The Celina Democrat. (Celina, O. [Ohio]) 1895-1921, 1914-04-17

and other small fruits. a small local
cooperative society is marketing all
rielr stuff in Minneapolis. We asked
tie manager why he did not sell in 9TH
er cities Milwaukee, Tor example,
whore the retailers should be willing
20 pay good prices for good fruit. His
reply was chat he had been utterly
unable 10 find any Milwaukee retailer
Who would take his fruit because they
said that they must deal only with
those who handled full line Of
fruits; that II they bought cherries
and strawberries OF him they would
ind themselves unable 10 buy the
other fruits which he did not handle,
such as bananas, peaches, pineapples
and the like The same condition ey.
lists everywhere. The retailer will
not buy in small quantities nor viii
they buy Of those who cannot sell
them a full line of supplies. A repre-
sentative of the Society of Equity of
Wisconsin went to Chicago to work
up trade directly with the retailers
of that city but gave up the plan in de-
spair He concluded that either the
cooperative marketing concerns must
combine upon broad lines in order 10
be able to protect the retailers who
bought Of them, or else the consumers
must combine and buy comparatively
Of the producer. In short, the Ameri-
can farmer cannot, unaided, invade the
larger cities. Even the smaller coop
erauva organizations find themselves
100 weak 10 90 into the city markets.
Federates to Invade Cities.
But here in Germany, and in fact
in many other countries, the farmer
does successfully invade the cities,
large and small He does 1t through
the federated association Of co-Opera-
tive societies which thrive everywhere.
These organizations do a tremendous
business. They are enormous con-
Germs. capable Of taking big contracts
and making good on them, fully able
to hold their own in competition with
privately owned concerns. The Ger
man retailer knows that when he deals
WITH such a concern or organization
ne can get all that he wants whenever
he wants It.
We have just been investigating the
methods Of one of these federated sale
societies, the United Pomeranian
Diaries, q concern which represents
thousands OF farmers. We found the
manager a most businesslike individu-
al with an amazingly wide knowledge
Of all matters connected with the mar
ketlng Of the products handled by him.
He has at his tongues end the an
swer to all questions, whether they
have 70 do with, the technicalities OF
the product itself or with the business
methods Of the concern, The retailers
do not hesitate to deal with this con-
cern for they can rely upon 1t to sup
ply all Of their needs, all of the time.
Ii markets the butter and cheese com
ing from over half q million cows and
this Wien necessary with
imported products. II is through iasti-
tnti9ns such as this that the German
farmer invades the German city.
Union Of Cooperative Concerns.
This is an association OF associa-
tons" the manager stated. ut is not
connected with any Landschaften or
Reireson bank. our associations are
formed solely to aid The farmer in mar
Eetiug his produce In fact. nearly all .
the shares are held by farmers We
have over twenty thousand separate .
members. There are 40 associations. /
We are marketing our product through |
ffty-six stores
This is a cooperative concern in the |
true sense Of the word All our con-
Germs are operated upon the "one man
one vote" plan, as are all of the coop |
arative societies in Germany The !
small farmer has as much influence as |
the big man. Everybody connected |
with us participates in our profits and |
ia responsible If we have losses, Ey-
erybody votes, nobody votes more than
once. We charge about three per
cent. on the turnover to pay the ex-
penses involved in marketing What
is left goes to the members who sell
through US"
Making Good With Retailers.
Eve necessarily handle some things
which are not produced by our mem
bers. German butter and cheese do
not meet the demand We are forced
to supplement what is produced by our
members by what we import. We could
not do business unless we stood ready
to meet all the demands of those with
whom we deal II we have retailer
who is purchasing butter from us we
must have butter for him whenever he
desires it and must have 1T all the
year around. The fact that he has
come to us means that he has aban-
doned other avenues through which he
originally purchased butter. II we
could not supply him with butter all
the time he could not afford to trade