Eagle River review. [volume] (Eagle River, Wis.) 1890-1927, 1924-01-24
FARM
COOPERATIVE
SELLING
By GLENN C. HAYES
local Live Stock Shipping
Associations
o, 1924, western Newspaper Union. }


yards the days work had started a
whole two hours earlier. 1t was ship
ping day for the local shipping asso-
citation and farmers had been busy
since five o'clock getting their hogs
loaded into the empty car that stood
on the siding. The early morning
freight would be due any minute now.
'How many you shipping today,
Frank?'' Tim Gordon asked as he and
his neighbour Frank Watson, leaned
over the white-washed fence of the
yards, smoking as they watched the
loading.
"Only had one more ready. Sent
three last week"
"Great idea this cooperative ship
ping association. Shipping them out
one or two at time just as they fat
ten up, beats the old plan of having
to wait until there's a whole carload
ready"
II like having our commission COM
pany down at the central market" and
Frank knocked the ashes from his
pipe. at takes a lot Of worry off a
fellows mind to know that there is
someone down there to look after our
sales; someone that knows how to
do it."
Other trucks drove up, some with
one hog and some with two. Each
hog was weighed and listed, then load
ed with the rest into the waiting car.
The freight pulled in. 1t puffed out
again taking with it the producers car
of hogs and Sam Johnson, who is paid
to look after the shipments until they
are safely in the care of the Produc-
ers Commission association at the
stock yards.
Awaited Their Checks.
The farmers at Ida Grove stood
along the siding and watched the
freight pull out Their part in the
shipping was done. All that was left
for them to do was to indorse their
check when it arrived. This is the
cooperative way of taking hogs to
market.
Twenty-Five per cent of all the live
stock sold on the terminal markets is
handled through cooperative shipping
associations Four thousand farm
communities have organized associa-
tions-duplicates of the one at Ida
Grove.
For fifty years farmers have been
experimenting with cooperative ship
ping. But up until 1916 not more than
one carload in 10000 Of the live stock
of the nation travelled the cooperative
road to market Today IS per cent of
the live stock shipments at ST. Paul
are cooperative. Cooperative ship
ments at Chicago total about 80 per
cent-half or more of the hogs and -
to Is per cent of the cattle. 1t is esti-
mated that cooperative shipments
make up 20 to % per cent of the stock
on the East ST. Louis and Sioux City
markets. At Kansas City, St Joseph
and Omaha the average is around Is
pei. cent. On the Buffalo market the
share of cooperative shipments in
creased from 17.8 per cent in 1919 to
293 per cent in 1921.
It was in 1872 that the Grange
started the first cooperative live stock
shipping movement. IN less than two
years several hundred associations
were organized in Iowa, Missouri, Ne
braska and Illinois. These associa-
lions were generally mere shipping
agencies. They were distinctly Grange
movements and when the spirit of the
Grange began to fade the shipping as
ISOLATION movement died. But it was
born again.
The next time it cropped out was
down in Tennessee In 1877. A group
of sheep men around Goodlettsville
formed the Goodlettsville Lamb club,
an agency which graded and pooled
lambs and wool and sold at an auc-
ton If the bids we're poor the prod
ucts were shipped to the central mar
ket. This organization was a success
and it still continues to operate.
The Society of Equity.
In the SOS the Farmers Alliance
began organizing live stock shipping
associations in Kansas, Nebraska,
Iowa and Mississippi When the alli-
ance began dabbling in politics around
1890 its various commercial enterprises
disappeared. That was the end Of the
most Of the shipping associations until
around 1904, when the Society of
Equity began the work Of organization.
During the following decade many as
sociations were started throughout the
Middle Western states. The Equity
Is still at the good work.
Six years ago farmers all over the
Central West began organizing ship
ping associations by the dozens. Live
stock prices were rising and country
buyers refused to increase their prices
accordingly. Farmers met the situa-
tion by organizing to do their own
selling. The Farmers union started
organizing associations and then the
state farm bureaus got interested in
the movement and they organized hun
dreds of units, particularly in Illinois,
Iowa, Indiana, Ohio and Minnesota.
These associations are made up of
the live stock producers of a commu-
nifty or of several communities who
pay membership dues and agree to
ship all their stock through the local
unit It works something like this
A manager is hired-usually one of
the farmers of the neighborhood who
operates the association as a side