82 Cooperation in Agriculture 



difficulty in securing enough credit at the beginning of 

 the season to properly transact their business. 



One of the most serious difficulties that the farmers' 

 cooperative association has to overcome is to fix a method 

 of raising money to provide buildings and equipment that 

 is fair and equitable to all of the members. For example, 

 a packing-house with equipment may cost $20,000. If 

 the money needed to pay for the investment is raised by 

 retaining a percentage from the sale of produce, the grower 

 who has a poor orchard, who cultivates poorly, whose 

 trees are young or whose yields for any other reason are 

 light, contributes proportionally less to the investment 

 than the grower whose yield of fruit is heavy. After the 

 house and equipment are paid for, the young orchards or 

 light-bearing orchards may increase in productiveness. 

 The owner then secures the benefits of the permanent 

 facilities out of proportion to his contribution for their 

 provision. If the basis of assessment is the acreage of 

 each member, the grower whose orchards have recently 

 come into bearing or are in light bearing pays propor- 

 tionally more for the permanent investment than the 

 man whose trees yield heavily and who has a greater 

 use of the packing-house. If the money is raised by the 

 sale of stock, the difficulties in relation to the control of 

 the membership already described are encountered. 

 These difficulties, while sometimes serious, are not grave 

 enough to prevent the successful financing of associations 

 by farmers who are convinced of the value of the coopera- 

 tive method of conducting business. 



