The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1921-02-18
PAGE FOURTEEN

The troubles and the final success
of the cooperative milk distributing
plant at Brockton, Mass, furnished
The text of Murray d. Lincoln's talk to
farmers and milk producers, in the
auditorium OF the high school Thurs
day evening. The tale as given by
Lincoln had all the elements of any
best seller, with the plant in the role
Of the much victimi5ed, but finally
triumphant, hero; and with standard
villain, the former manager, doing all
in his power to harm the plant.
The story as told by Lincoln is one
of his actual experience Immediately
following his county agent days.
Having been employed as a farm rep
resentative by the bank of his home
town, and becoming convinced that
the dairymen of that region were not
receiving what they should for their
milk, he made a tour of the New
York dairy district, investigating the
costs. which convinced him that milk
could be distributed more cheaply
than it was in Brockton.
The distributors claimed cost of
six cents quart for handling milk.
After presenting figures to the bank
it financed a cooperative distributing
plant.
Many Mistakes Made.
~ Then we began to make Mistakes"
said Lincoln, land We made every one
in the calendar before we finished.
Our first one was to buy out the plant
already there. Then we hired the
former owner as manager And i'm
mediately he suggested, Now let's put
the price up and make the consumer
pay what he ought to- Against oppo-
sition he carried his point, prices went
from II cents to II cents and the
next morning the newspapers started
a campaign against us from which We
did not recover for long time.
Things kept happening to the
plant and the business after we hired
Manley, the manager. One day there
was report in the papers that one
of our members had proposed to the
other distributors that they should all
dump milk in the cutters until the
consumer would be willing to pay
what it was worth. We found that our
manager had made that suggestion,
and we fired him.
Another trouble during our early
days was an indictment for selling
watered milk. A competitor hired a
drunkard to water two bottles after
they had been set on a doorstep, and
the milk inspector happened to pick
those two bottles out Of 5000 for a
test.
Show Increased Profits
All these things happened to us dur
ing the first six months, yet with all
the expense they entailed, we showed
an operating cost for that period of
% cents quart, against the six cents
the former owner claimed. We were
able to Immediately pay the producers,
ourselves, two cents quart more,
which meant the difference between
a modest profit and the loss which we
had been taking before. On our farm
where we produced 200 quarts, that
meant 81 day extra, all the differ
ence in the world to us.
Not enough advertising is done by
most farmers, and not enough by
dairymen in particular. according to
Lincoln. Il am a believer in adver
tising," he said. "All the prosperity
of Fresno. Calf. is due to advertising.
Eight years ago the raisin growers
were getting less than two cents
pound for their raisins and land with
vines on 1t was worth less than with
out them.
Then they started to ADVERTISE I
Hdppeneu 10 pe TlulnS WIN uedu
baker for the Federal bakeries some
time ago and he told me he could re-
member to a day when their bakeries
began to feel the demand for raisin
bread owing to single page ad in the
Saturday Evening Post. Consumption
kept increasing and prices rising until
they got eight and ten cents and bet
ter--and then prohibition came and
they have been rolling in wealth ever
since!