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closing, occasional periods of adverse conditions beyond any local control, 

 when farm products cannot be sold at prices which include any element of 

 profit for the farmer, yet there has never been any return in the fourteen 

 years of the association's activity, to the general condition of ''hard 

 times" which had become chronic before that period; and it is a mild 

 statement of the facts to say that the Exchange has put the agriculture 

 of the peninsula upon a basis of substantial and assured prosperity. 



For an undertaking of this sort, some degree of organization is of 

 course necessary. Let us look first at what might be called the internal 

 structure of the association. 



The Exchange is a corporation, regularly chartered under the laws 

 of Virginia. Its membership, by which term I mean to include the entire 

 body of persons entitled to have their products sold by it, comprises, 

 first, all shareholders; second, all tenants of stockholders who at any 

 time may register a desire to become regular Exchange shippers and there- 

 after loyally carry out that intention; and third, holders of ''certificates 

 of shipping privilege," which are purchasable for the nominal sum of one 

 dollar, exacted merely as an evidence of good faith, and which are non- 

 traDsferable and become void immediately the holder ceases to market his 

 goods exclusively through the association. The entire membership and 

 territory of the Exchange are divided into thirty-six "local divisions," each 

 centering around one or more of its forty-five shipping points. Each 

 local division, acting separately and by a vote of stockholders only, elects 

 annually a "general director;" and the board of thirty-six division repre- 

 sentatives thus selected, meeting about monthly, and when occasion 

 arises at briefer intervals, upon call of the president, exercises a general 

 supervision over the current activities of the Exchange. At the close 

 of each year, a general stockholders' meeting is held, at which the entire 

 year's work is reviewed, possible radical changes of policy are proposed 

 and acted upon, and the general officers of the association are elected 

 for the following year. Of these, the general manager and the secretary- 

 treasurer, in charge respectively of the sales an^ financial departments, of 

 course devote their entire time and energies to the service of the Exchange. 

 With the advice in matters of critical importance of the president, and 

 with the co-operation in their respective fields of the general inspector 

 and the general counsel, they direct and supervise the work of the 

 central office force, of the eighty or ninety local agents and inspectors and 

 of the force of traveling salesmen, act for the association in all important 

 negotiations incident to its business, and, in short, direct and control 

 the regular daily work of the Exchange. 



Since the central and essential one of the Exchange's various activi- 

 ties is the selling of produce, a true concept of its workings can perhaps 

 best be had by glancing briefly at the machinery and actual process of 

 its selling. First, it must be noted that the products it handles are all 

 perishable and subject to sudden and wide variations in market value. 



