Report of Missouri Farmers' Week. 483 



that a farmer needs and sell at a lower price than the same can be 

 had from the regular merchants. 



In co-operating, I believe everyone should join. It is not right 

 for the farmers to organize against the business men of the town. 

 Neither is it right for the business men of the town to organize 

 against the farmer, but we should work together for the upbuilding 

 of our State and our community. By our organization we have 

 been well paid for our trouble in the prices received for our cream 

 and the lower prices paid for feed and other supplies. Co-opera- 

 tion among the farmers can be carried on all along the line and it 

 means better farms, better farmers, better roads, schools and 

 churches. It also means better towns, for anything which will 

 help the farmer will help the whole State. This year we had 

 thousands of bushels of apples rotting under the trees. No organi- 

 zation, no spraying nor grading, and hence no market. The time 

 has come when farmers of Missouri will have to organize or get 

 left. 



THE MISSOURI FARMERS' EXCHANGE. 



(D. H. Doane, Professor of Fanii Management, University of Missouri.) 



Anyone in a position to observe or hear the trend of feeling 

 expressed by producers and consumers during the past few years 

 knows that there is an everincreasing dissatisfaction among both 

 groups. This feeling has often found expression in the formation 

 of clubs, societies and various organizations launched for the pur- 

 pose of obtaining better prices for the products of the farm or to 

 lower prices to the ultimate consumer. The present system of 

 handling farm products cannot be benefited very much if the same 

 number of handlers of these products remain in the business. It 

 relieves the situation but little, if any, to have some organization 

 take over the business of the retailer or some producer's club 

 handle the work of the present wholesaler. These well-established 

 businesses are operating on a basis worked out through years of 

 experience and it is hardly probable that a new united organization 

 with new inexperienced officers can compete with them. Realizing 

 these facts, the Missouri Farmers' Exchange organized on an 

 entirely different basis. It has for a fundamental principle or key- 

 note the elimination of all "middlemen" or "direct from producer 

 to consumer." With this as a basis the exchange was organized. 

 At a mass meeting of farmers at Columbia during Farmers' Week 



