496 ANNUAL REPORT OF THE Ofie. Doc 



my home yesterday morning, potatoes not as good as these were 

 bringing $1.25 a bushel." Now, do you catch the thought? Instead 

 of shipping those potatoes south, they should have shipped them north 

 What would have been the result? Why, the farmers of York county 

 would have gotten more for their products and the consumer at the 

 other end of the line would have paid less, and that is true co-opera- 

 tion. That is the kind of co-operation that you and I ought to be 

 most vitally interested in, that which helps us all, and I would have 

 you remember, farmers, that when you reach out your hand and help 

 your brother, you are bound to help yourself. 



CO-OPERATION 



The last point that I would touch upon is that of co-operation and, 

 lest some fellow might misunderstand me, I want to give you a defini- 

 tion of co-operation, "Do unto others as you would be done by." Now 

 I think that most of you can tell where that is found. If you cannot, 

 I hope you will hunt it up, but I believe the one thing that has kept 

 farmers from co-operating has been the fact that they have not been 

 willing to follow out that law. When we reach the point where we 

 are willing that the other fellow shall get his share, then we are in a 

 position to do some thorough co-operation. 



Now, in conclusion, I would like to urge you farmers, when you go 

 back home, and the members of this Board and the Institute workers, 

 to think over this problem and, having thought over it, if you have 

 any thoughts along the line of helpfulness, I wish you would take the 

 Secretary at his word yesterday and either see him personally or 

 write him what your thoughts are. This is a work in which we can 

 all help and one in which we are all vitally interested. Let us see if 

 we cannot, during the next two years or during the next year, work 

 out a system of marketing such as no state in the Union has ever seen. 

 I believe we can do it. I believe that with the experience that we 

 have gained along this line, we can make it possible for farmers to 

 not only produce more but get more for what they produce. 



I was interested while up in Mercer county to find that the National 

 Government, under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture, 

 was giving the farmers there an interesting lesson in what can be done 

 by way of selling the dairy products. They have leased there a 

 creamery, I believe for 15 years, and the manager of that creamery 

 came before one of our Institutes and gave us a summary of the first 

 year's work, and he showed us that the Government, by running that 

 creamery, was giving the farmer a much better price for the milk 

 from his herds than he had ever received before, and that the cream- 

 ery cut down the expense and by doing that we are going to solve this 

 great problem. If I had time, but I will not take more of it, I would 

 like totalk to you more about what has been done in co-operating 

 here in Pennsylvania. I could tell you of some things where the 

 farmers — of some instances where the farmers have not only saved 

 money, but they have learned the lesson of putting their products on 

 the market in a form that makes them attractive, and that, I believe, 

 is the solution to the problem of the high cost of living. Now let us 

 go back to our several homes and take up this along with other 

 problems and study them from the standpoint of our interest, and if 

 we do that we will take into consideration all other interests because 

 all interests are dependent upon agriculture and the farmers' suc- 

 cess. I thank you for your attention. (Applause). 



