The daily Gate City. [volume] (Keokuk, Iowa) 1855-1916, 1911-08-04
An unbrldeed Gap.


Sioux City journal: The discrep-
ancy between the price paid by con
sumers for staple farm products,
especially foodstuffs, and the amount
realized therefor by the farmer Is at
tracing more and more Of the atten-
ton of competent practical business
men. B. F. Yoakum, one OF the most
sincere great men in transportation
service, with a business experience
matching his ability, puts the matter
| in forcful address before a farmers
congress at Dallas, Texas, when ne
says that "the serious trouble Win
agriculturists is not the high cost OF
living, but the high cost OF selling"
Many students have lately shown
i in detail how grotesquely wasteful
and uneconomic is the course OF our
table necessities between the hands
of the average farmer who produces
i them and the hands of the consumer.
i It amounts to this, as anyone who VIII
inquire thoughtfully cannot fail TO
see, that the methods OF simpli1ca'
s ton and cooperative efficiency, which
have accomplished such wonders IN
other fields Of industry within quar-
ter or a half century, are yet woeful-
ly lacking beyond the point where the
: farmers products must be got from
his hands to those for whom they are
produced, must be marketed--in short,
must be realized upon.
The bald result Of the government
] statistics, viz: that out Of every dollar
paid last year by the consumers for
. the products of the field, only forty
J six cents was received by the farmer
! while the other fifty-four cents went
to others, speaks for itself, anc
ought to stir every neighborhood o.
!. farmers to wrench this palpable an
omaly out of the realm Of academic
discussion ana into that Of practica
9 business solution. That means, o
course, cooperative methods OF mar
: : keting in farming, precisely as it hal
2 meant those methods in othel
branches of business
= A leading bankers periodical fur
: nishes striking illustration from
y the experience of Denmark, wher,
2 thirty years ago the farmers were SUI
9 fering from the same absurd ant
neglectful methods which now are s.
Injurious to our farmers. Butter
10 eggs and bacon which then brough
q Denmark farmers $12,0oo.oo0 are nov
= bringing them $1O0,000,000 a veal
q This beneficent miracle has bee
~ wrought mainly by practical co-opers
10 tive organization, such as co-operativ
creameries and egg export societie!
the latter alone having $4,000 men
9. bers. An infinite number of needles
IS costs have thus been cut out for tn
ie individual Danish farmer as they mus
~ by like methods be cut out for and b
d. the American farmer.
y. BY improved machinery and by a
ed 49,, ao;an,a. .na nathoda TAUGHT h
u our agricultural colleges and othe
national and state agencies, great r
us auctions have within generation bee
ne nade in cost of producing crops {
an our American farms and in puttir
ID them into conden ~. ii,rms of ma
on on let coincidentally with great redu
ex- ticns in transportation costs. But '
er- have not fully realized iron these Q
rortunities,. because Of lack of me
les arn bns;ness metbods In hridpinp q
on great gap or series of gaps that sc
no arates the farmer and the mouths tn
on the farmer feeds