THE BUSINESS SIDE OF FARMING. 257 



that we have been giving some attention to. We thought it 

 was costing our people here too much to do this work, — that 

 the expense was too great. Then, too, we thought the class 

 of risks which represented our property was not insured as 

 it ought to be. We found that it was costing more in the 

 State of Massachusetts every year to do the business, to 

 move the machinery of fire insurance, than to pay the 

 losses. We found that it was costing the people of Massa- 

 chusetts more than a million dollars a year to pay the big 

 and little agents. We put these things together and said, 

 " We can do this business for ourselves ; we can save this 

 money." About a year ago we commenced really talking 

 this matter up in earnest, and at our annual meeting in the 

 city of Worcester in December, we appointed a committee 

 and instructed them, if in their judgment they thought it 

 advisal)le, to go on and organize a company. After can- 

 vassing our membership throughout the State, and looking 

 up the laws of the Commonwealth relating to insurance, it 

 became apparent to the committee that it was worth while 

 for us to make the attempt. We were under very great 

 obligations in the beginning to the pioneers in this line, as it 

 were. Co-operative fire insurance companies have been in 

 existence in several States for a number of years. We 

 found that there were in New York some seventy co-opera- 

 tive fire insurance companies who met every year and whose 

 secretaries reported to the general organization. We were 

 able to get from those reports figures and facts which were 

 just what we wanted. We then found that it was necessary, 

 of course, to comply with the laws of this Commonwealth. 

 We had to go before the Insurance Commissioner, get out 

 our papers, and go to work business-like. Some of us 

 learned considerable about business before we got this thing 

 going. On the 23d of May last A\^e applied for and secured 

 our charter. We had at that time no agents, no printing- 

 done, nothing to begin with except the bare charter, which 

 authorized us, when we should have received and placed on 

 our books bona fide applications for $500,000 of insurance, to 

 go before the commissioner and apply for authority to issue 

 policies. About the middle of June we commenced putting 

 out our circulars and applications for insurance and appoint- 



