Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1924-02-07
FARM
COOPERATIVE
SELLING
By GLENN C. HAYES
How Wool Growers Benefit
by Organization.
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10. 1924. Western Newspaper Union.)

firm representatives used to tell the
wool growers as they travelled through
the sheep sections buying the years
clip.
wool is wool and it's all worth
about the same price per pound"-that
was the comeback whenever an ag-
gressive farmer was bold enough to
ask for more money for his long-staple
fleeces. The poorer grades set the
price for a whole community. The
best f1ocHmasters grew discouraged
and paid little attention to their
fieeces. There was no incentive for
doing otherwise all wool brought
about the same price.
Since the first New England loom
began spinning cloth, wool marketing
in the United States has been along
speculative lines. No wonder the wool
business is weighed down with specu-
lative features. This is partly due to
the fact that wool is such a variable
product as to quality, shrinkage and
condition and length of staple Then,
too, from the production standpoint
wool is seasonable, while the demand
is distributed over all twelve months
of the year. This means that the wool
must be carried by someone from the
time of shearing until the time it is
sold at the mill and that requires
financing.
From the beginning Of the weaving
industry the mills bought their sup
plies from the Boston dealers. The
dealers had local agents scattered over
the country, who Travelled among the
farmers buying f1eeces. These are the
buyers who declared that wool is
wooP'-they had never heard of grad
ing, and If they had they wouldn't
have favored buying that way. 1t was
money in their pocket to put all aeeces
in one great universal class and tab
It wool" the price being set on the
basis of its poorest quality. In that
early day farmers had heard little of
the doctrine Of cooperation They
took the price they were given, but
they took it with a deal of grumbling
among themselves.
Grumbling began to crystalline into
action. From time to time revolts oc-
Cured against the old-line marketing
system. But nothing much came of
them; burst of fury, a few years of
determined action, with less than
medium results, then back to the old
system. It is only within recent years
that the growers have had any actual
influence in lettering their market
prices.
First Action in 1874.
The first action taken against the
old system was in 1874 when the
Changers in Michigan, Ohio and Ken
lucky established warehouses where
they assembled wool and sold 1t in
large quantities direct to the manu-
facturers. The gain was only tempo
rary, for with the decline of the
Grange the warehouses passed out of
the growers hands.
Three years later the GoodlettsvilIe
Lamb club at Goodlettsville, Tenn.
was formed Today it is the oldest
existing cooperative marketing asso-
citation in the United States This club
has pooled the lambs and wool Of its
members and sold them by grade dur
ing the IS years of its existence.
Here and there both in the range
states and the corn belt the local pools
were put into operation These organi-
cations were generally informal neigh
borhood groups of wool growers who
had arranged to bring their wool to-
gether and sell it at the same time.
T0ifforo,,+ y,,oEbodS "a colo r1,o,.o +yiod
Sometimes the wool gathered was con-
signed to a wool commission mer-
chant to be sold for the group, and
sometimes the buyers were asked to
come to the local plants The main
object OF these local pools was to as
sembIe q large enough quantity to
make it worth while for buyers to
come and bid on it. Sometimes it was
done for convenience in consigning to
a dealer at a central pointer there
has been plenty of dissatisfaction
with prices paid by local dealers.
The plan Of organization was Of the
simplest. There was merely an agree
ment of a number of local growers
to go together in handling their wool.
Sometimes they elected officers, but
more often they were represented by a
committee who arranged the details of
the plan After year or two many
of these locals failed, but others came
to take their places, and In 1917 there
were at least % successful pools east
of the Missouri river and three times
as many in the range country. State
wide pools began about 1913 with the
formation Of the Ohio State pool
Cooperative marketing of Ohio wool
may be called a result Of the war.
During the war the government fixed
a schedule on prices which it would
pay for wool. Dealers all over Ohio
made bids based on a profit of z to 10
cents per pound more than usual. This
wide margin named was the turning
point in tine old-form marketing sys-
TEN of the state. In one body pro-
ducers stood up for their rights.
How the Plan Works.
In four weeks the Ohio Sheep and
Wool Growers association had been
formed and proceeded to collect 275,O00
pounds of the 1918 wool clip. They
sold it, too, at an average Of Y cents
per pound The dealers had offered