Licking Valley courier., 1921-01-13

over this simple piece of good bust
ness sense-the farmers insisting that
they would do it and the business men
of the town doing all in their power
to make such buying as hard and as
little profitable as might be. Gould
these farmers feel that they were get
ting square deal, or could the dealers
justify their policy Of obstruction by
any appeal except to their own selfish
interests?
Here, again, it is the exceptional
case in which cooperative wholesale
buying will be found profitable, all
things considered, to the body of
farmers But when it is plainly pro
fitable, their townsmen should help
them to it rather than make it hard |
for them. There is no reason why
any up-to-date feed or fertilizer or
implement dealer should not himself
act for the farmers when they wish
TO buy on this large scale. Someone
has to act for them, and he is the log
ical man to do it. But until he gets
the country vision as well as the town
vision, and gets as close to the man to
whom he sells as to the man from
whom he buys, he will never see it
this way.
The town not only sells to the farm
er; it buys from him One OF the
towns first duties, in fact, is to pro-
vide market for what the farmers
about il have to sell. No town can
justly say that it has done its duty
. by its surrounding territory until it
has done this. Indeed, / have wonder
ed more than once why the towns dis
, turbed oyer the buying of goods else
, where by their farmer folks did not
, get busy and announce that whatever
those farm folks had to sell the town
, merchants would buy, and so end The
trouble for good and for all. Docs any
reader doubt that it would end it!
- Or does any reader believe that the
town that made provision to take care
b. in the most economical way, Of the
~, hogs and the milk, the eggs and truck
-. produced about it, so that it cOulC
: give the producers of these things tn,
highest prices for them, would evel
be dead town or one going dOwl
- ill?
. Any. man so believing must eXercis,
i is credulity more than his reasoning
- power.
If l were town merchant and tn,
! farmers of my neighborhood organ
>, lied cooperative marketing associa
O., tion to sell their live stock, produce
. hay. fruits. wheat, corn or anything
else, i would be found backing tina
-. association to the limit--that is If
o.. expected to stay in the town and hat
d, more than a temporary interest il
, It's welfare. Yet there have beer
. merchants who have discourage,
sven cooperative marketing on tn
- TART of The farmers. Another plai
! case of extreme shortsightcdncss.
/, There have been bankers, toe
- Since the farm loan law was enacted
who have done all in their power t
discourage farmers from joining lOa
i associations and borrowing none
=, through theIr. Other bankers, it
- good to say, have given such associi
l., ions all the help In their power.
~ is idle to argue which set Of banker
=. had the most interest or the true'
l. understanding of agricultural prog
rcSs, or which were doing most
: promote the prosperity of their ,owl
., and make their futures certain.
7 Examples might be multiplied, II
stances enumerated to ilrcSomcnes
hut these, it is hoped, win make Il
idea of the relationship of town al
county clear. This relationship, Il
! .t he repeated, is that of the harves
ar to the s0wer, the eater TO the fee
l n. Realizing which fact, our COUNT
towns will come to see, us they ha'
not yet seen, that if they would I
their gamers with wealth aud co
/ linue to grow and he strong thy mu
I keep as close as possible to he iel
4 amid which they stand and 10 {
Sitlllers of those fields who supp The
with moral fiber and sp. ritu
strength, as well as with with I
bread Of bodily life.