The Daily Missoulian. [volume] (Missoula, Mont.) 1904-1961, 1913-03-06

bound up with that of making the
farmer more prosperous. Hence, by
degrees, the conference for education
In the south was led to the apparently
irrelevant subject of improving rural
conditions, which it is now taking UP
his year on a scale never before at
tempted.
In connection with this work, the
conference will hold a unique train
ing school in marketing for southern
farmers, at which men connected with
many kinds of successful marketing
associations will explain how these Or
CARNATIONS are conducted. There are
now 1000 of these cooperative
marketing associations in wisconsin
and Minnesota alone, where they On
stitute the farmers sole. guarantee
that he will be able to force a living
price for his commodities from buyers
n shippers. In the south, according
to DR.. A. p. B%ourland, of Washington,
u. G., executive secretary Of the con-
ference, the unorganiZed farmer will
continue to be at the mercy of the or
ganized buyer and shipper till he, too,
forms similar marketing associations.
A beginning in this direction has been
made at some southern points, notably
at stanton, Virginia. where the APP
ple-growers ave united, and on the
eastern shore of Virginia, among the
raisers of potatoes, berries, cabbage
and onions.
There is likewise a cooperative
creamery in North Carolina. Blu over
the south as a whole, the movement
hac faEay, M x,tt13 l.Il Nf,rI-.l T..
petus to the movement for co-opera-
tive marketing among the farmers of
the south will be given, it is antici-
pated, by the coming conferences,
where every detail of organizing and
managing the associations will be ex-
planned by experts.
once these associations are put into
operation generally throughout the
south, 1t is predicted that they will
not only increase the farm price of
produce, but also will raise the stand
ard while lowering the cost of pro-
duction, as well as conduce to a more
~neighborly feeling among the pro-
ducers themselves.
Another subject to be taken up by
the coming conference of the tenant
S'i, III liz DuSiiitSS men Will COn-
slider. At present, DR.. Bourland points
out. almost one-third of the farms in
North Carolina, Virginia, West Vir-
sinia, Kentucky and Tennessee are
cultivated by tenants, while in South
Carolina, Georgia, Alabama and Mis-
sissippi the proportion runs to more
than tWo-thirds. In the first group OF
states, 20 per cent of the white farm
ers are tenants; in the second group,
43.7 per cent. If agriculture is to
prosper in the south, it is ~contended,
his percentage materially must be
reduced. for the tenant is a sort of
agricultural nomad who rarely re-
mains more than one year in the same
locality. Obviously, therefore, he has
no permanent interest in the COM
munity where he happens to be for
the time; he will not vote for better
schools, and often-times will not ever
send his children to such schools as
there are; he robs the soil without
mercy, for he expects to get only one
crop out of it; while his Incidence, ig-
norance, and general shiftlessness are
said to be responsible in large part for
the fact that all Or nearly all the best
in southern civilization nowadays is
conferred in the cities.
After laying plans to meet this
evil. the business men who will at
tend the conference will take up the
further question of obtaining cheap
money for the farmer. AS things now
are. when the southern farmer goes to
make a loan, he finds that after pay
ing interests, fees, papers, and SO on,
his interest sometimes runs as high as
20 per cent a year This money, more
over, Is taken out for a term of years
on mortgage, which means that While
his need for money in his business
will fluctuate with The seasons, the
loan itself will remain a constant
quantity. Hence, during a large part
of the year it is possible that less
than half the money he has borrowed
is working for him, while the interest
rate of 30 per cent is tickling off on
the full amount.
When the business men who attend
the coming conference go into the
problem of furnishing the farmer with
cheaper money, they will be told of
the cooperative credit systems of
Germany, where farmers deposit their
savings in a bank owned by all of
them jointly, and place loans, termin-
able at will. with each other under the
guidance of the best business men in
the community. The "Landwirtschaft"
plan of Prussia win also he dealt with.
This plan was adopted in the
Eighteenth century by the large land
owners of the country, who We're left,
as a result of the wars of Frederick !
the Great. with no property in the
world but the and on which they
stood. This they bonded in common,
each nan standing Jointly and sever
ally responsible for the whole under
lying mortgage. and the receipts from
the sale of the bonds We're pooled. In