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but also brings better returns to producers through better business man- 

 agement; eliminates waste and decay by better preservation and more 

 direct shipments; assures economies in marketing and promises better 

 and fresher goods to consumers at prices shaved of unnecessary costs. 



Because producers' co-operation does these things, the State of 

 Wisconsin has made it the main duty of its state market bureau to aid 

 the organization of farmers' co-operative societies, and show the farmers 

 how most economically and effectively to sort, pack, grade and market 

 their goods. In May of this year an Office of Markets was established 

 under the national Department of Agriculture to perform a similar ser- 

 vice. The work of this newly established office, in the words of its chief, 

 Mr. Charles J. Brand, ''will include a study of existing marketing 

 organizations and compilation of laws, state and national, affecting 

 organized production and distribution, and the promotion of new market- 

 ing organizations and consumers' leagues, in so far as these activities may 

 be carried on within the authority of the department," with a view to 

 estabHshing direct dealings with organized producers and to extending 

 more direct sales from producer to consumer. 



The third activity of farmers is of special significance. It is the 

 creation of county farm bureaus with the co-operation of agricultural 

 colleges, and the United States and state departments of agriculture. 

 These farm bureaus will not only make a study of the different systems of 

 farming, live stock problems, the needs of the soil and farm management 

 problems, but they will also keep general information bureaus and try 

 to co-operate harmoniously with farmers, with producers' societies and 

 with all the agricultural agencies in the county, to further marketing and 

 the direct sale of farm products. This is most significant indeed as it 

 promises that the farmer is going to solve his market problem by securing 

 reliable data and by going about it in a thoroughgoing systematic manner. 



III. What Are Business Interests Doing? 

 Transportation carriers especially have long since recognized the 

 poignant value of having market bureaus that will assist the farmer in 

 finding a market for his goods and in teaching him how best to prepare 

 his goods for sale. The Pennsylvania and Long Island Railroads are 

 among the railroads that have had virile market and experimental 

 bureaus that have done yeoman service in marketing. The Lehigh Valley 

 Transit Company has also done a work of inestimable service through its 

 marketing system. Wells, Fargo & Company has recently created an 

 Order, Commission and Food Products Department, the aim of which 

 will be to study the food products problem from various viewpoints, and 

 to encourage and assist growers and producers by aiding them in finding 

 suitable markets among dealers and consumers, and in securing, at mini- 

 mum cost, suitable sanitary packages or containers in which to ship. 

 ''It is the intention of the department," says its organizer, "to gather 



