RETAIL COOPERATION 255 



to about 2^ millions, the most of it in the winter. The Asso- 

 ciation owns a Bakery, a Creamery, Condiment Factory} 

 and Coffee Factory, and a 1550-acre plantation. We are 

 able to undersell the market about 20 %. 



" People anywhere can make a cooperative store if they take 

 it seriously. There should be about 200 members and $2000 

 in cash to start with : then get an honest and intelligent 

 manager ; start with a grocery, buy and sell for cash, either on 

 the Rochdale plan of selling at full market prices and dividing 

 the profits periodically, or on my plan of selling as cheaply as 

 can be afforded. In either plan it works out into producing 

 a large part of the goods sold, thus eliminating entirely the 

 superfluous middleman. 



" Three acres and Liberty is the correct way of producing 

 a living; with the adjunct of a cooperative store to do the 

 selling'of the surplus produced and the buying of goods needed, 

 the small farmer is free from all the waste and trammels of 

 trade." 



Now what's the matter with your helping your county 

 and country and humanity by organizing those two hundred 

 waiting buyers in your own town ? You can be the " honest 

 and intelligent manager" at a decent salary. If, later, the 

 cooperators want another manager, why you can easily 

 organize another store. The best information on this subject 

 is the Cooperative News, Manchester, England; subscrip- 

 tion two dollars. 



Evidence is daily accumulating that the food and farm 

 problem is not so easy as many thought it to be a few months 

 ago. This is made clear when economists say : " The really 

 important question in the food problem is not distribution, 

 it is production." It is unfortunate that this statement 

 should gain belief at this time, when those who prey upon 



