3*8 AGRICULTURAL DISCONTENT 



out the state. During 1923 the company handled 13,104 carloads of live- 

 stock, with the sales from these totaling $16,674,153 and the patronage 

 dividends paid out amounting to $152,323. 



Another firm, the Farmers' Union Livestock Commission at Kansas 

 City and Chicago, was operated jointly by the Farmers' Union and the 

 Missouri Farmers' Association, while still another, the Farmers' Union 

 Livestock Commission at St. Joseph, was operated by the Farmers' Union, 

 the Farm Bureau, and the M.F.A. These three firms, along with the 

 Farmers' Livestock Commission Company at East St. Louis, handled a 

 total of 46,655 carloads of livestock in 1923. The savings from their busi- 

 ness operations totaled $386,896.75, which was paid back to the producers. 



Early in 1924 the Missouri Farmers' Association established its own 

 terminal egg-marketing sales agency in Chicago and another was in the 

 process of being launched on the New York market. It was estimated that 

 about 1,200 carloads of eggs would be marketed by the end of 1924. These 

 eggs were shipped from the ten cold-storage plants of the association, 

 which, in turn, were supplied by the produce exchanges scattered through- 

 out the state. The report was that this phase of business activities had 

 succeeded beyond all expectations because of the high quality of the 

 products put on the market. 



Another recent development was the establishment of the Producers' 

 Grain Commission Company on the St. Louis market to market the grain 

 of the various local associations. Plans also were devised to establish 

 creameries and butter sales agencies to market the millions of gallons of 

 cream which were handled annually by the produce exchanges and 

 which, because of the want of such farmer-owned facilities, had to be 

 sold through the existing butter-manufacturing agencies. 



Besides these millions of dollars' worth of eggs, livestock, grain, and 

 cream sold annually, there were more than five hundred carloads of live 

 poultry and more than a million pounds of wool, seeds, and other miscel- 

 laneous products of the farm. Hundreds of thousands of dollars were 

 also saved for members through the cooperative wholesale purchase of 

 feeds, fertilizer, salt, and other merchandise. 62 



Organizations for the cooperative purchasing of farm supplies, though 



62. Theodore Saloutos, "William A. Hirth and the Missouri Farmers' Associa- 

 tion," Missouri Historical Review, XLIV (October, 1949), pp. 1-20. 



