Cooperation 169 



and regular intervals, it is an agency especially well suited 

 to obtaining the egg in a fresh condition from the farmer. 

 As it seems that there must be other creameries so situated 

 that they could readily put their eggs directly in the hands 

 of a retailer in a fair-sized city with only a short shipment, 

 it seems well to describe in detail the methods used in 

 this case. The volume of eggs handled in this way would, 

 of course, probably never become so great as to make 

 them a factor in the mass of eggs now handled com- 

 mercially. 



"As stated before, the eggs are brought by the farmer 

 directly to the creamery when bringing his milk. While 

 this particular creamery is privately owned, it is essentially 

 cooperative, in that its owner and manager is a far-sighted 

 business man with other interests in the village, and he 

 sees that the increased agricultural prosperity of the com- 

 munity will eventually be to his advantage. In conse- 

 quence he is content to take a small profit for himself 

 and to pay the farmers as liberally as possible for both their 

 cream and eggs. Any patron of the creamery or any other 

 person who will sign a required agreement may market 

 his eggs in this way. At present about one hundred and 

 thirty-five farmers are taking advantage of this method 

 of disposing of their eggs. These egg patrons are scat- 

 tered over quite a wide territory, one man finding it to 

 his advantage to drive in 14 miles with his eggs. 



"The agreement reads as follows : 



" ' For the privilege of selling eggs to the creamery company and 

 getting a market established for guaranteed fresh eggs, I, the 

 undersigned, hereby pledge myself to comply in every way with 

 the following rules : 



