16 BULLETIN 937, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



vantages claimed for this plan are that all elevators within the county 

 may have the benefits of a highly skilled manager which the individ- 

 ual companies could not afford to employ singly, and that there is a 

 decreased general and overhead expense by reason of standardization 

 and centralization of accounting work. In addition, of course, there 

 is a greatly increased purchase power when it comes to buying sup- 

 plies and side lines usually handled by farmers' elevators. In the 

 main, however, farmers' elevators in this country, and especially in 

 the Middle West, have grown out of local effort, and up to the pres- 

 ent time little has been done in the way of federating the individual 

 companies into central organizations for marketing purposes. 



The existence of such a large number of the single-unit type of 

 farmers' elevators, the great majority of which have been in success- 

 ful operation long enough to justify a belief in their permanence as an 



^l**********- 



Fig. 4. — Typical flat warehouse in sack-handling section of the Pacific Northwest. 



economic thing, has naturally raised the question whether cooperative 

 grain marketing should end with these local elevators or whether 

 it should be extended to the terminal markets. No great movement 

 like the farmers' elevator movement can proceed suddenly and rap- 

 idly to a certain point of perfection and as suddenly stop and re- 

 main stationary. It is true that much remains to be done in the mat- 

 ter of securing a firm footing upon the ground already covered and 

 that stability should be secured there before proceeding further. 

 However, it is also true that if perfection is to be attained in the 

 operation of the country elevators before looking toward the next 

 step, there probably will be no next step, unless, indeed, it be a step 

 backward. That complete success in the operation of local farmers' 

 elevators will be aided by greater unity and community of action is 

 readily apparent, and unity naturally centers around terminal mar- 

 keting. It may or may not be to the financial advantage of the grain 



