PRODUCTION AND CONSUMPTION. 355 



requires no extended discussion here. It is simply a process of 

 elimination of a long chain of middlemen, standing between pro- 

 ducer and consumer, who keep prices down for the producer and 

 make prices high for the consumer. 



"One of the most vital subjects before the country today is 

 the efficient and economical handling and marketing of the prod- 

 ucts of the farm. Upon its correct solution hinges in great part 

 the reduction of the high cost of living/' Charles J. Brand. 

 Year Book U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. 1912. 



It has been estimated by competent authorities that fully 25 

 per cent of the cotton crop and a still greater per cent in fruits 

 are wasted by slipshod methods of scattering these crops on the 

 way to market. 



Cooperative organizations of cotton growers have demon- 

 strated what can be accomplished through social efforts at Mont- 

 gomery, Alabama ; Glendora, Mississippi ; Purcell, Oklahoma ; and 

 in the Imperial Valley, California. 



These farm organizations have their own ginneries, ware- 

 houses, elevators, exchanges, systems of credits, and other advan- 

 tages. 



In California the citrus-fruit organizations are handling about 

 50,000 carloads of fruit per annum. They have packing houses, 

 cold-storage and precooling plants, and they have their own sell- 

 ing agencies throughout the United States and foreign countries. 

 They have revolutionized their business and are now able to 

 market 50,000 carloads of fruit with less difficulty than they 

 marketed 15,000 carloads when they had no organization. 



The farmers of the northwestern states are now handling pos- 

 sibly $250,000,000 worth of grain annually. A farmers' elevator 

 in South Dak. handled over a million bushels of wheat in 1910. 



NOTE Read, "Cotton Improvement on a Community Basis," by 

 O. F. Cook, Yearbook of the Dept. of Agriculture for 1911. 



Read, "Co-operation in the Handling and Marketing of Fruit," by 

 G. Harold Powell, in the Yearbook of the Dept. of Agriculture, for 1910. 



According to investigations made in June, 1910, by the U. S. 

 Dept. of Agriculture, and published in the year book by order 

 of the Secretary of Agriculture, James Wilson : 



