St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1914-05-27

If cooperation in the production and
marketing OF butter will take of even
a small part of the burden of the farm
ers' wife, if it will give her time to
straighten up from her work at table
and tub and leave her free to remem-
Der that she is a human being with a
head and a soul, if it will permit her
to get of the farm oftener than once
in IA wears-if cooperation will do
this or help by ever so little to do it,
the woman on the farm is for co-opera-
ton.
An UngalIant Irishman.
We have found one man here in Ire
land who is opposed to cooperation.
Walking along a country road near
Omagh we came upon a shrewd faced
Irishman who was very ready to talk
about cooperation. He was evidently
a man of some intelligence and, judg-
ing from his manner and address, a
man of some experience and success
in business. So we engaged him in
conversation about cooperation and
it's effects.
81 am against it." he said. There
is no sense in it." And he gave us in
forcible and picturesque language the
story of how he had been personally
injured in his business by co-opera-
ton. 1t developed that he had been a
buyer of farm produce-a commission
merchant in a small way. "Now there
is no money in il, The said, "since the
margin between what the city man
navc and xubof tho forroor racofvoc 10
cut down. The farmer sells through
the cooperative organization directly
to the city merchant" Reluctantly he
admitted that maybe it was better for
the farmer and better for the city con-
sumner who had little with which to
buy food. But it's hard on us COM
mission men. It's putting us on the
rocks. 1 am not buying butter at all
any more. The cooperative creamery
here has run me out"
We asked him if cooperative butter
making did not make the work of the
farmers wife and daughter easier.
"Of course it does" he said. "And lit
tie good it is doing them. They don't
have to skim the milk and churn and
mold and salt the butter now and so
they go galavanting over the roads on
their bicycles. They don't stay home
at ala any more. They're worse about
gadding than city women" and he
shook his head with misgivings.
So, If it be true, as our Irish friend
in his self pity proclaimed, that CO
operative butter making and butter
marketing is going Co make it cost the
more, we suggest that both maker and
eater will be for it, the ex-commission
merchant to the contrary notwith-
standing. They viii both in city and
country be interested in seeing coop
Grafton accomplished. Certainly the
country woman who feels the burden
of butter making will welcome a pro-
cess by which she is to get an oppore
tunity to see something besides the
top Of the cook stove and the inside of
the big churn. And we do not believe
that the ordinary American farmer
will object to cooperation even If it
does give his wife and daughter time
to get out upon the road in buggy or
on bicycles.
The Omaah Creamery.
When we learned that the Omagh
Cooperative Creamery system Of mar
keting was cutting down the margin
of price between farmer and consumer
was both raising the price to the
farmer and lowering the price to the
consumer, we concluded that it was a
concern worth considering. Even the
accusation that made it possible for
the farmers wife and daughter to get
out on their bicycles occasionally did
not unduly prejudice us against it. The
Omagh creamery is capitalized by con-
tributions from 500 members who in
vested from five dollars, up to $3.50 !
each. But the voting is not by shares. |
1t is on the one man one vote plan. |
The five-dollar man votes just as often |
and as forcibly as the $250-dollar man.
The members voting thus elect a |
board Of directors. These in turn have |
the best man they can get as manager.
But he must be more than a butter |
maker. He must be a good business
man and an expert in marketing. No |
matter how much money is made, 1t |
must all go back to the members in |
to the butter fat delivered |
20 the creamery after q dividend not |