6 BULLETIN 931, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



The principal reason why the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Asso- 

 ciation is engaged iri commercial activity is that the Saskatchewan 

 Cooperative Elevator Co. deemed it wise to confine its activities 

 strictl} 7 to a grain business and there was a demand for certain sup- 

 plies usually handled in connection with elevators. The trading 

 department of the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association was 

 created to satisfy this demand. 



The several provincial associations concern themselves with mat- 

 ters of local interest and with legislation to be had through the pro- 

 vincial governments, while the Canadian Council of Agriculture is 

 concerned with matters of national scope. The latter is able to sift 



and harmonize the 

 various resolutions 

 which come to it for 

 action from the con- 

 ventions of the pro- 

 vincial associations. 



It will not be prac- 

 ticable in this bulletin 

 to discuss the various 

 activities of these or- 

 ganizations nor to de- 

 scribe them in detail. They are financed by membership dues and 

 in the past have also received large grants from the earnings of the 

 principal farmers' trading companies, such as the United Grain 

 Growers and the Saskatchewan Cooperative Elevator Co. Each pro- 

 vincial association is composed of locals which have as their center 

 the local shipping station or perhaps the country schoolhouse. These 

 associations are regarded as the power back of everything that has 

 been accomplished by the grain growers in Canada in the matter of 

 establishing their cooperative marketing and trading organizations. 



Fig. 



1. — View of loading platform and country grain 

 elevators in Saskatchewan, Canada. 



EXAMPLES OF MARKETING ORGANIZATIONS IN CANADA. 



The Canadian grain growers first entered upon the commercial 

 handling of their grain in 1906, when the Grain Growers' Grain Co. 

 was established at Winnipeg. For several years this company 

 confined its activities to an exclusive grain commission business, 

 handling the grain of its members in much the same manner as any 

 other commission firm. From the beginning it had a seat on the 

 Winnipeg Grain Exchange and received shipments from member and 

 nonmember growers in the three prairie Provinces. The rules 

 of the Winnipeg Grain Exchange made it impossible for this com- 

 pany to prorate its earnings on the basis of patronage furnished, and 

 while it was at one time suspended because of a supposedly avowed 



