The Idaho Republican. [volume] (Blackfoot, Idaho) 1904-1932, 1922-11-30
What the Farmers
Might Do

A good many farmers might do
what a few farmers are now doing.
What is already being done in one
line of endeavor might be done sue
cessfully in other lines. For ex-
ample:
A few years ago Henry Wiley and
George Line, of Sterling, were rails
ing pure Grimm alfalfa seed on ad-
joining farms, <and when Mr.. Wiley
had chance to sell $4,000 pounds
Of alfalfa seed at good price to an
eastern firm, he realized that while
it was a good offer, it would not
make carload, and If he paid the
high freight rate on part of q car 1t
made q serious loss. He went to
Mr.. Line and found that he also had
; part of a carload and was engaged
in correspondence trying to sell 1t.
They put in together and sold q car
load and the combining was sub
stantial advantage to each of them.
The next year they raised more,
and A. j. Snyder, another neighbor,
put in with them, and they all sold
thru one man. If each of them had
! been writing to the same firms,
there would have been some useless
competition, and they would have
been bidding against each other and
would have been handicapped in
freight rates. They found that Mr..
Meyer and Mr.. Wells and some
others who had alfalfa seed for sale
were still bidding against them and
the next season they all pooled their
seeds and marketed thru one man,
and the others referred their in
quiries to the sales agent. Then 1t
was little easier to make sale
both because of the larger quantity,
because of the freight advantage
/ and because of the lack Of competi-
ton and bidding.
Some of the seed buyers noticed
that there seemed to be big seed
farm or two out in Bingham county,
Idaho, and they sent man out to
look it over while 1t was growing.
He found them rogueing their seed
tracts to keep the seed pure, and
there was mutual confidence and ad-
vantage in getting acquainted. Their
seeds had always been true to label,
and the buyers representative ar
! ranged for them to inspect and buy
seeds from some of the other grow
ers for them and to attend to ship
ping.
| These new seed growers found 1t
very much to their advantage to get
their product handled with the
others, and they hurried to get in
on any terms they could. Each of
the producers who played the game
square and supplied pure seed was
welcomed into the pool, for the
more they had to sell, the more they
could afford to spend for advertising
and travelling in the search OF the
best buyers.
| At first each of the seed men got
the thresherman to clean up his ma
chine to do his seed threshing, and
then he had to get tanning mill
and clean it up as best he could, but
as the quantity increased they had
to get better machinery to thresh
and clean and grade it, and those
who got the best equipment did
custom work for the others. They
soon found that by all combining
they could secure the best machin-
cry in the world for cleaning, grad
ing and scarifying the seed, and
that it would pay them to do It.
They could then sell their first grade
seed practically 100 per cent pure
for all it was worth, and it was
worth more than they had ever been
receiving for it. They could then
sell their second grade seed for
nearly as much as they had been
getting for the ungraded pure seed,
and the buyers were getting exactly
what they wanted.
The producers organized the
Idaho Grimm Growers association,
and sold all their seed under label
and in sealed bags with their
guarantee that it would be true to
label and true to the pedigree that
was filled out and transmitted to the
buyer just as a man buying a ped1-
greed animal receives his document
to show what he is getting. The
farmer in Illinois or Wisconsin who
wanted to raise the best alfalfa in
the world and was willing to pre-
pare his field like a. lettuce bed, and
was depending on this field of new
, alfalfa to supply his dairy herd with
good feed, did not want to take any
chances of getting poor seed. 1t
would take only ten or fifteen
pounds to the acre anyhow, and If
he had to pay dollar pound for II
, he would not balk, provided he
knew that it would be pure and
clean and that it would practically
all terminate. If he bought seed OF
some fy-by-night firm and got some.
thing else and some weed seed and
some love vine and poor stand OF
alfalfa resulted, and got his farm
:, started to love vine, he would be
damaged considerable on his field
, and a great deal more on his dairy
! herd. 1t would not matter much
how good was the seed of some
: stranger, he would find it hard tc
, sell his seed in competition with this
pedigreed seed. When the Idaho
Grimm Growers got scarifyer and
could guarantee that all of theil
seed would terminate, that cut
; down the number of pounds per acre
that man need buy to get perfect
stand in his meadow and be sure
, that all of his ground would he DrO.