12th Successful Year 



For Farm Supply Company 



y^MAGINE a train of petroleum 



[Jj tank cars stretching from Chi- 

 V^ cago, southwest to Springfield, 

 and on due south to the southern tip of 

 Illinois at Cairo — a train more than 

 400 miles long. 



Imagine all these cars loaded with 

 gasoline, fuel and lubricating oils and 

 greases and you have a picture of the 

 97,355,427 gallons of petroleum prod- 

 ucts handled by Illinois Farm Supply 

 Company and the 64 county service com- 

 panies during the past fiscal year. 



At the annual meeting in Springfield, 

 Oct. 18, the report of the year's business 

 presented by Manager Lloyd R. Mar- 

 chant, showed the company had com- 

 pleted its 12th consecutive year with a 

 gain in volume of business. 



The 64 county service companies had 

 a combined capital stock investment of 

 $1,294,000 and an accumulated surplus 

 of $1,613,514.16 on net sales of more 

 than $13,000,000 for the year. 



The past year was not an especially 

 good one generally for sales of petroleum 

 products yet the company showed a gain 

 of 8.66 per cent compared with a loss 

 of 5.2 per cent in fuel consumption for 

 the petroleum industry. 



No New Companies 



For the first time in the history of the 

 company no additional service companies 

 were organized. 



SOYOIL paint sales were down 17 per 

 cent. But gains were registered in sales 

 of such products as fly spray, batteries, 

 spark plugs, antifreeze, etc. 



Lubricating greases showed the heav- 

 iest gain in the petroleum end of the 

 business at 22.67 per cent. 



The service companies are making 

 good use of the marine terminal at Shaw- 

 neetown on the Ohio river. Thirteen 

 bulk plants within 75 to 100 miles of 

 Shawneetown have been supplied with 

 gasoline from this point. Several months 

 ago the company made definite plans to 

 purchase a site for another river terminal 

 17 miles south of Peoria. 



The Feed Department almost doubled 

 the tonnage estimate for the year, han- 

 dling a total of 9,250 tons. Woven wire 

 fence and wire products exceeded the 

 800 ton mark, binder twine shipments 

 totaled 448,500 pounds, commercial fer- 

 tilizers 2,067 tons. These products were 

 handled through 98 elevators, 6 livestock 

 marketing associations, three county ser- 

 vice companies or affiliates and six Farm 

 Bureau subsidiaries. 



The Illinois Farm Supply Company 

 closed its fiscal year with total assets of 



$768,000. Dividends to be paid to 

 member companies totaled more than 

 $356,000, which is 21.6 per cent better 

 than that of the previous year. In 12 

 years the company has paid more than 

 $1,500,000 in dividends to stockholders, 

 equal to approximately 20 per cent of 

 total patronage dividends paid by all 

 county service companies during this pe- 

 riod. 



The report showed that the percentage 

 of Farm Bureau members served by the 

 different county companies ranges from 

 39.8 per cent to 99 per cent. 



"We have reached the {joint where 

 future development rests solely upon our 

 man power," Marchant said. "Every day 

 we see the need for more training among 

 those who contact patrons." 



'39 Goal $16,000,000 



The company has as its goal for the 

 new year a $16,000,000 business with 

 100,000 farm customers. Approximately 

 90,000 patrons were served during the 

 past year. 



The principal address was made by 

 Dean W. Mackenzie Stevens of the Col- 

 lege of Commerce, University of Mary- 

 land, a native of Christian county, 111., 

 and a graduate (1917) of the State Col- 

 lege of Agriculture. 



His address emphasized the impor- 

 tance of management and personnel in 

 the success of farm cooperatives. He 

 said that this year the University of 

 Maryland is launching a four-year course 

 for career men in cooperative leadership. 



"The cooperative movement has come 

 with age," Stevens said. "It is time that 

 men who wish to devote their lives to 

 cooperative management shall have a pro- 

 fessional training as specialized and well 

 adapted to that field as the man who 

 wishes to enter accountancy, law or any 

 other profession. No man of experience 

 maintains that a specialized college edu- 

 cation is essential for success or that a 

 college education will serve as a sub- 

 stitute for native ability. But surely a 

 man of reasonably good ability to start 

 with is more useful to the cooperative 

 movement after he has spent four years 

 devoted exclusively to studying the prob- 

 lems of cooperatives and the technique 

 of modern management than the same 

 man without this training. 



"The universities can go no further, 

 however, than the support and encour- 

 agement of the cooperatives enables them 

 to do. Here is where strong associations 

 like this one can render a lasting and 

 important service to the cooperative 

 movement. Unless cooperative leaders 



realize that there is an advantage in 

 bringing into the movement young men 

 who have been filled with enthusiasm 

 for cooperation and also have been 

 trained professionally for their duties, 

 and are willing to give such young men 

 an opportunity, the highest grade young 

 men will continue to be drawn into the 

 employment of private business. 



"Standard Oil, American Telephone 

 and Telegraph, Sinclair, and most of the 

 other big companies have long realized 

 the importance of getting good young 

 men from our schools of business, and 

 each one of these organizations sends a 

 man to the leading universities each year 

 to offer positions to the most outstanding 

 of the current graduates. They do not 

 pay higher salaries than cooperatives in 

 the beginning, but they do give f)erma- 

 nent employment, and they dangle be- 

 fore these young men the possibilities of 

 highly paid positions after a few years. 

 There are not many of the highly paid 

 positions, but the possibilities are suffi- 

 cient to attract the best of our graduates. 

 The relatively high salaries paid the top 

 men really cost the large corporations 

 very little because future jwssibilities en- 

 able them to obtain such fine young tal- 

 ent at no more than mediocre workmen 

 would cost. 



"These young men could render a 

 great deal more service to society in the 

 cooperative movement than they can in 

 private business. I do not need to tell 

 this cooperative audience why this is so, 

 nor convince them of it." 



Quality and Service 



Earl C. Smith, president of the Illi- 

 nois Agricultural Association, recovering 

 from a recent illness which affected his 

 voice, spoke briefly. He pointed out 

 that the fundamental principles on which 

 the company has grown are sujjerior qual- 

 ity products and better service. "If we 

 emphasize these," he said, "they will 

 take care of volume and profits." 



To illustrate his point, he used, for 

 example, the possibility of handling auto- 

 mobiles, of which Farm Bureau members 

 buy around 11,000 annually, to develop 

 a large volume of business and sub- 

 stantial profits. But the company, he 

 pwinted out, would be making no con- 

 tribution to quality of the product nor 

 improve service. We must not get the 

 idea, he emphasized, that it is wise for 

 farmers to get into every kind of busi- 

 ness. 



"Few, if any, similar institutions have 

 the record of financial success of Illinois 

 Farm Supply Company. Earnings dur- 

 ing the year more than equaled total cap- 

 ital investment and surplus of the com- 

 pany." 



Mr. Smith read a telegram from Fred 

 E. Herndon, president of the company 

 who is in the hospital at Rochester, 

 (Continued on page 29) 



)RD 



NOVEMBER, 1938 



27 



