The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1922-03-31
WORD WITH TOBACCO GROWERS

| AS this is written the dark tobacco
districts of Kentucky and Tennessee
are discussing with much interest
various plans offered for the market
ing of their tobacco. A Dark Tobac-
CO Growers Cooperative Association
has been organized on the same basis
as the Burley Tobacco Growers As
ISOLATION and is getting ready to be-
gin an active campaign for member
ship. The basis of this association is
the binding contract by which mem
bers of the association obligate them
selves to sell their tobacco through
the association for a term of five
years. Other marketing plans and
other proposed marketing associa-
tions are also being offered "Black
Patch" growers for their considera-
ton. In some sections, we under
stand, discussion is becoming a bit
heated and proponents of the various
plans are appealing to growers with
dIuSOIncoo anu uSldSlu.
The Southern Agriculturist has
just one interest in this discussion.
1t is vitality interested in the pros
perity of the growers of dark tobac-
CO. Probably 10000 of these grow
ers are our subscribers. The more
money they may make, the more we
shall make. Any marketing plan
that will help them to get better
prices for, and to make more money
out of their tobacco will be direct
benefit to us.
With this fact in mind, the South
ern Agriculturist hopes to see the
BLACK Patch" farmers go into the
Dark Tobacco Growers Association
with the same practical unanimity
with which Burley growers went in
to the Burley Growers Cooperative
Association. This is said with no de-
sire to condemn any other proposed
marketing method or plan of associ-
alton, but with the firm conviction
that the binding contract is the
soundes', safest, most enduring
foundation a cooperative marketing
association can have. 1t gives the
association something to stand upon,
something to base plans on, some
thing to do business with, and some
thing to offer each member as securi-
ty for it's permanence and it's future
strength.
Cooperative marketing is not a
matter of sentiment. 1t is matter
of good hard dollars and cents. The
cooperative marketing association |
that endures will be the one that
makes money for it's members. No
business organization that cannot |
count with some assurance on it's |
own strength and it's own stock in
trade for year or two ahead is in |
position to make money for it's mem
bers in our fiercely competitive mod
ern markets. The man asked to sign
1 fiveyear contract should remember
hat it binds not only himself to the
but the organization
% him. 1t is mutual guarantee. To
De afraid of it, is to be afraid of the
collective judgment Of ones self and
mes fellow-producers. Cooperative
marketing societies will no doubt
continue to make mistakes, and may
fail-the man who has
himself never made a mistake or a
allure in the selling Of his crops can
ford to stay outside but their sue
esses have so far been far greater
han their failures and they are all =,
he time getting stronger and wiser.
The time has come when it is just
bit unreasonable to doubt the pos
Utility of successful cooperative
associations; and the
ime has come frankly to recognize
he binding contract as the very be-
;inning of efficient and effective CO.
peration.-Southern Agriculturist