The Monticellonian., 1915-05-27
COOPERATE IN MANY WAYS
Whole sot-'h Is Thoroughly Walked Up and Farmers Are Doing What
 They Had Been Told to Do.

nan or woman will not always dc
 what they know they ought to do
 It is usually some circumstance that
 compels them to act. Individually, we
 won't even consult doctor until We
 are really sick, and meanwhile keep
 up manner of living that our better
 judgment should teach us will ineylt-
 ably result in call for the doctor
 and serious illness.
 Several illustrations of this general
 truth come to mind, says Utah Farm
 CT Take, for example, the farmers of the South. They have been going for many years against the advice or the agricultural papers, of every teach- CT of agriculture, and of the leaders of the farm demonstration work: None of these classes could foresee this war but they could foresee the end of the prosperity of southern farmers, though no one could tell when it would end.
 Now they are doing what they have 1 been advised to do by every person whose advice was worth listening to, and in doing so they are forced to CO., l operate in various ways The Wnole l South is thoroughly walked up. They are devising ways, all of which neces- sitate more or less cooperation, not cooperative society-but cooperation. They are calling special meetings or the legislatures. Some are advocating the reduction of crop area by law, oth- CTS, and we think more wisely, by the active cooperation of the farmers each agreeing to cut down his area a certain per cent. Some are present. ing petitions to the members of the legislatures and of congress. All h. wolves cooperation, and without CO., operation of some kind nothing can be done.
 The farmers of the West are not as much in advance as they sometimes think they are. In place or two We have had hog cholera, some Of US looking upon the entrance of the dis ease as a stroke of bad luck, hard lines. Those more piously inclined look upon it as dispensation or ProVi- dence. The fact that hog cholera has done so much damage for the last few years is simply due to our method of growing hogs. We have simply al lowed the disease to find an entrance through filthy stoekyards. along streams and railroad lines, and to spread out over the country because we violated every principle of santa tion and often of breeding. We made a each man worked individually and indepen- dently; but when we began to enlist the aid of the state and of the nation, when we began to get together and work together with one end in view and to follow directions. we made progress It was the working togeth- CT, the cooperation of farmers under the spur of necessity, that enabled us to achieve the mastery that We now have over this disease in some sec tions.
 The agricultural press. the expert ment stations, and the United States department of agriculture have been | teaching better methods of farming. 1 Here and there an individual grasped the ideas and put them in practice | tive speak now of general farming); | but the counties where farmers got to- gether and co-operated in employing advisers. and did not stint their mon | ey, are getting ahead much faster than counties where each man works l out his own agricultural salvation. It 1 is only by farmers working together whether we call it cooperation or not that they can achieve any marked success; but the man who has studied human nature understands that farm CTS will not do it until circumstances compel them to do so.
 There are many lines of farm life in which we should cooperate. What about the old methods of marketing our milk or butter as compared with l those of today?
 Take it in another line-the breed ing of live stock. Breeders are begin ming to understand that they can sue eeed only by sort of cooperation. They group themselves together at some point with good railroad con nections, and then. instead of com petins with each other, they cooperate cooperate in the use Of sires, CO., operate in advertising, cooperate in selling. They have found out that farmers in search of improved live stock go to some point where there are a number of herds of the breed they want; and tine various owners find out that it is not wise for them to do their very best to sell their own animals. but that it pays to help their neighbors to sell by pointing out the best points of their own stock and helping visitors to see the stock of their neighbors also. In this way they succeed. It is difficult for any man with any breed of live stock to succeed. where he is alone and does not have the cooperation and support and .help of his neighbors. In fact when we begin to work along these lines we begin to succeed. Until We do that we usually find it hard sledding in these days.