Types and Market Classes of Live Stock 309 



very extensive scale in the United States, and with highly successful 

 results. Under this plan wool growers pool their wool, shipping it to 

 a central point where it is graded and then sold direct to wool manufac- 

 turers. Thus the grower receives a price in keeping with the actual 

 merit of his product. Not only that, but he receives the highest return 

 for his wool which it is possible to obtain. Cooperative selling is 

 especially advantageous to producers of small lots of wool. Formerly 

 the only method of disposing of such wool was to sell it to local buyers. 

 The local buyer usually offered about the same price for all fleeces, 

 good, bad, and indifferent, and there was little or no incentive to pro- 

 duce good, clean fleeces, in fact there was, under that plan, something 

 of an incentive to be careless in growing and preparing wool for market. 

 Many growers permitted fleeces to become burry and dirty, and fre- 

 quently an excessive amount of heavy twine was used in tying. Under 

 the cooperative plan there is every incentive to grow good fleeces and 

 to market them in clean condition. The producer of good wool is 

 gi'eatly benefitted by the new method of selling. 



State wool pools or pools covering a wide territory are now made 

 regularly by wool growers in Maine, New Hampshire, Connecticut, 

 New York, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Minne- 

 sota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri, Kansas, Texas, Utah, 

 Oregon, and other states. The cooperative plan seems to have first 

 attracted wide attention in the East in 1915 when Otsego County, N. Y., 

 pooled 20,000 pounds of wool and sold it at an advance of 4}^ cents 

 per pound over prices offered by local dealers. Later a number of larger 

 pools were organized in the farming states with very successful results. 

 The West also has found cooperative selling to be highly advantageous. 

 It is reported ^ that in Fremont County, Idaho, wool has been sold 

 cooperatively for over 15 years. The Jericho association at Fountain 

 Green, Utah, has handled from 800,000 to 900,000 pounds of wool 

 annually for five or six years. In 1921, its first season, the Pacific 

 Cooperative Wool Growers of western Oregon sold 1,500,000 pounds 

 of wool at a cost of 23^^ cents per pound for assembling, weighing, 

 classifying, grading, and operating. This association controls the wool 

 of about 250,000 sheep. The membership numbers 2,100 and is in- 

 creasing. The wool is shipped to the warehouse in Portland where it 

 is graded by United States licensed graders in accordance with the 

 federal tentative wool standards. It was found advantageous to scour 

 84,000 pounds of wool in 1921. The association is able to borrow 

 money on its warehouse receipts and to make advances to members 

 up to 60 or 70 per cent of the value of their wool in storage. Through 

 the sending of grade reports to members, the growers are learning 



lU. S. Dept. Agr., Agricultural Cooperation, Jan. 15, 1923, p. 6. 



