153 



proceeds of the product on the capital invested. The purchase 

 of suppHes may contribute a profit, low grade supplies may be 

 sold at the price of high grade material, and profits may be made 

 in many other indirect ways. An organization that pays a profit 

 to capital from the growers' product, either for the use of pack- 

 ing facilities or for any other service, is not cooperative. It is 

 a stock corporation, operating for the grower for profit on capital, 

 while a cooperative organization is operated by the producers 

 wholly for their own benefit, the benefits being pro rated on the 

 use which the members make of the organizat^n. 



A COOPERATIVE ORGANIZATION MUST SPRING FROM NECESSITY. 



A cooperative organisation of farmers must be founded on eco- 

 nomic necessity if it is to be permanently successful. The reason 

 for its existence must lie in some vital service zvhich it is expect- 

 ed to perform if it is to have strength enough to live in the face 

 of the competition to zvhich it zvill be instantly subjected. It must 

 compete with existing organizations and this competition will be 

 directed towards eliminating it ; it will be viciously attacked ; 

 every conceivable form of misrepresentation will be levelled 

 against it ; the officers will be attacked by insidious rumors con- 

 cerning their ability or integrity ; the banks, especially in the 

 newer sections, may be controlled by competitors, and may refuse 

 to furnish the necessary credit ; and every weapon known to 

 competition, either legitimate or disreputable, will be used to put 

 it out of business. 



The average producer is not a business man, nor is he skilled 

 in the arts of competitive business. He is naturally a strong in- 

 dividualist. He is slow to delegate authority over his affairs to 

 any one and when he is face to face with the skilful arguments 

 of those who aim to break the organization and keep him work- 

 ing as an individual, he is likely to weaken and finally leave the 

 organization unless he had felt the efifect of hard times, a help- 

 lessness arising from a combination of those who buy or sell his 

 products, excessive freight, or commission charges, or other 

 forms of oppression. It is an historical fact that the investment 

 of the farmer must have been threatened by existing conditions 

 before he has been able, in the past, to overcome his individual- 

 ism sufficientlv to work with his neighbors in cooperative work. 

 The country is strewn with the wrecks of cooperative organiza- 

 tions that were born prematurely and which died by the wayside, 

 because the farmer himself deserted in the first real conflict with 

 the established agencies that have handled his business. Coopera- 

 tion, to be successful, must be founded not only on economic 

 necessity, but it must grow through gradual evolution. It must 

 have a small beginning and grow in strength through experience* 

 step by step, rather than by leaps and bounds. The fundamental 

 mistake that is beinof made in manv localities is to form a farmer?;'' 



