IXFORMATIOX RELATING TO CO-OPKKATTOX AND ASSOCIATION 21 



the owner's labour. If interest on the investment be calculated at the rate 

 of 7 per cent, the return for the owner's labour was S380.80. 



Development of the Imhtstry. — The first white settler reached Tilla- 

 mook County on the first day of April 1851. The rich prairie and bottom 

 lands soon attracted the stockman, whose herds usurped the dominion of 

 the deer, the bear and the mountain lion. As the settlement grew the fer- 

 tile soil and rich pastures bade for more complete utiyzation. The first 

 serioi s attempt at scientific dairy-farming in the district was not however 

 made until 1890. Three 3"ears later the first farmers' creamery in the 

 county, the Tillamook Dair}" Association, was established. The factory 

 was completed in the spring of 1893 and worked as a butter factory in its 

 first season. Earlier in the same year a privately owned creamery was esta- 

 blished in the county, and this in the following spring became the first 

 cheese factory of Tillamook County. In 1899 there were in the county eight 

 privately owned cheese factories, producing altogether about a million 

 pounds of cheese a year, and four large creameries having an annual output 

 of about 350,000 pounds of butter. Cheese proved to be better adapted 

 than butter to the prevalent uncertain means of transport, and therefore 

 the cheese factories increased rapidly until in 1902 about fort}' of them were 

 active in the county, half of them being very small and handling only the 

 milk of from one to three farms. 



In 1899 the Tillamook Dairy Association, a co-operative society, was 

 formed at Fairview. B}^ the end of its second year of existence it had begun 

 to succeed, and its success led to the establishment of other local farmers' 

 cream.eries. The co-operative mo v^ement has since made such progress that 

 out of 23 cheese factories now in the county only two are owned privately. 

 A few farmers still make their own cheese, but most of the small factories 

 have ceased to exist, and their place has been taken b}^ others which are 

 larger and more economically managed and are owned and controlled by 

 co-o])erative farmers. 



Organization of Co-operative Cheese Factories. — Although most of the 

 factories are co-operative all of them are organized under the Oregon cor- 

 poration law. The plan of organization is simple. A few of the farmers 

 most interested make an inventory of the dairy-farming assets in the neigh- 

 bourhood, taking into account the number of cows, pasturage and condi- 

 tions as to crops, and thereafter they decide whether or not the district can 

 support a cheese factory. If their decision he affirmative a company is 

 incorporated with sufficient capital to provide a factory adequate to the 

 supply of milk. Co-operation between banks and farmers' companies in 

 Tillamook County has been in a great measure responsible for the success 

 of many of these companies in the early stages of their existence, for funds 

 have thus been provided at low rates of interest and for long periods. In 

 most cases the security has been in the form of a joint note of the members, 

 but .sometimes the note of the association, signed by the board of directors, 

 has been sufficient. 



The management of these factories is vested in boards of from three 

 to five directors. The board elects from its number a president, who is 



