The Waterbury Democrat., 1936-03-14

: bought for cash a $300,00O mill in Buffalo, where they grind their own feeds according to formulas laid down by the experts they hire themselves.
 .l From the southern ports. this Eastern States Farmers Exchange group brings Its fertilizer into Boston by the shipload, ages and mixes the product in its own plant, for distribution to its mem bers.
 The amazing thing about the whole organization is that 1t has never sold share of stock. 1t has never raised another loan since the original S30,000. There are no mortgages on its proper ties.
 Everything belongs to the far mer members, who get feed and fertilizer they can depend on, and a nice fat patronage diyident at the end of the year.
 And the farmers like 1t 50 well that they are widening their field of operations and branching into new lines.
 In Indiana and Ohio, fertilizer was the big bugaboo after the war. When grain prices went tumbling, fertilizer prices failed to follow.
 The farmers got together to do something more than talk. Per- haps 20 years ago they would have made appeals and looked for po- litical action. But these farmers began to look about them for a source of supply, and formed CO., operatives to buy.
 INSULTED INTO BIG PROFIT
 After few art-breaking ex- periences,. they were about ready to quit. No one would sell them fertilizer.
 One representative of the fer tilizer interests, however, made a costly mistake. Approached by a deputation of farmers, who asked for a better price deal, he said that the fertilizer companies did not intend to upset their selling organization for a bunch of Scab farmers"
 That got under the farmers skins. They began to look in ear- nest then. and found that the Ten nessee Copper Mining Company had on hand surplus of bi-prod- uct sulphuric acid, the base of most fertilizers.
 So the farmers and the copper company made a deal. The result was formation of the Tennessee Corporation, a subsidiary to man. ufacture fertilizer. The farmers, through their organization, agreed to take the entire output of the factory.
 Today the factory is turning out 10000 tons of fertilizer annu- ally. There has been drawn up the first reprocal contract in America whereby the Tennessee Corporation, freed of the neces- sity of maintaining a sales force, and assured of market, have agreed to split the manufacturers profit 50-50 with the co-ops.
 PUSH INTO FEED FIELD
 Prices have tumbled. But, more important, the farmer now get fer tilizer made according to the form ulas which he lays down himself.
 As he has pushed forward in fertilizer, so he has pushed for ward in feeds. Tn Indiana. Ohio, Illinois, and Michigan are hun dreds of little hammer mills op- erated by local co-ops. The far mer sells his corn and oats to his own coop. The co-op imports the necessary concentrates, makes up the feed, and sells 1t back to the farmer. '
 There is no lost motion, no leak of profits.
 WLat makes it of national sig nificance is that these coop groups are spreading. Volume of business is growing. Most of them now consist of small ele- vator and feed mill, Q warehouse Iselling feed, fertilizer and farm materials, a gas station selling gas. oil, spray materials. kerosene, and distillates.
 These co-ops are rapidly becom- ing the shopping centers of the counties in which they are set up
 From Massachusetts to Califor- mia an increasing number of farm- | CTS are becoming coop minded As they think in terms of co-op- eration, they are building a busi- ness that must be reckoned with in the coming years.
 MOVEMENT SPREADS WEST
 The fertilizer plant at Lockland To-, Is a monument to a chang Ing outlook on the part of the farmer. The hundreds of eleva- tors and hammer mills. the thou- sands of gas stations and supply stores add their testimony. Ths American farmer Is rapidly grow. ing up, becoming educated in eco' monies, and writing economic his. tory.