SEVENTEENTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART VII 421 



In the beginning, this packing plant was owned and operated by 

 the Langdon-Boyd Packing Company. The plant, as it was sold to the 

 farmers, was some fourteen years old. Some of the machinery in the 

 building was over thirty years old. At the time the transfer was made, 

 the walls were falling down, the floors were falling in, the timbers 

 were rotting, and very little of the machinery was usable at all. But 

 this condition, of course, was carefully hidden from the farmer stock- 

 holders who purchased the plant. 



It is said that the National Bank of La Crosse carried a debt of 

 $55,000 or thereabouts against the Langdon-Boyd Company. So, of 

 course, the bank must have known the true condition of affairs. Yet 

 officers and directors of this bank encouraged the farmers to take over 

 the plant at a price which was beyond all reason. In addition, pre- 

 ferred stockholders possessed about $37,000 of Langdon-Boyd stock, and 

 it was necessary to reimburse them in case any disposition was made of 

 the plant. 



Andrew Boyd, president and general manager of the Langdon-Boyd 

 Company, was responsible for the operation of the plant at this time. 

 It may be conceived that Boyd became a little desperate. He could 

 barely meet his pay-rolls. He could not provide for necessary im- 

 provements. Interest payments at the bank, he found hard to meet, 

 and demands of his stockholders for dividends weighed upon him. So 

 in his desperation, he fell upon a plan to relieve himself of responsibil- 

 ity by unloading upon other persons, or, in plain language, "passing 

 the buck." He conceived the idea of floating a new company — this time 

 a co-operative corporation, under the laws of Wisconsin. He cast about 

 to flnd the necessary purchasers, and learned of a movement among 

 the members of the Wisconsin Society of Equity for the launching of 

 their own packing house enterprise. This happened in 1913. At that 

 time the equity was composed of about 12,000 farmers of fighting 

 blood and spirit. This society had constituted a packing house inquiry 

 committee, which had recommended the general idea of farmers doing 

 their own packing for themselves. Among the prime movers in this 

 packing house idea was Ira M. J. Chryst, at that time president of both 

 the state and national Equity organizations. Boyd learned that Chryst 

 was the man to see, and opened negotiations with him and others. 

 After some correspondence, Andy Boyd made a proposition to the Equity 

 society, offering to sell his plant for $122,914.36. This he claimed, was 

 less than the true value of the plant. The committee appointed to in- 

 vestigate the matter did not do its work thoroly. There is nothing in 

 the records of this committee to show that they ever sought for a com- 

 petent packing house expert to look over the plant and advise them as 

 to whether they should recommend to the Equity its purchase at Boyd's 

 price, yet this committee reported an endorsement of the Boyd deal at 

 Boyd's own price. 



In 1913, a meeting of the Wisconsin Equity Society was held at La 

 Crosse in December. At this meeting, promoters, Andy Boyd and Ira 

 M. J. Chryst, were instrumental in working the delegates up to a hectic 



