The Dawson news. (Dawson, Ga.) 1889-current, 1913-03-11
HOW SOUTHERN FARMERS LOSE OUT

this movement throughout the South.
J. C. Caldwell, who is one of the
great leaders in cooperative enter
prises in this country, will tell how
the agriculturists about his home
town of Lakefeld Mimi, have sue
cessfully managed a cooperative
store, creamery, grain elevator and
bank.
Every address will be very short
and intensely practical in character.
There will be no oratOry nor gener
allied statements. Ways, means and
results are the phases to be stressed.
The conference will deal with the big
problem of how the farmer can make
more money in just as businesslike a
manner as the same problem would
be handled by the directors of great
corporation.
DR., Coulter, who will himself take
part in the conferences and speak,
is most optimistic about the result
of the conference. IF we can just
get few of these cooperative agen-
cies going in representative sections
of the South he declared yesterday,
the benefits of this form of organi-
cation will speedily become so appar
ent to other farmers that they will
all want to come in, and in very
short time, comparatively speaking,
the whole farm industry of the South
will be banded together not merely
| to talk, butte do better business, pro-
duce more, market better, etc.
Cow testing associations have Deen
organized in various places in Europe
as well as in this country, and by
wedding out lazy cows and by better
feeding the average amount of milk
per COW has been doubled. Corn clubs
! have doubled the yield of corn. The
same results can be attained in any
! branch of agriculture.
In other sections of the country it
| has been demonstrated that well
organized marketing association will
add from 10 to II per cent to the
price which farmers get for their
! produce, even when it is marketed
| through middlemen. Suppose that
| similar organizations of the South
would sell in the same conservative
manner; even so they would add not
less than $3.50, 100000 annually to
! the farmers income. This is the
result of system.
|
Elsewhere cooperative stores pay
dividends of from 10 to 20 per cent
to their stockholders. These stores at
present buy their goods like any 9TH
ers, from jObbers and wholesalers,
and sell at regular prices; no cut
throat competition with other mer-
chants being attempted.
The profits are returned to the
stockholders who run the store CO.
operative in the form of dividends
on the basis of business done. This
virtually amounts to rebate on the
goods which the co-operators buy at
the store Southern farmers now
buy goods amounting to $4,000, 000,-
GOO a year. If they all bought CO.
operatively they would effect a saw
ing of not less than 100000, 900 a
year, even when no allowance is
made for increased consumption.
"A further tremendous saving can
| be made in interest charges. The
2 Southern farmers probably borrow
: something like $4,000, 100000 a year
in some form. Tins money is loaned
t them generally in the form of ad-
vances of goods. The banks of the
? United States pay their depOsitor'
l on an average of 81 per cent for the
? use of the money; they loan it t.
/ the middlemen, in turn. put it GU
t among the farmers at about 20 pei
S cent.
S Under an improved credit sys
! TEN much of this advance in interes
J., rates can be saved to the Southern
s farmer. Cooperative banks could bo
- organized, similar in operation to co
; ! operative stores, which would rebate
e to their farmer stockholders. in the
D form of dividends, the profits made
o by lending these same farmers mon
e ey al prevailing rates.
i This scheme has been successful
7 ly worked already in this country
One type of credit system to be out
lined at the coming conference is thu
so-called 'Reiffeisen' plan, whicl
n originated in Germany. Under thi
= plan the farmers of a given cOmmu
nifty club their surplus moneys to
= gether and make short term loan
- to each other at a rate which viii
| pay the association bank interest
plus cost of management.
The ''Landschaften" System.
| For the large Iandholder tn.
'Landschaften' system will be sug
/ gested. This plan was devised il
Prussia as a result of the wars o
| Frederick the Great, which stripped
the great landed proprietors of ev
erything they had but their real es
tate
"A number of the proprietor
Jumped their lands and bonded them
each member of the syndicate bein:
| jointly and severally responsible TO
the total Indebtedness. These bond
being secured by an underlying lieI
on the best security in the world