522 IOWA DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE 



and act for the interests involved. There isn't any question but that 

 meat has been libeled and misrepresented in an entirely unwarranted 

 fashion, but in spite of this people generally eat meat when they can 

 afford it. On the surface, the "Eat-More-Meat" campaign is a laudable 

 one, but there are a good many questions of policy to thresh out and 

 agree upon before real progress can be made along this line. It is well 

 for cattlemen to give this proposition thought. 



3. Co-operative Selling Organizations, or Commission Houses. — This 

 whole question is being thoroly threshed out, and the new Marketing Com- 

 mittee of Fifteen of the American Farm Bureau Federation will have this 

 problem on its hands. Here again cattle feeders will do well to study 

 the eight reasons advanced by H. W. Mumford, of the Illinois Agricultural 

 Association, Chicago, for the establishment of such co-operative commis- 

 sion houses. These were set forth fully by him at the recent Farm Bureau 

 conference, Chicago. Undoubtedly Professor Mumford would be glad 

 to send these to all interested. On the other hand, President E. C. Brown, 

 of the National Live Stock Exchange, which is an organization of local 

 exchanges, recently wrote for the American Co-operative Manager quite 

 a lengthy article on the inadvisability of farmers establishing their own 

 co-operative live stock commission houses. Naturally, cattlemen will 

 find much of practical interest in these two viewpoints, one coming from 

 a representative of the producers, the other from the National Live Stock 

 Exchange president. I take it that a copy of President Brown's article 

 may be secured from him, by addressing him at the Union Stock Yards, 

 Chicago, Illinois. 



A successful packer recently told me that it cost his house about one- 

 fifth as much to buy cattle as it did the farmer to sell them under present 

 conditions. 



Some successful co-operative commission houses are now in operation, 

 hence live stock producers everywhere will do well to give this matter 

 their most careful consideration, with the end in view of deciding whether 

 or not it is to the meat producers' interest to establish such houses at the 

 various markets,' and thru them handle in a co-operative way the selling 

 end of their business. 



4. Is a Corn Belt Cattle Feeders' Co-operative Association in Order? 

 — You are, or will be, wrestling with this great problem. There isn't any 

 question but that the cattle feeders need to get together, and stick to- 

 gether. The big question is. Are you as cattle feeders ready for such an 

 organization, and are you ready and willing to pay the price to create it? 



Some things are pretty certain: 



First, that cattle feeders are now working in the dark as regards 

 supply of beef and consumptive demands of beef, hide demand, fat futuri- 

 ties, export and import prospects, and countless other matters. They 

 need this information. 



Second, that cattle feeders do not know how to avoid bad breaks in 

 the market. They come when they guess they should, and they stay away 

 sometimes when they shouldn't. They guessed this year that Inter- 

 national time would be a good time to come in, because perhaps last 



