The patron of husbandry. (Columbus, Miss.) 1875-1883, 1881-07-09
For the Patror
For the Patron.
Farmers Farmers! Wake Up to
n Sense of Your ERtereSfs!!

Farmers Farmers! Wake Up TO
Sense of Your ERtereSfs!! FL.
Yes, wake up, and read, and think,
and act. You, who are Indifferent
to or preiudiced against the potent
principle Of Cooperation, which is
working such wonders in the vari-
Gus departments of the religious, so
cial, political and commercial world,
will you not awake to the demands
of self-interest, and examine impair
TALLY subject which, when once
understood and appreciated, will not
only commend itself to your favor,
but will command your hearty eff
forts in its behalf? Cooperation, as
YOU know or ought to know, means
10 7vo,-k toocther for the accomplish
ment of some desired end. You have
before YOU living, tangible illustra-
ton of the efficiency of cooperation
in the marked success of the various
denominations of Christians, in the
manifest power of political parties
in the prosperity of large CONNER
cial and manufacturing companies,
and in the widely felt power welded
by such combinations as Wall street
brokers, rail road kings, and com
mercial rings.
Ali these, except only the Church
of Christ, are working largely to the
detriment of your pecuniary inter
est, and will continue to do so until
every laboring man yields to the
growing demand for strenuous CO.
operative effort to remedy the evil
You who are not CO operating to de-
feat injurious monopolies, are vii tu-
ally slaves to such powerful eombi-
nations as athe devilishly ingenious
and far sighted Wall Street brokers
and other rings that every season
manipulate influences that control
the price of your cotton and other
produce. You are slaves, too, to
those political parties and men with
and for whom you vote when their
interests thus sought to be advanced
are not similar to and identified with
your own.
Wake up, then, and look at facts
as they exist. You see merchants
in your midst form partnerships
which is but another name for
co-operation-and they buy, and
then sell to themselves and others,
and make it pay. And now the
prudent and wide awake farmers
and various lands of laboring men,
seeing this, are organizing associa-
tons and starting stores of their
own, and buy from themselves at
the market cash price, and find that
it pays them at the start Just TO tn
same extent, and eUentua2Y more
largely, than it does ordinary cash
merchants; for the simple but Co
gent reason, that the cooperative
firm or association is composed of
from fifty to one hundred or more
partners whose interest, of course, in
duces patronage oftheir own store.
This feature of cooperation is the
very life of these institutions; for
not only every stock holder, but
every purchaser whether stock
holder or not, who buys from CO.
operative store on the Rochdale
plan, because at once a partner and
interested member of the self-pro-
tecting firrn And as soon as the
business is conducted long enough
to yield net gain over and above
the initiatory ard incidental expense
of starting and conducting the same,
the purchaser is entitled to his pro
rata of the net profit on the amount
of his purchases, thus realizing re-
bate on the price of the goods that
he bought. If this profit or rebate
is not drawn out and is left in the
concern in the shape of dividend or
cumulative stock, it is so managed
as to increase somewhat similar to
compound interest.
The writer will. at any time,
gladly give any information to per-
sons who may wish to know more
about the working of Cooperative
Associations. NO. M. LEWIS.
Sup't of M. & c. CO. Co. Assoc'n.
Jefferson, Texas, June 80.