Cooperation 149 



as a unit in handling a beautiful natural product. The 

 apple business is increasing by leaps and bounds, and when 

 the volume of business reaches the point where the market 

 cannot take a larger supply of high-priced fruit under the 

 marketing conditions as they exist in the Northwest, the 

 local association will fail to protect the capital which is 

 invested in the apple-growing business. The cooperative 

 creameries, like the Northwestern apple-growers' asso- 

 ciations, need to create a number of central cooperative 

 agencies, one, for example, for each state or other large 

 geographical division, to act for them at cost in purchas- 

 ing supplies and hi the distribution and sale of their prod- 

 ucts. In no other way can the situation in either case be 

 met effectively. These central agencies, like the California 

 Fruit-growers' Exchange, will supply the facilities for 

 marketing the product of the creameries or associations 

 which comprise it ; they will look after the general ques- 

 tions aside from marketing that affect the upbuilding 

 of the industry ; they will bring about uniformity in the 

 equipment of factories and in the manufacturing processes. 

 They may act as an agent, or may form subsidiary cor- 

 porations, to purchase factory supplies and the general 

 supplies used on the dairy farms, and they can develop 

 a comprehensive system of marketing by advertising and 

 by the employment of exclusive agents in the principal 

 markets. In this way, the cooperative creamery can be 

 organized more effectively than a large creamery cor- 

 poration, and it can more than meet competition with 

 the superior butter that will be made in its factories. 

 Under this system the local creamery is an association 

 that manufactures the butter and prepares it for ship- 



