INFORMATION RELATING TO CO-OPKRATION AND ASSOCIATION 15 



among the members of the association according to the number of cows 

 owned by each. 



The Department of Agriculture made a study of eight districts in 

 the States of Iowa, Minnesota and Massachusetts in which there were no 

 associations, obtaining information as to 1,219 farmers owning 817 bulls 

 of the average value of $76 each. Had these farmers been organized in 

 associations they could nearly have divided the number of the bulls neces- 

 sary to them by four, and therefore by the same initial outlay they could 

 have secured bulls four times as valuable as those they had, and could 

 have fed them at a quarter the actual expenditure on feeding. This fact 

 is well illustrated by data obtained from one of the first associations to be 

 organized under the direction of the Department of Agriculture. Before 

 it was formed the average value of its members' bulls was $55 each, but 

 the average price which it paid for each of its registered bulls was $240. 



One hundred and fifty farms in Maryland, Michigan and Minnesota, 

 which were questioned as to the value of Co-operative Bull Associations, 

 estimated that the use of sires belonging to one of these organizations 

 increased the value of the offspring in the first generation by from 30 to 

 88 per cent. — on an average by 65 per cent. 



* 



2. THE ESSENTIAI^ OF SUCCESSFUI, CO-OPERATIVE FRUIT AND VEGETABI,E 

 CANNERIES, — KERR (W. H.); "Business Essentials for Co-operative Fruit and 

 Vegetable Canneries,, in Yearbook of the United States Department of Agriculture, 1916. 

 Washington, Government Printing Office, 1917. 



Growers of fruit and vegetables in many parts of the United States have 

 thought to become rich by disposing in a co-operative cannery of such of 

 their surplus prodiicts as could not be marketed in a fresh state. Such 

 hopes have been largely unrealized. On some $158,000,000 worth of canned 

 and dried fruit and vegetables marketed in 1914 the growers sold only 

 $ 3,500,000 worth. 



Practically all the co-operative canneries in the United States are 

 found in the Pacific North West and California. These canneries have 

 individual turnovers ranging from $ 50,000 to $ i,500;000. Together with 

 the Oregon Agricultural College, the Office of Markets and Rural Organiza- 

 tion made a survey of the canning industry of the Pacific North West ; and 

 it also investigated co-operative canning plants in California and other parts 

 of the United States. These studies enabled the esentials of success and 

 the reasons for failure in this industry and this country to be ascertained. 



It should be borne in mind that a canning business should not exist 

 for by-products, that if built up primarily to get rid of lower-grade fruit and 

 vegetables it is not likely to be successful. Many canneries have failed be- 

 cause they were organized only to utilize that portion of a fruit or vegeta- 

 ble crop which could not be marketed in its fresh state because of its dete- 

 riorated condition or bad quality. 



