38 ANNUAL EEPORTS OF DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



only natural that the essential principles and limits of cooperation 

 at times should be overlooked. The department believes, therefore, 

 that its most helpful activity in this field consists in collecting and 

 compiling the essential facts with regard to the cooperative move- 

 ment and employing these data as the basis of careful studies of 

 the older and more successful cooperative organizations. In this 

 way an understanding of the general movement may be gained, and 

 the principles which have guided well-established organizations 

 made available to newcomers in the field. 



The department has undertaken, consequently, to collect and com- 

 pile the vital facts regarding existing cooperative organizations. 

 Out of an estimated 10,000 associations in the United States in- 

 formation regarding form of organization, financial status, kind 

 of products sold and purchased, volume of business, marketing 

 methods, and similar features is available for approximately 6,000. 

 Information regarding well-established cooperatives is even more 

 complete than the figures given would indicate. Current material 

 is made available to those interested in cooperation through the 

 publication every two weeks of a 16-page mimeographed circular 

 containing economic, legal, and statistical information regarding 

 cooperation in the United States and foreign countries. 



Detailed studies of a cooperative sales agency for cranberries and 

 a cooperative citrus- fruit marketing agency were completed during 

 the year. The purpose of the studies is to point out, first of all, the 

 general principles which have made these organizations successful; 

 to point out also the particular problems each organization has had 

 to meet and the way in which these problems and other special con- 

 ditions have affected its development. A study is also being made 

 of cooperative organizations which have failed, in an effort to deter- 

 mine the causes for failure of cooperation. 



The objective of the department's work in cooperation, in brief, 

 has been to collect the facts regarding the cooperative movement, to 

 ascertain by careful study the principles which will serve as guide- 

 posts for the movements, and the factors which point toward danger 

 and possible failure. 



It is important to remember that there have been previous periods 

 of expansion and decline in cooperative activity in the United States. 

 Cooperative sentiment is always stimulated by agricultural depres- 



