300 RURAL CALIFORNIA 



izations operated for the sake of dividing earnings 

 among stock-holders, with or without reference to 

 their standing as producers, are not sufficiently co- 

 operative to be considered in this connection, al- 

 though they may be so in the way all incorporations 

 essentially are. So intimately, however, are the non- 

 profit and capital stock plans associated that a cen- 

 tral exchange may be organized on a non-profit basis 

 while the local associations which are affiliated under 

 its authority may proceed on the issuance of capital 

 stock which is non-transferable and must be re- 

 turned for proper consideration to the association 

 when the holder is no longer qualified for member- 

 ship as an actual producer. 



Two concrete facts will enable the general reader 

 to appreciate that California associations for giving 

 special products acceptable commercial form and for 

 selling them directly to large factors by private sale 

 at fixed prices or by public auction to all bidders, or 

 by their own agents, actually do control and market 

 their own products. One is that an average of not 

 less than 70 per cent of all the special products in- 

 dicated by the names of the organizations in the list 

 in Appendix J, are sold by producers' cooperative 

 selling organizations. The other impressive fact is 

 that in this way the return to producers was in 1919 

 an aggregate of over two hundred million dollars. 



In order to present concrete facts about the opera- 

 tive means and methods of a number of Californian 

 cooperative selling organizations, statements were se- 

 cured for this book" by questionnaire, the responses 



