The Farmington times. (Farmington, St. Francois County, Mo.) 1905-1926, 1919-01-10
Activities of Missouri
Farmers Associations

The ideal arrangement which the
Missouri Farmers Association is busy
perfecting at this time is a farmers
| cooperative elevator at every point in
Missouri where the annual movement
of grain justifcs it and then it is in
! tended that managers of such eleva-
tors shall also become the managers
of live stock shipping association
and poultry, cream and produce re-
ceiving station-combining these three
great activities under one roof and one
management. "There are lot of
points in Missouri where such COM
bination plant will earn from 100000
to $4,000 annually for the farmers in
the surrounding territory" is the way
Col j. A. Hudson of Columbia, Chair
man of the Executive Committee of
the Missouri Farmers Association re-
Gently put it, Any farmer desiring
further information on this score
should address the association at Col
umbia, Enclosing SC OF cover cost of
mailing literature.
A Big Saving to Farmers
Through the Missouri Farmers As
ISOLATION, great many live stock
shipping associations are being or
ganized in different parts of Missouri
and all of them are proving a great
financial success. What is live
stock shipping association, you ask?
Usually a group of from $50 to 500
farm club members living within the
scope of a certain shipping point
who get together, organize shipping
association, appoint a shipping mana
ger who on certain days during the
week receives the hogs, fat cows,
sheep, etc, which the different men,
bers have ready for the market. This
manager usually receives so much per
car on all the live stock shipped. 1t
is his business to "bunhc
is his business to "bunch" the live
stock so that it will be of as even
quality as possible and in the case of
fat cows, bulls and even frequently in
the case of hogs and sheep where the
quality is not uniform, he marks the
animals contributed by the different
shippers so they can be identified when
they reach the stock yards in order
that each farmer may receive exactly
what his stuff brought, less his part
of the shipping cost. Where hogs or
sheep are Of practically an even quail
ty and weight it is not necessary to
do this, for in such cases they will sell
better in a carload lot than when split
into small lunches in the stock yards.
But in this respect it is enough to say
that the methods employed in each
shipment are intended to get the "last
penny" for the various contributors.
To use a slang phrase, the manager
is the "main guy" He not only per
forms the duties set forth above but
attends to ordering cars, making Sc
Element with the commission compa-
MES which handle the farm club live
stock and sees that each member gets
check for his money, less his part of
the shipping cost. In a nut she'll the
live stock shipping association elm
mates the local "hog buyer" and OBJ
tains for it's members the full stock
yards price for their hogs, cattle,
sheep and veals. OF course the plan
does not interest the big feeders who
feed on a carload basis-but for the
farmer who does not do this-who sells
perhaps Is or 20 hogs and two or three
fat cows per year-for such farmer
it is a great money saver. There is
not at this time a shipping associa-
ton in the State which reports net
saving of less than soc per cwt. on
hogs. On twenty $50 pound hogs, this
means a pickup" of $25. Many of
the associations say they are realiz-
ing an increase over the old way of
$1.00 per cwt.-and on this basis it
would mean saving of $50 on the
above 20 hogs. But it is on fat cows
that the showing is most striking and
scores of such cows have brought $25
or $50 more at the central markets
during the last year than the local
stock buyer offered. Recently, the
farm clubs at Green City, Mo-, started
a shipping association and during the
first five weeks of operation they
saved better than $1,000 above all ex-
penses-and there are dozens of other
associations which can tell similar
story. The plan provides sinking
fund which protects the members
against loss from killed or injured an
imals.
Any farmer interested in organizing
a shipping association in his communi-
ty can get full information, constitu-
ton, bylaws, etc, by sending sc in
stamps to cover postage to the Mis-
souri, Farmers Association, Columbia,
Missouri.