock hand, examine the
books, and thus ascertain that the business has
been properly conducted, and make their report
accordingly to the Directors. In taking account
of stock, due allowance should be made for vast
age, such the evaporation of coal oil, loss in
weight of bacon, sugar, etc. .sT
The declaration of dividends must be at the dis
erection of the Directors A form book af checks
and dividends can be found in book of Rules,
which will be furnished on application.
1t is important that the different officers should
give proper attention to their respective duties,
and success will be assured
AHC great purpose OF establishing cooperative
stores for the benefit of patrons, is to save for
themselves the profits hitherto paid into the peck
cts of the regular merchants. This will be done
by selling goods to yourselves at the cash prices
usually paid the merchants, and adhering infexi-
bly, to the plan of buying from your own store.
Stockholders must not lie SedEced into buying from
others by the offer of lower prices. You nay,se-
cure an individual bargain, but it will be at your
loss in the end. The great obstacle to success
hitherto experienced by retail cooperative
stores has been that shareholders have been known
to go to their stores get list of prices take
the list to regular rchant. He finds the prices
oft the merchant CHER but of course the latter at
once reduces his prices below the prices asked at
the cooperative store. The bait succeeds, and
thus shareholder, without considering the final
consequences to himself and his own store, breaks
down the very system he seeks to establish.
We very often get letters from correspondents
conducting cooperative stores saying, Buy as
low as you can; the merchants are trying to break
up by selling at low prices" If shareholders
understood their own system, they would never
reduce their own statesmen to such straits.
Cooperative stores will be sustained mostly by
small farmers. The majority of large, independ-
ent planters regard the system somewhat pie
bianish, but we are glad to know that there are
noble exceptions. All great results are accom-
plshed by apparently small means. There are in
the ocean myriads of insects almost invisible to
the human eye. They are called the mad-re-pole
and live in communities. Unseen by human eyes,
they lay their foundation of coral in the beds Of
the sea; by eo-ofe,atimg the walls are carried up
until their coral tops emerge into the sunlight of
heaven; they have built themselves houses safe |
from the rayages ofsthe big fsh. Along the coast
of Florida they have erected break waters that
human skill could never have builded-the ocean
foarns out its harmless rage against these immo-
table walls.