Now, I have given you in substance the methods that we have fol- 

 lowed in attacking this problem of improving conditions in the vicinity 

 of Ithaca, and I will go into it more fully later in connection with what 

 we have done. If any one has any questions to ask relating to this, I will 

 be glad to have you come back at me as soon as I am through. 



The idea of organizing a co-operative association in the vicinity of 

 the College of Agriculture occurred to us, especially after we had endeavored 

 to connect up the individual farmers with the consumers in the larger 

 cities. Very few producers in the vicinity of Ithaca had any idea of how 

 to get connected with the larger consumer or with the city consumer. 

 I do not know of any who sold direct to the city consumers. I went 

 do\m to New York, went around visiting^ the. purchasing agents of many 

 of the large hotels. I must have visited twenty-five or thirty of the 

 larger hotels and retail stores. I also visited Mrs. Heath of the House- 

 wife's League, and tried to get in touch with all the larger consumers 

 that I could, and I told them that we were planning to connect them up 

 with some producers. The first trouble with our plan seemed to be that 

 we did not have any single farmer large enough to produce enough eggs to 

 supply any single customer. The large consumers wanted to get a large 

 number of eggs, and they wanted to be able to depend on that source 

 for a regular supply. Most of them got eggs from some wholesale dealer, 

 who could furnish a few dozens or several cases per day. In other words, 

 they were in the habit of ordering daily just what they wanted. That 

 was not only the case with one, but seemed to be very common, and 

 I could see that we had to offer big inducements to get them away from 

 their common dealers in the immediate neighborhood and influence them 

 to get their eggs direct from the producers, in spite of the fact that this 

 method would probably enable them to get better eggs. 



So I went back to Ithaca with the idea of getting in touch with bigger 

 farmers, better products, and getting a lot of the producers together. It 

 was with that idea that we started in. 



I went back and we talked it over with the farmers of the neighbor- 

 hood and we tried to get the farmers to organize with the idea of getting 

 enough eggs so we could get a certain trade established and to hold this 

 trade by supplying it the year round; during the winter when the con- 

 sumers were unable to get eggs anywhere else, as well as during the spring 

 and summer when eggs were very plentiful. We immediately started 

 to organize these farmers. They all realized that it would be a good 

 thing to do and yet nobody was ready to make the start. They did not 

 want to go into anything unless their neighbors did. So we set a certain 

 day about the middle of February and told them that from that time on 

 they might bring their eggs to the College, and the College would look 

 after the marketing, and then would return to them all that the eggs were 

 sold for, less the actual expense the College had undergone in handling 

 them. This expense included every operation. We did not charge for 



