148 ABOUT LOBSTERS 



you where to go. On the other hand, he will go out of his 

 way to help a fellow in distress; he might even rescue a 

 drowning dealer, just so he can keep griping about him. The 

 hope for branded lobsters, better standards of grading, and 

 taxes for advertising rests on educating these organizations 

 of lobstermen into seeing the benefits to be gained. 



There are usually some valuable by-products of suc- 

 cessful cooperative performance other than the dollars and 

 cents values. Lobstermen, through their active part in own- 

 ing and operating their own marketing machinery, have a 

 better understanding of the away-from-home aspects of 

 commerce. 



The North Atlantic Lobster Institute was a cooperative 

 of lobster dealers from Canada, Maine, and Massachusetts 

 who in the aggregate handled about 75 per cent of the lob- 

 sters distributed in the United States. It was a fine idea, 

 and undertook to promote most of the marketing ideas de- 

 scribed here. Most of all, it was a uniting of dealers to ac- 

 complish improvements which one firm alone could not do. 

 Unfortunately, it has gone out of existence because there 

 was not enough belief in its benefits, and consequently not 

 enough financial support. 



Dealers are often as sot and fiercely independent as 

 lobstermen. They go to dealers' meetings not to cooperate as 

 much as to make sure that no one else is making any more 

 money than they are. This lack of cooperative spirit has 

 broken up cooperative after cooperative. Yet they keep 

 forming. Why? Because, perhaps, underneath this inde- 

 pendence is the half-awake instinct that only through some 

 sacrifice of individuality can a greater good be achieved. 

 Some day either some cooperative of dealers is going to 

 work voluntarily or successful fishermen cooperatives are 

 going to force them to work. 



The solution of most of the lobster marketing problems 

 lies in the education of all parties involved. Each state 

 should be able to help in showing the way. 



