40 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



News of the phenomenal success soon spread, and in 1909 

 five more companies were incorporated under a new act enacted 

 especially to facilitate the incorporation of such companies. The 

 following year saw that number increased. 



The apples of all members of co-operative companies are 

 packed at the warehouses by experts. No farmer who is a 

 member of a company is permitted to pack any standard vari- 

 ety at home, neither is he allowed to sell except through his 

 company. Thus the companies are able to put up a uniform 

 pack which they can guarantee. A farmer joining a company 

 agrees to pool his apples, and he is paid the average price realized 

 for each variety in the three grades. Thus there is a direct 

 incentive to raise good fruit, for the member receives the 

 average price for the grades into which his fruit packs. 



It was realized, however, by the leader of this movement 

 that while much could be accomplished by individual companies, 

 it needed concerted action on the part of all companies to carry 

 this co-operative idea to its logical conclusion. The companies 

 were valuable factors in educating their members in the matter 

 of cultivation, spraying, and improving the pack of their 

 products. As individual companies working entirely independ- 

 ently of one another, however, they rather defeated the very 

 idea of co-operation, because they really became competitors of 

 one another. Speculators were wont to play one company 

 against another, so that the superior pack did not make that 

 extra money that its quality merited. 



It was also realized that if the companies could work together 

 large savings could be effected in the purchasing of supplies, 

 such as fertilizer, nails, pulp heads and spray materials. The 

 matter of transportation could also be better and more econom- 

 ically handled. 



A conference was held and it was determined that some form 

 of centralization was necessary. At this point, however, the 

 Nova Scotia farmers showed that while they were ready to 

 consider new ideas and act on them if their Judgment pro- 

 nounced them good, yet they would not "buy a pig in a poke." 

 The}' decided, therefore, that they would give this centraliza- 

 tion scheme a trial for a year and see just what could be accom- 

 plished before floating the Central as an incorporated body. An 



