PROCEEDINGS CORN BELT MEAT PRODUCERS' ASSN. 541 



world. But after saying those things which I think co-operative agencies 

 or any other immediate connected agencies cannot do, I still would come 

 out with as strong a declaration as I could of the things which can be ac- 

 complished through just that sort of activity. I think we may well stress 

 this particular point, because this is a joint conference not merely of pro- 

 ducers of the Corn Belt Meat Producers' Association, but of the men who 

 ship the millions of dollars and even the hundreds of millions of dollars' 

 worth of live stock out of this corn belt territory into these eight or nine 

 markets by which we are surrounded, and you are going to consider in 

 the course of this convention that very problem of how all that can be 

 accomplished for the bettering of conditions through the improving of 

 marketing conditions, which is in process of working itself out. 



Now, we have gone during the past — it is hard to say just how many 

 years, but most of it has been during the last four or five years — we have 

 gone through several of the first steps of establishing such agencies. We 

 are now — although that also dates back several years — going through the 

 second step. The first was to establish shipping agencies in the country; 

 the second is to establish selling agencies in the central markets. Frank- 

 ly, I think it will be quite a number of years before we do a great deal in 

 accomplishing the third, and, as we are inclined to put it, the larger pur- 

 pose of dovetailing the operations of this to the burdens of the other in 

 such a way that we actually stabilize the markets, but if we are ever going 

 to take any step in the direction of stabilizing the markets, it is only be- 

 cause we have got into good working order these other selling agencies 

 through which the producer makes contact with the consumer at the cen- 

 tral market, and back of that we have established also on the highest level 

 of operating efliciency the agencies by which the scattered producers of 

 carloads and less than carloads assemble them at the country shipping 

 points, choose the different markets to which they wish to ship and handle 

 the detail of shipment, and are there to respond either on their own mo- 

 tion or that of the selling agencies to such instructions or recommenda- 

 tions as may be made with reference to equalizing shipments between 

 markets or between different times, and all of the rest that constitutes 

 that stabilizing process. 



Now, the work of the co-operative associations in this state has made 

 wonderful progress during this last year. It was a year ago the 11th 

 of December, if I recall it, that they met up at Ames, and they hardly ex- 

 isted — there were only about forty men there, the association was scarcely 

 known. I am not going to try to make any of the speeches that we hope 

 will be made at the meeting of that association tomorrow, but they have 

 made remarkable progress during this year, they have got on their feet, 

 they show every indication of being by the end of another year on a self- 

 supporting basis, and they are working out, and I think there is no im- 

 propriety in saying that we are trying at the agricultural college to assist 

 them in working out some of the most difficult problems that they have. 

 When we think that over 300 associations have been started up in one 

 year — over 700 of them now picking up such managers as they can get, 

 with a small volume at every station, they have had a tremendous prob- 

 lem to get that on an efficient operating basis. We make no apology for 



