The Idaho recorder., 1921-11-25
TOGETHER WE STICK;
DIVIDED WE'RE STUCK
Stuart o. Blythe in Country Gentle
man.

Ine late EiDefr duDDard once H.
Illustrated what lack Of cooperation
means by telling of visit he made
to an insane asylum where he found
a comparatively small attendant in
charge of group of physically pow
erful lunatics. When asked if there
was no danger of attack by his pa
tients, the attendant said, "Oh, yes;
but, you see, they can get together;
they're crazy"
For many years it has been a pop
ular fallacy that farmers cannot CO.
operate successfully, because "they
can't get together" The farmer has
been described so frequently as an in
dividualist that it has become almost
custom to think of him as incapable
of working in harness with other
farmers.
There have been so many failures
at tcooperation-mismanaged, misdi-
rected, uneconomic ventures-that for
years the tendency has been to stress
the flivvers and overlook successes.
Cooperation is beautiful in the
ory," you will hear many say, "but
in practice" And they shrug their
shoulders and lift their eyebrows. And
cut in the dairy states they will tell
you how even officers of cooperative
creameries will desert the farmers
company when the centralizer offers
better price for butter fat.
Yes, they say farmers won't coop
crate, completely ignoring the host of
buying and selling associations and
mutual-help organizations that dot
the country ffom one coast to the 9TH
er. BY common usuage the term CO.
operative has come to imply buying
and selling, but farmers cooperate in
scores of other ways. Every farm bu-
reau, every breed association, every
cow-testing association, every grange,
every county and community fair,
every farm loan association, repre-
sents cooperation.
| Farmers have been cooperating for
years, only they don't know it. In
the good old days when mans
neighbors came over to help him
thresh, what was it but cooperation ?
When Abner Brown raised his new
barn and the farmers and their fam
lilies came over to his place and made
And the time when everybody got out
and helped fix up that stretch of bad
road south of town, wasn't that COOP
Grafton?
Eye-Opening Figures.
The Bureau of Markets at Wash
lington has record of between 5000
and 1900 farmers buying and sell.
ing associations. And yet they say
farmers won't cooperate!
Five thousand farmers elevators
did combined business of more thar
a billion dollars last year. Farmer:
don't cooperate?
The California Fruit Growers Ex
change, the world-famous example Of
a successful producers marketing or
ganization, in seventeen years sole
$376, 100000 worth of citrus fruit:
with total losses for the period of les:
.nan ~ ,vvv. Last year Il shipped fol
its member growers nearly rs pc
cent of all the citrus fruits sent ou
of California. And still they say tha
farmers can't cooperatei
Of the creameries in the great dai
ry state of Minnesota three-fourth
are cooperative. They manufacture
approximately 100,000,000 pounds o
butter annually, round two-thirds o
all the butter produced there. d.
farmers cooperate?
They do-in a thousand differen
ways, in huge undertakings and littl
ones.
In Iowa more than one-fourth o
the stock shipped from that state i
being handled by cooperative ship
ping associations, it's annual yalu
being round $100,000,000.
I IL
shiek Equity Cooperative association
at Decorah, did the impressive gros
business of $3.50 in the year 1926
Minnesota has 1860 cooperative as
sociations Of all descriptions, 1910 o
which are marketing organizations
In 1920 the farmers of this state mar
keted nearly 80 per cent of their en-
tire crop through their own organiza
tions. Approximately 20 per cent 0
the livestock sold on the South s.
Paul market reaches the stockyard
through the medium of the cooper
erative shipping association. Did any
one say that farmers won't cooper
ate?
The farmers in the northern part 0
st. Louis county, Missouri, organize
the New jamestown Quarry compan
! with necessary equipment to turn ou
road work and pulverized limeston'
with view to supplying the needs c
all the farmers in that section. Ism
that cooperation?
The Oregon Guernsey Cattle clu
imported fifty-nine heifers direct froi
the Isle of Guernsey for Distribute
by lots to counties throughout til
: state.
Piling Up the Proofs.
This past season the Georgia Fru
: Growers Exchange sold for its men
t bers some $500 carloads of pesche
Some day they'll learn to work t,
'gether
. In North Carolina the Sand Hi
Fruit Growers association sold Il
cars of dewberries at $4,000 a car an
600 carloads of peaches at sf100
car.
The Southwest Georgia Melo
Growers association sold 747 cars {
e lwateunelons during the 1921 seasol
! In New Madrid county, Missou
the farm bureau with the aid of or