THE STRUGGLES OF COOPERATION 93 



live enterprise. But in many instances the 

 return of more prosperous conditions and the 

 failure of some poorly planned and badly man- 

 aged cooperative enterprises has led individual 

 initiative to again take the lead with a corre- 

 sponding decline in cooperation. 



During the past two decades, however, 

 American farming has reached a new stage of 

 development and the serious problems of 

 marketing farm products have led farmers to 

 more persistently follow cooperative methods in 

 order to insure themselves a fair share of the 

 consumer's price of their product. Thousands 

 of successful cooperative farmers' organiza- 

 tions are now to be found which effect the 

 double saving of reducing expense to the farmer 

 in the sale of his product and furnishing the 

 product to the consumer at a lower price. 



Unfortunately for agriculture, the organiza- 

 tion of farmers into cooperative groups started 

 to develop again at the time when the organiza- 

 tion of labor groups was attracting much pub- 

 lic attention and the old controversy between 

 labor and capital engaged the public mind. 



It has been to some extent a reflection of this 

 labor and capital controversy that has led the 

 public into believing that the farmers were or- 



