14 



grown in small orchards, often miles apart ; and in practicaC 

 operation, up to this time, every grower seems to prefer to- 

 be his own agent. A prominent apple dealer in Boston 

 touching upon this subject the other day said off hand, to- 

 illustrate his point, that the state of Maine has 5000 apple 

 shippers. This of course is drawing the long bow, but the- 

 general fact remains that New England orehardists as a 

 rule have not yet taken up in earnest the subject of co-oper- 

 ative selling. 



The practical difficulties in getting all the market wilt 

 stand are experienced chiefly by the small grower of 50 tO' 

 100 barrels, who is unable to secure the benefit of the brisk 

 competitive bidding enjoyed by the larger grower. If our 

 Massachusetts orehardists consider it impractical, the deal- 

 ers in the large markets, such as Boston, go further, and- 

 are a unit claiming it both impossible and unnecessary. In- 

 quiry among the very largest handlers of our apples, both 

 for domestic and export trade, elicits the opinion that there 

 is little probability of growers getting together and market- 

 ing their fruit on the co-operative plan. They say orehard- 

 ists for one thing would not hold together in any scheme- 

 formulated; that the independent New England spirit 

 prompts every man to operate and control his own business. 

 Another drawback given for the slow growth of co-opera- 

 tive enterprise is the lack of uniformity in packing fruit, 

 and the uneven quality; this would tend to increase the 

 difficulty in marketing it at satisfactory figures, and would 

 reduce the average price, etc. 



While the movement lags here, much has been ac- 

 complished elsewhere, and the proposition as a whole has- 

 great promise, subject to modifications according to environ- 

 ment. In Europe, as perhaps most of you know, wonderful 

 strides have been made along co-operative lines in distribut- 

 ing farm produce. This is true not only in the United King- 

 dom, France and Germany, but also in countries as distant 

 as Italy, Austria and Scandinavia. Out of the abundance- 

 of testimony available, one brief instance of the situation 

 across the water will suffice. 



A couple of seasons ago agricultural co-operation in Ire- 

 land celebrated its 10th anniversary with 703 co-operative 

 societies, having a total membership of 71,000 farmers and 

 an aggregate trade in one year of $5,900,000. The dairy in- 

 terests were by far the largest, particularly because the co- 

 operative movement started there:. The success^ of the co- 



