Cooperation 145 



who represent the manufacturers of creamery machinery 

 or of other factory supplies. Skillful agents have been 

 sent into every dairy section to convince the dairymen 

 that an association creamery will improve their agricul- 

 tural and financial condition. The agent looks after the 

 incorporation of the association, he assists in the prelimi- 

 nary organization, in the sale of stock, and in the financing 

 of the association. In the end, he sells the association 

 the machinery arid supplies, which may be inferior to 

 other kinds of machinery, at a much higher price than is 

 justified and usually under conditions that place the asso- 

 ciation under the financial control of the agent's principal. 

 Hundreds of farmers' creameries have been formed in 

 this way and as a result many have failed. It is a funda- 

 mental principle of cooperation in agriculture that under 

 no circumstances should a farmers' cooperative associa- 

 tion place itself under obligation, either financial or other- 

 wise, to a firm from which it may purchase supplies or 

 to agencies which it may use in the distribution and sale 

 of its products. Whenever a farmers' organization is 

 placed in this position, it loses its industrial independence 

 and is prevented from developing along lines that insure 

 its success as a business institution. 



The most serious weakness in the cooperative creamery 

 movement is the fact that each creamery usually acts as 

 a unit in the manufacture of the butter, in the purchase 

 of supplies, hi the development of markets, and in the 

 distribution and sale of its products. The average cooper- 

 ative creamery is too small a business unit to handle these 

 questions successfully in the face of the competition which 

 each association has to meet. A small creamery cannot 



