36 STATE POMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



More than financial gain must be considered, although we will 

 have to admit that the financial side is the incentive for the 

 organization of most business enterprises. 



Cooperation in action does not appeal to the average New 

 Englander because it is necessary for him to give up a great 

 deal of his independence if the project is to prosper. I shall 

 have occasion to speak about some specific examples of this 

 later. 



There is every good reason for cooperation among farmers. 

 All other lines of business are organized except our own class ; 

 and it is time for the farmers of this country to realize fully 

 that great movements in the industrial world today are not set 

 in motion and maintained by individuals, but by men who have 

 the power and ability to organize and cooperate. 



Think about this fact too. We are told that sixty per cent 

 of the price paid by the consumer for the products necessary in 

 our daily living goes to the middleman and dealer, and only 

 forty per cent to the /armer, — the producer. Look at any of 

 the gigantic enterprises we call trusts. — the United States Steel 

 Trust, The Beef Trust, Grain Dealers' Association, the railroad 

 combines, and others known to you. They are nothing more 

 nor less than cooperative enterprises, made up, in these cases, 

 only of the few, and organized for the sole purpose of control- 

 ling and amassing large fortunes and driving out all compet- 

 itors. 



Opposed to this close combination is true cooperation, — the 

 kind which we are considering today, — the kind that welcomes 

 and does not stifle honest competition, and seeks to obtain for 

 the man who produces a commodity a just proportion of the 

 price that article brings in the markets of the world. 



A common saying, and one admitted to be true by many 

 farmers, is that farmers will not hold together. If the farm- 

 ers of Maine, or any other state, would combine in a legal man- 

 ner, their financial strength would be far greater than any cor- 

 porate interests now arrayed against them. I have often felt 

 that right here in this State with yoiK four hundred and twenty- 

 five or more subordinate granges, eighteen or twenty Pomonas, 

 and a State Grange officered by men of the highest intelligence 

 and integrity, you already have all the machinery necessary for 

 the most successful kind of cooperation, if the organization were 



