Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1923-03-31


fever or consumption.
The one great problem the farmer has and
has had for a century is to get his share of the
consumers dollar.
1t is the only problem.
The fact that the farmers have never got
it in the past is the reason why they have not
prospered reasonably. 1t will continue to be
the reason so long as the farmers compete
with each other in selling. When that hap
pens they have no say about the prices they
get for their products. Instead of selling
their products, they take what they are Of
fered.
There is no finer example of that than can
be drawn from the present cotton crop.
On the first day of last August it was known
to every cotton buyer and spinner in the
world that there were only 100000 bales of
old cotton in the United States. 1t was also
known that the 1922 crop would not exceed
100000 bales and would probably be lit
tie less. 1t was also known that the world de-
mand for American cotton for the next twelve
months would be close to 100000 bales,
maybe little more or less, but just around
that figure.
So, there was the absolute certainty that
the cotton supply would nearly run out before
the end Of the season.
The fact was just as well known then as
it is today.
Yet millions of bales of cotton were bought
from the producers in September and October
for 20 cents a pound and less There was
not one man in the cotton trade in all the
world that did not know as surely as he could
know anything that cotton would be worth
nearer 80 cents than 20 before the end of the
season.
Still, million farmers dumped their crop
on the market at the prices offered by the
buyers. They forced the price down by their
dumping. When they had finished selling
the price started up, and you all know the
rest.
Those who bought cotton at from 10 cents
to %. sold at from % to 80. They made $50
the producer.
The farmers do not know how to sell. AS
Brother Talbot says, they never can know
Selling is a real business, a profession. 1t
takes as much work-of different sort-and
time as farming does. 1t takes special edu-
cation-not necessarily book-learning. but ed
ucation based on experience.
What the farmer must do, since he cannot
learn how to sell, is to hire someone to sell
for him. But no individual farmer is able
to hire seller, and if he could, that system
wouldn't work. Each farm produces too lit
tie of the world supply to cut any figure when
handled individually. A hundred bales of
cotton isn't drop in the bucket when the
crop is 1O,O0O,OOO bales.
So, what is left?
Nothing except pool selling. When you
and, say, twenty thousand other farmers put
your crops together and say to good sales
man whom you employ, "Sell our cotton for
fair price," you will accomplish something.
That salesman will have 200, 900 bales of cot
ton to merchandise. That is enough to en-
able him to sell gradually and get an average
price for the season. And an average price
will yield fair profit to good farmer nine
teen years out of twenty.
To sum it all up:
The farmers problem is to get his share
of the consumers dollar.
The only way to do this is to sell right.
The onlx way for individual producers to
sell right is to sell in volume, and that can
be done only by cooperative selling.
Cooperative associations selling in large
volume will give the farmer fair price for
his product when managed properly. They
will not make a good farmer out of a poor
one. But they will make good farmer pros
porous.
Think it over.
49, 4-IIx 1rInN i1 In ~