The Daily Missoulian., 1913-03-02
Cooperative
Marketing
Vlll-Co-operative Manu-
featuring
BY Frederic J. Haskin.

While many profit sharing manu-
featuring establishments are to be
found in the United States, in which
the wage earners share profits with
the owners of the plants, the number
of urban cooperative manufacturing
establishments, in the accepted sense
of the term, is few. The major por-
tion of the cooperative manufacture
ing plants in the United States are
confined to the rural districts. Here
frequently are found cooperative
creameries, and, while some of them
fail because of the lack of proper
management and others because of
the lack of a proper and sufficient
milk supply, on the whole they are
profitable establishments.
The usual method of establishing a
cooperative creamery is for several
public-sprited residents of farming
community to get together and decide
to call in a representative of a cream
machinery manufacturer to help
them organize cooperative company.
The representative always is ready
to come, because the invitation i'm
plies that he is going to stand a good
chance Of installing the machinery
They go about the community to-
gether, interesting farmers in the pros
poets and getting subscriptions for the
undertaking. When the necessary
support is assured a meeting of the
interested farmers is called when the
kind of machinery is determined upon,
manager Is employed, and the rules
and regulations for the operation OF
the plant are drafted. Once the
creamery is established in some in
the cream; in other instances the
farmers bring the cream from their
dairies two or three times a week.
Some of the cooperative creamery
companies, realizing how difficult it
is to hire help to do laundry work on
the farm, and desiring to save their
wives and daughters from the burdens
of wash day. have installed cooper
ative laundries in connection with
their creamery plants. The same de-
livery wagons which gather up the
cream call for and deliver the laundry
while the same gasoline engine and
steam plant which do the work of the
creamery, suffice to do that of the
laundry. Also it provides work enough
to keep all hands busy all the time,
and the saving that is effected is by
no means insignificant.
The tendency of the big organiza-
tions for the promotion of cooper
alton is to discourage the inclination
of manufacturers to make their plants
cooperative. The officials of these
organizations say that the cooper
ative market must be developed to a
greater extent before it will be pos
sible to sell the products of cooper
ative factories efficiently, and that,
therefore, cooperative manufacturing
had better wait awhile. One manufac-
turer, who makes gasoline engines
and foot-power grinding and polishing
machines, decided that in his old age
he ought to give his property over to
cooperation, in the hope that II might
form the nucleus of a big establish
ment for manufacturing all kinds of
things for the cooperative trade
Upon communicating his purpose to
the officials of one of the big cooper
alton leagues, they replied that they
did not think the consuming end was
as yet sufficiently organized to war
rant the hope that such an establish
ment could be operated profitably.
They advised him that until the selling
end was so thoroughly organized as
to demand the entire product, it
would be a dangerous procedure, since
the private dealers would almost
certainly boycott the comparatively
made goods
1t is said that few enterprises lena
themselves so well to cooperation
as canning. In the first place a con-
venient canning establishment enables
the farmer to save much fruit and
many vegetables that otherwise would
go to waste. In the second place, the
outfit does not cost much.
The average canning factory large
enough for all neighborhood needs,