198 AGRICULTURAL ORGANISATION 



commission to which the sellers themselves look for 

 increased gains. 



Yet although the co-operative sale of live stock may be 

 growing only very gradually as a whole, there are several 

 examples of a noteworthy success, establishing the sound- 

 ness and practicability of the principle, and offering good 

 encouragement for the future. 



In 1905 the Eastern Counties Farmers' Co-operative 

 Association added to its other undertakings the sale of its 

 members' pigs. The reasons which led to the taking of this 

 new departure were told in a lecture delivered in 1911 by 

 Mr. W. Wilson, junr., chairman of the association's live 

 stock committee. Suffolk, he claimed, is, for its area, the 

 largest pig-breeding and pig-fattening county in England. 

 It cannot be called a " dairy county" ; it possesses no bacon 

 factory ; it is a long distance from thickly-populated 

 industrial centres, and yet it has become so much the fashion 

 to keep pigs in Suffolk that Mr. Wilson says "it is no 

 uncommon thing to find as many as 500 pigs on one farm." 

 The combination of a large industry and a small local demand 

 has nevertheless led to the question of outlets becoming one 

 of vital importance. 



Prior to the formation, in 1904, of the Eastern Counties 

 Farmers' Co-operative Association, the general practice was 

 to send the pigs to (i) local auction sales ; (2) Birmingham 

 salesmen ; or (3) private customers ; but there were dis- 

 advantages in each of these methods, and the final outcome 

 of a resort to any one of them was too often the making of 

 very poor prices. In regard to the local auction sales this 

 result was especially attributed to the existence of strong 



rings " among the dealers. 



The association considered the matter, decided against 

 the setting up of a bacon factory, and eventually adopted 

 a scheme which is thus described in the A. O. S. report for 

 the eighteen months ended June 30th, 1906 : 



A pig expert is employed who is paid a fixed salary and a 

 commission on every pig dealt with by the society. The expert, 

 who is in touch with all the markets throughout the country, 



