The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1915-06-09
ECONOMY IN
COOPERATION
How Much Did You Lose in Buying
Fertilizers This Spring?
Progressive Farmer

mercial fertilizers this spring? Too
much, we dare say, unless your farm
is big enough to justify carlot pur-
,hases at wholesale rates, or unless
YOU Joined with your neighbors in
buying comparatively by the carload.
Fifteen tons is the minimum car, and
probably not more than n farmer
in a hundred uses this amount; on
the other hand, almost any four or
five adjoining farmers will use from
Is to 20 tons a year.
Right here is an opportunity for
n of the finest, most profitable lit
tie ventures in cooperation that we
know of. Cooperative fertilizer pur-
chases, which simply mea the Sc
curing of fertilizers in small lots at
wholesale prices, have, as a matter of
u personal knowledge, saved farm
ers anywhere from 81 to SIS a ton on
every ton bought. But let's be cor
sentative, and assume that by buying
together we may, on an average, save
50 on every ton. AS the average Cot
ton Belt county uses some 10000
tons a year isn't this little annual
saving of $4,000 to your county
worth considering? If you yourself
use five tons, won't the $40 saved
come in handy?
But this is not all. "Big oaks from
little acorns grow" and out of lit
tie cooperation in buying fertilizers
may grow cooperation in marketing
cotton and cotton seed, in communi-
ty livestock breeding, in securing
better roads, schools, churches, and
the thousand and one other things
that go to make country life sub
stantial and satisfying.
If you haven't already done so,
talk it over with your new neighbor
and arrange to buy your fertilizers
together another year. 1t will save
you some hard earned dollars, and at
the same time may prove the STEP
ping stone to still better things.
II.-Sell by the Carload.
From cabbage to cotton, from egg
plants to elephants, it is generally a
certainty that dealers in large guam
titles enjoy advantages that the small
dealer can never have. But just as
in buying fertilizers the average far
mer alone car never operate on a
wholesale, carlot basis, so can he
never expect, unaided, to reap the
profits that comes from marketing in
large quantities.
In future, as the margins or profits
on produce grow smaller and smaller,
and as necessity IS a consequence
grows more and more pressing, the
small farmer, that is, the producer
of and dealer in small lots, will have
two courses open to him: he can
either join with his neighbors in the
production and sale Of crops of STAN
dard quality in large quantities, thus
meeting the competition of similar
associations and large individual pro-
ducers, or he can go out of business.
The history of European agriculture
during the last hundred Years has es-
tablished the truth Of this principle,
and already it is beginning to oper-
ate in America.
Because of the imperishable ma
ture of his crop and because of a
worldwide market, the Southern COT
ton farmer has been slow to realize
the profits that come from oganized
marketing. However, here and there
farmers cotton marketing associa-
lions are being successfully organiz-
ed, and the 81 to SIS per bale profits
they are bringing their members are
assurance that in the near future
many more will ONE into being. Ev-
en- greater profits are coming from
the cooperative marketing of cotton
seed, several North Carolina Farm
ers' Union locals having last season
snapped seed for meal, ton for ton,
while individual farmers elsewhere
were selling their seed at from SIS
to SIS.
With fruit and truck crops, small
growers must learn that it is either
o+o. N~o