72 Cooperation in Agriculture 



organized and managed by the trade, and the producers 

 are included as a means of giving them better standing 

 among the farmers. These organizations may help a 

 local situation temporarily, but they can have but one 

 ending, either the producers or the trade will eventually 

 gain control and operate the corporation for their special 

 benefit. It is an impossible condition for the trade and 

 the producers to manage a marketing corporation jointly. 

 Their interests are antagonistic, and the final outcome is 

 a divorce of the two interests or the absorption of one by 

 the other. A striking example of this kind was an at- 

 tempt made by the citrus fruit-growers' organizations and 

 the speculative shippers of California a few years ago to 

 form an agency through which all of their products should 

 be distributed and sold. The plan was ambitious, the 

 agency was formed, and at the end of a year and a half it 

 was dissolved because it was fundamentally unsound to 

 attempt to amalgamate these antagonistic interests in 

 one general organization. Similar efforts are being made 

 at the present time in other industries, and they will con- 

 tinue to be promoted in the future by either the producers 

 or by members of the trade who are unable to handle a 

 marketing situation alone ; such efforts Avill not solve 

 the business problems of rural life, their ultimate effect 

 is likely to retard the cooperative movement and the 

 development of an industry. We desire to convey in 

 these remarks the fact that these growers' and shippers' 

 organizations formed for pecuniary profit are not organized 

 on the cooperative plan. Their aim is to handle the dis- 

 tributing business a little more economically and efficiently 

 than the individual can do alone and earn enough to make 



