21 G Eepoet of Faemees' Institutes 



the medium of a trial cooperative association which, we have 

 called "■ The Poultry Producers' Association of Ithaca." The 

 business of this association has never been interrupted since it 

 was started nearly three years ago. We have tried many differ- 

 ent methods of operations : various ways for making pa}Tnents 

 to the producers; rules for grading the products which the pro- 

 ducers bring in ; collecting the products from the farms versus re- 

 quiring the producers to bring the products to the station; defi- 

 nite prices for products versus prices dependent on the market ob- 

 tained ; accepting the producer's Avord for the quality of the pro- 

 ducts to be shipped to the consumers versus requiring that every- 

 thing be inspected and guaranteed by the manager in charge. 

 The Poultry Producers' Association, as we have it developed at 

 the present time is, I believe, the culmination of what we have 

 been able to leani relative to cooperative marketing of poultry 

 products. 



The principle of the organization of the Poultry Producers' 

 Association is such that the farmers who are vitally interested 

 in developing an association of this sort bind themselves together, 

 take shares of stock at $5.00 per share, have their business con- 

 trolled by a board of representative directors, hire a manager to 

 do the work, and then stand together loyally with faith in the 

 result. There may be times when the results will be unsatisfac- 

 tory, and some members will become discontented. There will 

 be times when the results are highly satisfactory, and everybody 

 wants to go into the association at once. The members should 

 have all these things explained to them, and they should be pre- 

 pared for them- in advance. The competing middleman has -been 

 through all of this, and his training has been such as to prepare 

 him for these crises better, probably, than has the training of the 

 average producer. The hard knots of experience have shown 

 us a good many of these pitfalls, and we are now ready to help 

 communities to develop organizations of this sort, and will en- 

 deavor to do this developing sanely. 



In the development of the Poultry Producers' Association, as 

 with all other cooperative organizations, much depends upon the 

 character of the representative men who are appointed as mem- 

 bers of the board of directors, and much depends upon the man- 



