122 Missouri Agricultural Report. 



operate furniture stores, butcher shops, savings banks and sell 

 practically everything that people want to buy, and furnish prac- 

 tically any service they may require. In Edinborough the Roche- 

 dale stores have more than 40,000 members; in Leeds they have 

 nearly 50,000 members. 



One of the most successful co-operative stores in the United 

 States is at Olathe, Kan., and is conducted by the Johnson County 

 Co-operative Association. It is a grange store, and was founded 

 in 1876 with a capital of $385 and with 77 members. Its present 

 capital is $100,000 and its membership 900. Its first year's busi- 

 ness amounted to $36,840, with a profit of $1,334. Last year the 

 aggregate business was over $250,000 and the profit was in round 

 numbers $14,000. Since the store was founded it has done a busi- 

 ness of more than eight million dollars and its total profits have 

 amounted to more than $500,000. The same society now operates 

 a bank with a capital stock of $50,000 and a surplus of $50,000. It 

 also operates a farmers' insurance company, carrying risks of 

 more than six millions at an average yearly cost of $2.25 per thou- 

 sand. 



The most extensive co-operative store enterprise in this coun- 

 try has its headquarters in Minneapolis, and operates chiefly in 

 Minnesota, Illinois, Wisconsin and Iowa. There are more than one 

 hundred stores in the group with a membership of more than 

 10,000 and a yearly business above two millions. It is patterned 

 after the Rochedale stores. One unvarying policy, however, is 

 never to establish a new store in a community, but always to buy 

 out a successful store instead, and hire, if possible, the former 

 owner as manager and his clerks as salesmen. They have a whole- 

 sale store to act as purchasing agent for the retail stores. The 

 retail stores act as shipping agents for their members. None of 

 the stores operated by this league have failed and all have been 

 profitable. 



CO-OPERATION IN SELLING MEAT ANIMALS. 



Missouri's chief live stock business is producing meat animals. 

 No successful attempt so far as I know has been made to co- 

 operate in this matter. 



The Meeks county (Minn.) live stock shippers organized a 

 shippers' association and employed the best live stock man in the 

 county as manager. The first year they effected a saving of from 

 $30 to $80 a car. 



