Cooperation 121 



and tobacco industries, among the vegetable growers 

 in the West and Southwest and, to some extent, in the 

 Eastern states. The cooperative marketing of farm prod- 

 ucts is essentially a central-western and western move- 

 ment, though organizations have been formed in different 

 industries in nearly every state in the Union. 



There has been a greater need for cooperation in the 

 distribution and sale of farm products than in other agri- 

 cultural activities. The distribution and sale of farm 

 products has been controlled by the brokers, jobbers, 

 commission merchants, and other distributing agencies. 

 These agencies have often reduced the returns to the 

 farmer to such an extent that his capital and labor have 

 brought an inadequate return. The dealers in farm prod- 

 ucts have in many instances eliminated competition and 

 have then dictated the price which the producer should 

 receive for his crops. In other cases, they have divided 

 the territory among themselves, and, like the milk dis- 

 tributors in some of the large cities, they have acquired 

 a monopolistic control of the facilities of distribution and 

 have prevented the sale of farm products by any other 

 agency to the local dealers or to the consumers. In their 

 plans the dealers have sometimes been helped by the 

 transportation companies, the private car lines, and the 

 auction companies, and other abuses and discriminations 

 have crept in and have forced the farmers to organize 

 to meet these conditions and to protect their own interests, 

 the individual farmer acting by himself being helpless 

 in the face of them. 



It is not possible in this work to discuss all of these 

 unifying tendencies in American agriculture. The prin- 



