86 AGRICULTURAL ORGANIZATIONS. 



up capital. However, that plan, if carried out, is calculated to assist greatly 

 in handling the cotton crop, because it enables the poor man to make a crop 

 without mortgaging to the merchant. The exchange plan of Texas is now 

 more forcibly than ever demonstrating its success. The brotherhood of the 

 entire State have paid up their indebtedness to the exchange, closer than ever 

 before known in a credit business, and the exchange has been enabled to 

 liquidate its indebtedness faster than most any corporation or mercantile con- 

 cern in the State. It had paid, on the first day of September, one hundred 

 and fifty thousand dollars; and while the commercial reports every day 

 showed private mercantile concerns, in different parts of the State, making 

 consignments, giving mortgages, closing out, etc., in greater numbers than had 

 been known for years, the exchange was, every day, growing more solid and 

 getting its business in a healthier condition, and one fact that stands out 

 prominent, and is a subject of congratulation, is, that not a single Alliance or 

 co-operative store, that traded with the exchange, has failed. 



" With a State exchange system in each State, it is quite probable that you 

 will be called upon to consider bills for the establishment of a National Ex- 

 change, for the purpose of harmonizing the efforts of the State exchanges, and 

 to assist and direct their enterprises. In so doing, you should exercise the 

 greatest conservatism and extremest caution. An investigation of the subject 

 will impress you with its magnitude and importance. Nothing visionary 

 should be for a moment tolerated. You should not provide for a National 

 Exchange simply because there may be a demand for it ; better let it pass 

 unless you can see positively how it will do great good, and be an efficient, 

 successful, working enterprise, and see it so plainly that you can demonstrate 

 it to a certainty. If a system of national co-operation can be made a success, 

 it must, under our form of government, depend largely upon the perfection 

 and success of the State systems that compose it ; and they in turn upon the 

 county systems; and they in turn upon the people. Therefore, there is a 

 danger of establishing a national system too early (before it has a proper 

 foundation), and the result of such action would be an inefficient and inoper- 

 ative enterprise, from which half a million people would expect wonders, 

 while it found itself powerless to accomplish anything, and, as a result, great 

 injury to a just and worthy cause. Examine, therefore, carefully into the con- 

 dition of the co-operative effort in each State, before considering a national 

 plan, and should you decide to adopt one, leave no possible chance for a fail- 

 ure. Do this by prohibiting it from undertaking more than it can surely 

 accomplish, and do not place a responsibility without bestowing power to 

 discharge it. 



" Your attention is called to the recent troubles in regard to a combination 

 in cotton bagging. 



" There seems no good reason why jute butts, from Calcutta, should be 

 the only substance used to wrap the cotton crop. The effort, however, to use 

 burlaps or corn husks as a substitute, seems to be a failure, but a bagging 

 made of cotton is now by many regarded as a success in every way except 

 price. If this body could take steps towards inducing the British purchaser 



