The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-08-11

Adot WSCAs qua hentuchyt dliNo hO SHN needs of the people, perfected a co" operative union of its farmers These | farmers see three or four men between themselves and the consumer making good Hvings and are going to try 10 eliminate the profits of these middle. | men in order to enjoy the full fruit Of their own labors.
 where sets the wind of farm progress. Cooperation among farmers began years ago, but 1t has only recently be-
 gun to spread with telling effect. Now 1t applies tp creameries. turn
 bikes telephons systems, slaughter
 grain elevators and a dozen other
 activities which have hitherto belonged | to the middlemen. A bill Is now pend- ing before the Stxtieth Congress for | the organizations of a farmers co-op- 1 erative commission. whose province 1t | shall be to encourage cooperation among fariners. A large sum is pro- posed to be appropriated by the bill to defray the expense of the commission. That it Is not the political dream or some congressman from Ruralville, who introduced 1t solely as bid for the farmer vote in his district, is shown by the fact that one of the warmest advocates of such a commission Is
 none other than Assistant Secretary of Agriculture W. M. Hays. Perhaps the most striking example of what cooperation among farmers will do for them is that shown by the cooperative society formed by the truckmen of the Eastern Shore of Vir- ginia. This society handles the sea- sons crops on the same basis as in-
 dependent commission men. When last years selling season was over and the profits for the year reckoned up, it was found that 1t had netted $S0.o0o.-
 900. These profits were then distributed
 pro rata .arnofg the farmers who were
 members of the society.
 Already in other communities farm
 CTS are duplicating the success Of the Eastern Shore farmers in the buying
 of machinery. fertilizers. and the like.
 It is becoming a frequent experience
 of fertilizer agents to be asked by a
 group of farmers to give them their lowest bids on so many carloads or fertilizers, and the agents usually do
 some pretty lively hustling to get the business. As a result the farmer en-
 joys the benefits which make the from the- weaver er-to-the-wearer prin-
 ciple attractive to the man who buys
 suit of clothes. They generally get
 their goods as cheaply as the regular
 fertilizer dealer gets hls and the
 money they would have had to pay him
 as his pratt they can keep in their
 own pockets. Big commercial agencies are taking note of them and there are
 probably five farmers rated in Dun's
 and Bradstreet's now where there was
 one twenty years ago.
 Of course the elimination of all mid | dlemen win never come. but 1t Is in- l teresting to speculate how much the farmers would save did he sell every.
 thing direct to the consumer and buy
 everything direct from the manufac- | turer. Secretary Wilson gives the ~-l, fe~ hat ha of the United States furnished $7,412, 2,000.- 900 worth of produce during the year year 1907. Accounting one-half of this as having been sold off of the farm, and 1 that there was 10 per cent of profit
 between the farmer and the consumer.
 the middlemen must have made nearly
 $400. .000,00 possibly s1,e00,000 900 out of the transaction.
 Good roads have been buiit by CO., | operation among farmers and perhaps
 no sort of cooperation has paid them | better returns than this. These roads
 are generally built by joint stock com | panies made up of the farmers along
 the road to be improved. A toll only,
 heavy enough to maintain the road and | to pay the farmers interest on their
 money, is collected. They then have
 the benefit of fine macadam road at
 a negligible cost, and the enhancement
 of farm values is more than sufficient
 
 A striking instance of cooperation
 among farmers in road building Is that of the Harrisburg and Rawley | Springs Turnpike. in Virginia. It is
 twelve miles long extending through a
 rich farming community. Its first cost
 mile. The annual toll collections
 amount to about $2,500. of which the
 bulk goes to the upkeep and improve
 ment of the road. Where the farm
 CTS used to haul sixty bushels of wheat
 to market with four-horse team they
 now haul 120 bushels. Where they
 made one trip day they now can make
 two. They do their hauling when the
 ground is too wet for farm operations,
 where they were formerly under the
 necessity of doing their hauling dur | ing good weather. This has brought
 an increase of about $100,000 in farm | values. Land contiguous to this road
 sells for at least fifteen dollars an
 acre more than land abutting on ordi-
 nary country roads,
 The telephone represents about the l most general use of the cooperative l principle among farmers. There is
 probably not a single State in the | Union where farmers have not united | among themselves for building tele- | prone lines. Some of these nave de- veloped into extensive systems. The | farmer buys his telephone outright, at
 a cost of about SIS. and contributes | about $30 in labor, materials, or money, | to the construction of the lines. He then has a telephone system of his 1 own the only expense to incur after
 ward being a small annual exchange
 fee and the repair bills. Fire insur
 ance Is another form of cooperation
 which hac proved wonderfully success full among farmers. There are, per
 haps, a thousand farmers mutual fire
 insurance companies doing business in
 the United States. They usually pay
 two thirds or three-fourths of the
 actual loss sustained and all losses
 are made good by assessments. Ucually
 thse are very light sometimes not
 more than 20 per cent of that charged
 by many regular insurance companies. Cooperation has received its black
 est eye from the cooperative creamery. The creamery business demands a closer attention to sound business prin- | ciples than any other with which the | farmer has to do, if it is to be made | profitable. Properly managed, there is
 no neighb orhood industry that can pay
 higher percentage on the capital in vested. Improperly managed, | ceamery connot be operated but at financial loss. Experience has taught that creameries opedater on the coop | erative principle are pretty often mis-
 managed. The result Is that there | have been hundreds of secondhand
 cremary plants placed on the market and hundreds of farmers have gone back to the old way of making but ter,
 Many towns in the rural districts | have taken up the plan of encouraging al m a