THE co-op livestock yards afShelby- 

 ville branched out this spring and 

 on April 1 opened yards in neigh- 

 boring Effingham county. 

 The Effingham yards, follow- 

 ing the pattern of other newly 

 organized co-op yards, are buying hogs 

 and veal calves. During their lirst 

 month they handled $70,000 of live- 

 stock, mostly hogs bought and paid 

 for at the local yards. 



Leo Mecum, Effingham yards manager, 

 says farmers from almost every point in 

 the county, and a few from adjoining 

 counties, have used the yards as a point 

 to sell stock. In April they received 

 1087 hogs, 138 calves, and 25 head of 

 cattle. 



The yards at Effingham were started 

 by mutual agreement between Effingham 

 and Shelbyville County Farm Bureaus. 

 Since books and overall management are 

 centered at Shelbyville, money is saved 

 on overhead, bookkeeping, and the pool- 

 ing of stock loads moving to market. 



Scales, office building and unloading 

 chutes were provided by the Shelbyville 

 cooperative. The large covered pens, 

 built this spring, are owned by the 

 Pennsylvania railroad. 



Effingham is cutting into the territory 

 of the parent cooperative at Shelbyville 

 but the managers say there is plenty of 

 business for both yards. 



Effingham county, located south of 

 Shelby county and between St. Louis 

 and Terre Haute in south central Illinois, 

 borders on the southern edge of the 

 heavy Illinois livestock belt. Although 

 nearly every farmer raises hogs, dairying 

 is the chief farming interest. 



Whether hog populations are too scat- 

 tered, or for other reasons, packer buyers 

 have not located in Effingham county but 

 they are buying in Shelby county, Effing- 

 ham's neighbor to the north. Packer 

 buyers, however, have been moving south 



By LEW 



FMd Editor, 



Steadily each year from their original 

 bases in northern Illinois. 



In any case, this is the first buying 

 point of any size in Effingham county 

 and the supjjort farmers are giving the 

 co-op proves its need and eventual suc- 

 cess. 



It JS felt that in time Effingham should 

 approach the volume of the Shelbyville 

 co-op which last year bought and shipped 

 25,849 head of hogs, calves, sheep, and 

 cattle. 



Meanwhile, the Shelbyville coopera- 

 tive, a charter member of the Illinois 

 Livestock Marketing Association, is com- 

 pleting its 15th year as a successful buyer 

 of livestock. 



Headline illuslration above shows 

 new scale house, loading pens and 

 yards at the Effingham concentration 

 point. 



Left: Quoting day's hog morkat ovor phone, LoRuo Souers, Shelby co-op marketing man- 



agor, talks to shipper as C. T. Shields, lakewood farmer, listens In. Right: Leo Mecum, 



Effingham manager, weighs in hog for Fred Feller, Ahomont. 



REISNER 



lAA RECORD 



"Most of the troubles that come up in 

 a new yard we've pretty well outgrown," 

 LaRue Sauers, former manager of the 

 Shelbyville yards, explained. "Farmers 

 have learned how we sort and pay on a 

 weight basis." 



Sauers said their volume on hogs has 

 increased steadily since the yards started 

 buying direct in 1932. Sheep, lambs, 

 beef cattle and feeders handled have 

 decreased sharply, indicating a county- 

 wide decrease rather than a falling off 

 of business. 



Sauers was hired as the Shelbyville 

 manager in 1943 but transferred to De- 

 catur on June 1 to the state sales office 

 of the Illinois Livestock Marketing Asso- 

 ciation where he will work as assistant 

 sales manager under H. W. Trautmann. 



At the state sales office Sauers will be 

 in contact with all direct buying points 

 in the Association, including Shelbyville 

 and Effingham, since the Decatur office 

 takes all orders from packer buyers and 

 fills them through its state-wide network 

 of local buying points. 



This idea of a state-wide cooperative 

 sales agency with local buying points 'to 

 compete with packers buying direct from 

 farmers is still a new concept to many 

 Illinois farmers. 



But the idea is practical and popular. 

 County after county is organizing live- 

 stock marketing associations although 

 many at present exist only on paper. 



Farmers like to sell their livestock at 

 home. If they can sell them at home co- 

 operatively so much the better — Shelby- 

 ville's many years of success would indi- 

 cate this. 



Taking the long view the future of the 

 Illinois Livestock Marketing Association 

 looks bright. For the present, men who 

 should know say it is fast becoming one 

 of the largest order buyers in the country. 



JUI.Y- AUGUST. 1947 



