PRACTICAL CO-OPERATION. 89 



In the hands of the skilled marksman wonderful execution will be 

 had. Too much good powder and shot is wasted by farmers with 

 our old flint-lock blunderbusses. 



How long do you think it would have taken to put down the late 

 rebellion, had each soldier been sent poorly equipped to the front to 

 act on his own hook independently and as he pleased? Wh}', it took 

 the best military' discipline and cooperation of the nation's immense 

 forces four Ions: vears to overcome it. 



Let us consider the purchase of commercial fertilizers. Only a 

 few 3'ears ago the standard makes cost the farmers $45 per ton. 

 Now they are from $36 to S38 per ton. What think you has been 

 the greatest cause in cheapening their cost? While it is true that 

 the materials of which they are compounded have in common with 

 the prices of most everything else been lowered, at the same time de- 

 mand has correspondingly increased. While competition has had 

 something to do with it, the vast increase in amount used b}' the 

 farmers each succeeding 3'ear, has greatly off-set the effect of com- 

 petition. The greatest factor in the reduction of prices has been 

 buying in quantity and buying direct of the manufacturers. In other 

 words, cooperative buying. Buying b}' the ton, ten tons, and buy- 

 ing for cash. Many granges buy by car-loads ; here and there an 

 individual farmer the same. 



We have done just enough of this to see the great saving there is 

 in it. We believe that this year superphosphates of standard brands 

 are going to be bought b}' the car-load for $30 to 835 per ton and no 

 better are made an3where than those made in our own State. By 

 cooperating in the purchase of commercial fertilizers the farmer gets 

 his profit in the outset. Buying at retail he pays $38 to $lo per ton. 

 At wholesale from $32 to 838 per ton. These six or seven dollars 

 per ton is from eighteen to twenty per cent saved at the start. Isn't 

 that worth saving? The superphosphate is going to give us just the 

 same crops and the same results as though we had not saved six or 

 seven dollars per ton in its purchase. 



It is just the same in the purchase of all other farm supplies. The 

 profit between wholesale price and retail price can be saved. It is 

 these savings that will help swell the net profits. We must learn to 

 cooperate, to work together as we have learned to work apart. 

 When we learn to mass our orders, to purchase in quantity, we have 

 the same power against corporations that corporations have now 



