BUSINESS COOPERATION 26$ 



1874 to handle shipments of cotton and import foreign goods 

 for the Patrons of the South. The only feature which distin- 

 guished this Union from an ordinary stock company was the 

 limitation of shares to Patrons of Husbandry and the declared 

 intention of charging only the lowest possible commissions. 

 Stock was subscribed for by Patrons of Alabama, Tennessee, 

 Georgia, and North Carolina and operations began early in 1874. 

 Many southern Patrons appear to have been benefited by 

 shipping through this Union in 1874 and 1875; but there were 

 some losses, complaints were made of mismanagement, and this 

 attempt at cooperation seems to have been given up in 1876. l 



Few cooperative stores were established by the Grange in 

 the South during the early years; but after the promulgation 

 of the rules by the National Grange in 1875, they began slowly 

 to make their appearance. By 1882 Grange cooperative stores 

 or associations had been formed on the Rochdale plan in Ala- 

 bama, Georgia, Missouri, North Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas 

 and probably in some of the other states, and all were reported 

 to be successful. 2 In Texas, however, appeared what was des- 

 tined to be the most successful example of distributive coopera- 

 tion in the United States. 3 Here as in the other southern states, 

 the Grange stores on the Rochdale plan began to make their 

 appearance about the middle of the decade, and in 1878 repre- 

 sentatives of these got together and organized the Texas 

 Cooperative Association to handle shipments of cotton and 

 the wholesale business in general. This association, which 

 was also organized on the Rochdale plan, started with a paid-up 

 stock of two hundred and fifty dollars in 1878, and grew steadily 

 until in 1887 it had a paid-up capital of over fifty thousand 

 dollars, did a business of over five hundred thousand dollars, 

 and divided almost twenty thousand dollars of net profits. 



1 Rural Carolinian, v. 426, 483, 592 (1874); Prairie Farmer, xlv. 259 (August 

 15, 1874); State grange proceedings: Alabama, ii. 12, 17, 22, 25 (1874); Tennes- 

 see, ii. 22, 30, 38, 39 (1875); North Carolina, ii. n, 27, 28, 33, 39, iii. 6, 12, 20, 31 

 (1875, 1876). 



2 National Grange, Proceedings, xv. 35, 43, xvi. 28, 36, 38 (1881, 1882). 



3 On the Texas Cooperative Association, see ibid. xv. 43, xvi. 43; Wisconsin 

 Bureau of Statistics, Reports, ii. 158-160 (1885-86); Randall, in Johns Hopkins 

 University, Studies, vi. 503-505. 



