8 ANNUAL REPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



With a view to reducing market costs there has been a very large 

 increase in the number of cooperative marketing associations, large 

 and small. Such associations, when well conducted, effect consider- 

 able savings in marketing costs. In addition, they are decidedly 

 helpful in indirect ways, such, for example, as directing attention to 

 the grading of farm products and prices as influenced by grades, to 

 the need of regulating the amount marketed to what the demands of 

 the consumers will absorb at a fair price, and in general to the 

 economics of agriculture. Soundly organized cooperative associa- 

 tions are now able to command the credit needed to enable them to 

 market crops in a more orderly fashion. As sound principles of co- 

 operative marketing become better understood and applied, the bene- 

 fit growing out of such associations will correspondingly increase. 

 The department is gathering information on successful cooperative 

 methods at home and abroad. 



The need of better quality in both crops and live stock is more and 

 more coming to be realized. This is indicated by the increase in the 

 number of pure-bred sires and the organized movement in many sec- 

 tions of the country to replace inferior stock with better. 



HOPEFUL ASPECTS. 



Notwithstanding the continued low purchasing power of farm 

 products, it is fair to say that in general the farmers of the United 

 States are in a better position financially now than they were a year 

 or 18 months ago. Farm products are selling at considerably higher 

 prices, and it is estimated that the aggregate value of the crops in the 

 country this year is about a billion and a quarter dollars more than 

 last year. Considerable quantities of these crops will be fed and the 

 increased value will not be wholly recovered to the farmer, but the 

 bare fact that such a large increase in money will reach the farmers' 

 pockets this year is most gratifying and reassuring. 



The advance in price of cotton has been most helpful throughout 

 the cotton-producing States. While the crop is short in many areas, 

 the cotton-growing country as a whole is probably in better condi- 

 tion financially than it has been for three years. 



Considerably higher prices for wool, lambs, and sheep have re- 

 sulted in pulling the, sheep industry out of a slough of despond and 

 setting it on its feet again. This is especially helpful to the indus- 

 try in the range country. 



