28 INFORMATION RELATING TO CO-OPERATION AND ASSOCIATION 



2) They buy large properties, divide them into small lots, and resell 

 them to Polish settlers. 



The data as to their business in 1914 have not been published. 



4) The statistics for 1914 supply figures only as to the membership of 

 the consumers', the trades' and the building societies. The ten co-oper- 

 tive societies of these three kinds comprised 5,811 members. 



UNITED STATES. 



ra'E A'Mh'.RlCA'S SOCmTY OF EQVITY. — The Grain Growers' Guide, Winnipeg, ii April 

 1917. 



Founded in 1902 at Indianopolis, Indiana, the American Society of 

 Equity is one of a number of kindred bodies working in the central and north- 

 western States for better organization among farmers. From 1902 to 191 1 

 it had tremendous ups and downs — a series of successes and failures. 



Its growth has been ver\^ rapid in the last four years. The membership 

 is now 100,000. It has 7,146 local unions and is operating in fourteen 

 vStates — Kentucky, Indiana, Ilhnois, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, North Da- 

 kota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana, Oregon, Washington 

 and Idaho — and has scattered members in other places. 



Under the riiles of this society a count}^ union comprises five local unions 

 and a State union a minimum of five county unions and 500 members. 

 In Nebraska and Wyoming there are branches of the National Office which 

 is situated at Wausaw in Wisconsin. The subscription for a new member 

 is now §4 a year, of which 50 cents go to the local union, 15 cents to the 

 county union, 35 cents to the State, 50 cents to the National Office, 50 cents 

 either to the State or to National Equity papers and §2 to the State for 

 organizing purposes. 



So far the work of the American Society of Equity has been mainly 

 educative and has been carried on through meetings of local unions, fiter- 

 ature, organizers or otherwise, much as is the educative work of the Grain 

 Growers' Associations in Western Canada. This side of the enterprise seems 

 indeed to have overshadowed its business side, for until the last two years 

 little was done to develop the business organization. 



A little more than a j-ear ago the central organization estabHshed the 

 American Co-operative Association which is the business organization of 

 the American Society of Equity. It is organized under the Wisconsin State 

 laws. It has already estabUshed several branches and transacted a large 

 amount of business. Its first enterprise was to pubHsh The Organized 

 Farmer of which the first issue appared on 14 January 1915. 



The large business that has developed has secured for the association 

 the very lowest possible prices and enabled it to sell to its members approx- 

 imately at the prices charged by wholesalers to retailers. The quality 

 of the goods is guaranteed, the customer being under no obligation to accept 

 them if the quality be not good. 



