STATK POMOLOGICAL S0C11:TV. 47 



CO-OPERATION THE NEED OF THE HOUR— FOR 

 PRODUCER AND CONSUMER. 



Hon. Gkorge T. Powkll. Ghent, N. Y. 



Mr. President, ladies and geiitleineii: 



It is one of the great vital problems of the present time for 

 the producer to get the value which he should receive out of 

 his investment and the labor upon his land. We have heard 

 a great deal about co-operation. There has been a great deal 

 written upon it. It is very largely advocated at the present 

 time as the one means of reducing the present high cost of 

 living. We as a nation, for upwards of a century, were the 

 best fed and the cheapest fed people in the world. But within 

 the past few years there has suddenly come over our 

 country an unusual advance in the cost of all food 

 products. So great has been the advance in cost that it 

 has brought consternation and alarm to thousands of consum- 

 ers in our cities who are entirely dependent upon the foods 

 produced from the land not only for their comfort but for their 

 existence. And this extreme advance in values has attracted 

 the interest of our entire country. So great has become the 

 problem that a commission was appointed in Washington by Ex- 

 President Roosevelt, after he had called a conference of the 

 governors of the states, to take this entire problem under 

 consideration, — the conservation of our natural resources, but 

 very particularly the conservation of the fertilit}- of the soil. 



Our producers have had two problems to contend with. One 

 has been the steadily declining productive power of their soil, 

 and the other has been the increased cost of production. And 

 hence it becomes a most vital problem to know how best to 

 meet these conditions. For more than sixty years co-operative 

 work has been going on in certain portions of Europe. Some- 

 thing like sixty years or more ago, in England, or rather in 

 Scotland, a few poor weavers came together, I think about 

 seven in number, and they proposed to put their small earnings 



