80 Cooperation in Agriculture 



on corporation notes and is repaid from the proceeds of 

 the first shipments of fruit. Sometimes it is taken from 

 a reserve fund accumulated for this purpose. The money 

 needed by the cooperative organization or by stock cor- 

 porations to cover operating expenses throughout the 

 season is usually provided by retaining a certain percent- 

 age of the gross amount realized for the produce, or a 

 fixed assessment per package or per weight or other unit 

 of measure may be fixed and retained by the association. 

 In the fruit-distributing organizations, the amount re- 

 tained varies from 5 to 10 per cent of the gross sales. 

 If the sale takes place on the owner's farm, the amount 

 retained by the association may be smaller. If the oper- 

 ating expenses are provided by retaining a fixed amount 

 per package, per hundredweight, per bushel, or other unit, 

 the amount to be retained is arbitrarily fixed by the direc- 

 tors from time to time. After paying out the operating 

 costs including rent, insurance, brokerage, reserve, and 

 other expenses, the surplus earnings are paid as stock 

 dividends in a stock corporation, or are prorated to the 

 fruit of each member in proportion to the fruit shipped in 

 a cooperative organization. In some of the associations 

 that have been incorporated as corporations for profit, a 

 certain proportion of the surplus is first paid as dividends 

 to the stock, and the remainder is prorated to the members 

 in proportion to the business transacted. This latter 

 system is followed in many organizations which have been 

 obliged to organize as stock corporations for pecuniary 

 profit but which desire to operate on the cooperative plan. 

 Some of the stock organizations make a profit on the 

 supplies furnished the members, on the money loaned to 



