Page Four 



THE I. A. A. RECORD 



July, 1931 



The Illinois Grain Corporation and its 

 subsidiary sales agency, the Mid-West 

 Grain Corporation, arc now past the ex- 

 perimental point. They are going con- 

 cerns. They have marketed more than 

 three million bushels of grain. Oliver 

 Wendell Holmes said, "The human race 

 is divided into two classes — those who 

 go ahead and do something and those 

 who inquire why it wasn't done in a 

 '.different way." Men associated with 

 'armer elevators for many years have 

 ';one ahead and set up the Illinois Grain 

 Corporation. They have done a good job. 

 Thinking grain producers will support 

 it. 



What Is Pooling? U. S. D. A. 

 Bulletin Answers Question 



Corn Cost 60c a Bu., 



College Figures Show 



Cost studies made by the Farm Or- 

 ganization and Management Depart- 

 ment of the Illinois College ot Agricul- 

 ture show that the cost of growing corn 

 in the best corn sections of the state 

 in 1930 was 60 cents a bushel, which 

 IS more than the crop is now bringing. 

 In 1930 costs were 10 cents a bushel 

 liigher than in the two preceding years 

 largely because of reduced yields. Labbr 

 1 ites A\'ere considerably lower than those 

 pnvriling the \ear before, but this dif- 

 iu\nce was not enough to offset the 

 educed yields. 



Gregory to Speak at 



Midwest Training School 



The Midwest Farm Bureau Training 

 School will be held at Madison, Wis., 

 August 10 to 13. Among the I. A. A. 

 organization men on the program are 

 Secretary George E. Metzger, whose 

 subject is "From the Inside"; R. J. 

 Hamilton, "Adapting Sales Methods to 

 Farm Bureau"; .V. Vaniman, "How to 

 C ulkct Dues"; and A. B. Gulp, "Lead- 

 ership Training Schools." 



The banquet will be held at the eve- 

 ning session on August 12, with L. B. 

 I'almer, president of the Ohio Farm Bu- 

 reau Federation, in charge. C. V. Greg- 

 orv, editor of Prairie Farmer, will be 

 the speaker. R. W. Brown, president of 

 the Missouri Farm Bureau Federation, 

 is dean of the school. 



The early commercial potato crop 

 this \ear in 19 important potato-g'-ow- 

 ing states totaled 4<S.v million bushels, 

 (ir 13 per cent more than last year. 



Indiana is one of the four states in 

 which tuberculosis among cattle has 

 been reduced to one-half of one per 

 cent or less, the others being North 

 Carolina', Maine and Michigan. Approxi- 

 matelv 3,000,000 cattle were tested 

 from which about 30,000 reacted. 



Time, Patience and Courage Re- 

 quired to Build Co-operative 

 Marketing Machinery 



IN U. S. D. A. Miscellaneous Publi- 

 cation No. 14, under the heading, 

 "Possibility of Market Expansion," the 

 following appears: "Few farmers, as in- 

 dividuals, can afford to undertake mar- 

 ket development because of the expense 

 involved and the lack of sufficient sup- 

 plies to make the exploitation policy 

 permanent. Here, again, the POOLING 

 by a large number of growers of the ex- 

 pense, risks and other features involved 

 in market expansion makes possible a 

 program for widening the market for 

 their product which is of benefit to the 

 grower, but which would be prohibitive 

 were it undertaken by him individual- 

 ly." 



The word "pool" is a much abused 

 word. It merely refers to group effort 

 as opposed to the individual acting 

 alone. So far as it concerns the farmer 

 and marketing, he has been doing it for 

 \ears through his local farmers' elevator. 

 Although the farmer has not pooled his 

 selling efForts in merchandising his grain 

 through his local co-operative elevator, 

 he has, along with his neighbors, been 

 pooling the cost of maintaining an ele- 

 vator, employing a manager and other 

 operating costs — he has been pooling his 

 selling expenses. 



The Illinois Grain Corporation, how- 

 ever, is not a pool. Both the member 

 elevators and farmers sell their own 

 grain at a time determined by them- 

 selves. By-laws and articles of incor- 

 poration (a charter) do not make or 

 constitute a co-operative." It takes some- 

 thing more. And not the least of the 

 "something more" is good leadership 

 supported by a local and wide-awake 

 membership. 



In a recent meeting one poor soul 

 raised a brand new objection — he said 

 that the set-up of the Illinois Grain 

 Corporation and the Farmers National 

 Grain Corporation was so good that the 

 Farmers National Grain Corporation 

 would become too powerful— would 

 get dangerous and ask unfair prices for 

 grain. Charley Cummings of Mid-West 

 enlightened him b\' saying, "The thing 

 for this generation to do is to give the 

 best we have toward building the ma- 

 chine and let our grandchildren take 

 care of the matter of becoming danger- 

 ous." 



To build the Illinois Grain Corpora- 

 tion requires time, patience and cour- 

 age on the part of the leaders through- 

 out the state who believe in tJie move- 

 ment. The new has to be sold to us. 

 We don't want it at first. 'Tis said 



that it took McCormick fourteen years 

 to sell his first hundred reapers. 



The Jjusiness trend of today is for* 

 the finances of the community to flow 

 toward the industrial centers; for ex- 

 ample, witness the chain stores, chain 

 oil companies. Banks in large trade cen- 

 ters are bulging with money. Our co- 

 operative marketing machine is set up 

 so that terminal earnings flow back to 

 the community. 



Intermediate Credit Loans 

 Reach ^110,000,000 in '30 



FINANCING farmers' co-operative 

 marketing activities reached new 

 proportions in 1930 when the volume 

 of funds loaned by the 12 Federal I.n- 

 termediate Credit Banks reached $110,- 

 000,000 for the year. 



This represents, of course, only a 

 small proportion of the total amount 

 advanced by lending institutions to 

 farmers' co-operative marketing associa- 

 tions so they might carry out their pro- 

 grams of orderly marketing. 



In 1^930 about 12,000 co-operative 

 marketing organizations did a business 

 of approximately $2,000,000,000. Not 

 all of this business, by any means, was 

 done on borrowed funds. Much of it 

 represents products sold for consump- 

 tion shortly after they left the farm. 



The bulk of the financing for orderly 

 marketing represents loans on a score or 

 more staple commodities under" the su- 

 pervision of the Federal Farm Loan 

 Board in Washington. Since the Inter- 

 mediate Credit Banks were organized in 

 1923, they have loaned to farmers' co- 

 operative marketing associations more 

 than half a billion dollars. 



Following the creation of the Federal 

 Farm Board, under the Agricultural 

 Marketing Act, the rapid growth of co- 

 operatives and the development of na- 

 tional sales agencies have been responsi- 

 ble for a large increase in the activities 

 of these loan agencies. 



Intermediate credit is becoming an in- 

 creasingly important factor in the 

 financial structure of the United States. 

 It has proved that it can fill a distinct 

 as^ricultural need. 



Rubber from Goldenrod 



Thomas A. Edison at 84 has at last 

 succeeded in making synthetic rubber 

 from goldenrod grown on his plantation 

 in Florida. He will turn the process 

 over to the government as a patriotic 

 gift. The value of the process lies in 

 the fact that it insures an emergency 

 supply of rubber. At present rubber is 

 cheap due to over-production, making 

 the new process of little immediate 

 worth. Henry Ford and Harvey Fire- 

 stone have large goldenrod plantations 

 in the South. 



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