SPECIAL FARM TOPICS 251 



machinery, supplies of all kinds for the farm and home, feeding 

 stuffs, seeds, and creamery supplies. Large or small farms can co- 

 operate for supply. It enables them to buy, in many cases, direct 

 from the manufacturer, thus saving the profits of the middle man. 

 Buying in large quantities they can secure lower prices, and also are 

 able to get a better quality, especially is this true in the purchase of 

 seeds and fertilizers. The benefits to be derived from such organ- 

 izations are many. Small producers can make combined shipments 

 in car lots, which is now considered the economic unit of shipment. 

 Organizations, through the volume of their business, can secure 

 minimum transportation rates. They can afford to maintain daily 

 telegraphic communications with all of the important markets and 

 are thereby enabled to divert cars already en route to places where 

 the demand is greatest. Growers are advised when to hold and when 

 to ship. Uniform grades and packs are secured. Organizations are 

 in a position to know the actual supply of their respective communi- 

 ties ; hence managers, working in harmony, can regulate prices to a 

 considerable extent. Through the association the members can 

 procure packing material, fruit-picking baskets, spraying materials, 

 and pumps, potato bags, etc., at a greatly reduced cost. Successful 

 associations require choice products. By an interchange of ideas 

 and experience members are in position to eliminate unprofitable 

 varieties of fruits or vegetables from the community and to develop 

 thorough and economic systems of cultivation. These and many 

 other advantages might be noted. (F. B. 309.) Co-operation also 

 materially assists in production. It stimulates production, yet by the 

 Association watching the results it tends to prevent in a large meas- 

 ure over-production. 



Benefits. It gathers together the products from the numerous 

 farms, classifies and grades them. It takes these products and places 

 them on the market as the produce from one Association or Federa- 

 tion of Associations of which the farmer is a member. It retains 

 the interest and control of the farmer in his products until they 

 reach the consuming market. It thus creates a community of inter- 

 est. It attracts particularly to the interest of the farming community 

 a class of men who act as the farmer's middle man, who are the 

 managers and sales agents of the Association. These middle men 

 are responsible to the farmer and are hired and paid by him to 

 work for the farmer's interest. It relieves the producer in a great 

 degree of the business of marketing thus leaving him free to give 

 more careful attention to those things for which, by nature and 

 training, he is better fitted. It also educates him in the field of 

 science and improvement in production. By means of all these, it 

 will greatly increase his profits. 



In the handling of dairy products it gives him an opportunity 

 to secure profit from the use of the by-products, which are a total 

 loss to him when acting in an individual capacity. In fruits and 

 vegetables it secures for him the chances of cold-storage that would 

 not be possible on the homestead. It also gives to him all the bene- 



